Posts Tagged ‘Spirituality’

Room for the “woo and the weird” in contemporary Catholicism?

Monday, March 4th, 2024

In the past 11 years, it has become clear that the United States is the capital of the organised opposition to Pope Francis. There is an institutional opposition that seeks to maintain the institutional status quo, a theological opposition that’s resisting “synodality”, the newest phase of the reception of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and Read more

DIY religion on the increase in USA

Monday, November 13th, 2023

According to a recent survey conducted by Pew, 72% of individuals who identify themselves as religiously unaffiliated still believe in a higher power. Furthermore, about 20% of these individuals also believe in the God depicted in the Bible. In her 2020 book Strange Rites, Tara Isabella Burton examined how an “eclectic spiritual hunger” is expressed Read more

Blending your spirituality smoothie

Monday, August 21st, 2023
spirituality

You know when you start to make a smoothie and everything is loud, the blender is shaking, and you think it’s about to explode? That was me at age five realising that my beliefs contradict each other. Growing up in a Māori Catholic family, I struggled to exist within two worlds. My spirituality has never Read more

Between doing nothing and being a religious nutter

Monday, July 18th, 2022
Sacrosanctum Concilium,

The meaning of spirituality has developed over time as our understanding of culture, religion, and personal development has changed. Traditionally, spirituality was part of religious practice and the attempt to inhabit the original shape of things or live in the image of God. In early Christianity, spirituality is related to living a life orientated by Read more

$52 million spent on prayer apps; do they work?

Monday, November 29th, 2021
prayer apps

Hallow, a Catholic prayer and meditation app that claims over a million downloads, has raised over US$52 million in investments. Prayer apps are not new. Silicon Valley startups popularized mindfulness and meditation apps as early as 2010, although many have criticized those apps for being spiritually shallow. Hallow’s young founders – devout lay Catholic millennials Read more

New study finds values gap between Gen Z and religious institutions

Thursday, November 4th, 2021

A new study found that Generation Z Americans — defined as those age 13-25 — increasingly distanced themselves from religious institutions like churches, mosques or synagogues in 2020, finding spirituality instead in practices like tarot card readings and sharing fears and musings in online spaces like Tik Tok. Half of the more than 10,000 young Read more

Psychology rediscovering what religion has known for centuries

Monday, September 20th, 2021

Much of what psychologists and neuroscientists are finding about how to change people’s beliefs, feelings, and behaviours echoes ideas and techniques that religions have been using for thousands of years. Read more

Scientists think they have found the brain’s spirituality network

Thursday, August 26th, 2021
brains spiritual network

Scientists spent years looking for the ‘God Spot’ in the brain before concluding it didn’t exist. Early candidates like the temporal or parietal lobes never panned out. And differences in how researchers define spirituality has also complicated things, because different areas of the brain light up when we use moral reasoning vs when we experience Read more

Exercise and wear a mask urges Cardinal Dew

Thursday, August 26th, 2021
wear a mask

New Zealand Cardinal, John Dew, is adding his support and encouraging people to wear a mask while outside exercising during the lockdown. “Recently, Pope Francis took part in an advertising campaign encouraging people to get vaccinated and called the gesture an ‘act of love’. Wearing a mask when leaving our homes to use an essential Read more

Finding God in apps

Thursday, August 19th, 2021

One hundred million people worldwide now have Calm on their smartphones, a meditation app that monetized doing absolutely nothing. The app’s popularity skyrocketed during the pandemic, as anxieties ran high and finding peace and quiet proved harder to do. Calm provides mindfulness meditations, breathing exercises and bedtime stories to encourage users to take some time Read more