"Daytime tv" spirituality.

[Oleron]

I don't mind fundies. Well, not much. At least they have an opinion.

I don't mind atheists either, in fact I am one.

What really annoys me is uncritical, wishy-washy, homemade spirituality. I call it daytime TV spirituality because you usually hear it on daytime chatshows when a B-list celeb is being interviewed about their 'spiritual journey'.

I listened to some bin-lid celebrity on a Sunday morning semi-religious chat show about a week ago. When the interviewer asked the question, "Do you believe in god?", the celeb reponded with something like,
"Well I think its more of a personal oneness with the divine. Not god as such, but more of a deep spiritual empathy with creation. Kind of like a zen nothingness with a layer of crystal vibration, smeared into a meaningful smattering of karmic resonance......Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes" said the interviewer.


WTF?!?!

The celeb had either just read Deepak Chopra or had never given the question serious thought in her life.
She's not alone. It seems every celebrity has a glib lifestyle spirituality, home brewed from self-help books and newspaper astrology columns.

I call ********.

 

[toddjh]

What really annoys me is uncritical, wishy-washy, homemade spirituality. I call it daytime TV spirituality because you usually hear it on daytime chatshows when a B-list celeb is being interviewed about their 'spiritual journey'.

Seconded. It's happened a few times that someone I'm talking to describes herself (it's usually a woman) as "spiritual but not religious." Whenever I try to find out just what "spiritual" means, I get a lot of nonsensical mumbo-jumbo like you described.

It bugs the hell out of me, and I think I just now realized why: it's because they don't care. They're satisfied with vague platitudes of cosmic oneness -- the vaguer the better, in fact, because it means they don't have to confront the hard issues that a more specific outlook would bring up. They just want to sweep aside the unpleasantness of actually having a position, and settle on the easiest, most vacuous "philosophy" they can find.

They can't even be bothered to say "I don't know," because that would require serious thought. They want the appearance of having solved the problem, without having to do any work.

Jeremy

 

[seayakin]

Re: Re: "Daytime tv" spirituality.

These kind of responses from celebs remind me more of "Deep Thoughts" on SNL (I forget which cast member did this.)

I'm not even sure some of the people spout these vacuous statements are capable of thinking any of it through. They just want to sound deep (and perhaps wise) in an interview.

My guess is if you anaylze the language they are probably just aping people like Deepak Chopra.

 

[Kaylee]

Re: Re: "Daytime tv" spirituality.

Seconded. It's happened a few times that someone I'm talking to describes herself (it's usually a woman) as "spiritual but not religious."

Also consider that because the Abrahamic religions are misogynistic, the idea of having an affiliation with an established "western" religion may not be comfortable to them. However, I noticed that some people have an strong ingrained need to deal with "spiritual" feelings, so this may be how they are dealing with it.

 

[farmermike]

Re: Re: "Daytime tv" spirituality.

They can't even be bothered to say "I don't know," because that would require serious thought. They want the appearance of having solved the problem, without having to do any work.

Jeremy

Exactly.superficial fronts ,like the cars we drive,makeup we wear and spirituality we attemt to portray.Nobody wants to get caught with their pants down appearing to be "not with it "spiritually .Due to political correctness,no matter how absurd and wishy washy,they will rarely be taken to task.Just another among many bizarre outlooks on life.

 

[Oleron]

Cheers guys.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with a gut aversion to spongey thinking.

I've been reading Francis Wheen's book "How Mumbo-Jumbo conquered the world". Give it a look, apart from the politics it is a skeptic classic. (nothing wrong with the politics, I just don't understand politics).

 

[Quinn]

Re: Re: Re: "Daytime tv" spirituality.

These kind of responses from celebs remind me more of "Deep Thoughts" on SNL (I forget which cast member did this.)

Jack Handy. I miss those.

Back when I was messing with internet personals, one of the things that would cause me to instantly hit the "Next" button was when a woman had listed her religion as "Not religious, but spiritual." Maybe it was too many years living in the Bay Area, but those words instantly trigger my "Nope, not interested no matter how good looking she is" reflex.

 

[Piscivore]

You guys should come up to Sedona, AZ. They've made such wishy-washy feel-goodism into an economic base for their town.