EDIV

"The starting point is a highly acclaimed interview with Woody Allen from 2014 that firmly explains that life is once and for all meaningless. People are born and die, born and die in a steady stream, with no particular purpose, and the universe itself is doomed. […] Brinkmann believes that it is the very perspective that is wrong here: it is the distanced outside perspective Allen constructs that makes life seem meaningless. If you choose to see it from the inside, it looks different, this is where it is meant to be found."

https://www.svd.se/darfor-kan-du-aldrig-finna-dig-sjalv/av/merete-mazzarella

"Newness, alternative spirituality, neo-religion, new age – dear child has many names. There are updated versions of 19th-century Theosophy and religions such as Scientology, Hare Krishna, and Satanism. People and faith allow Per Faxneld, a religious scholar from Södertörn University, to reason about it, and People and Faith reporter Julia Wiraeus reflects on Theosophism that has inspired many new religions and, above all, anthroposophy. She also meets theosophist and "Mystic at Karlaplan" Perti Spets. "

(People and Faith, SR, July 6, 2018) You can listen to the program here

"Gesar Mukpo was three when he became one of the first people born in the West to be recognized as a tulku the present-day reincarnation of a Buddhist master. For his entire life, he's been trying to figure out what that really means."

https://www.nfb.ca/film/tulku/

Here are nine life advices by comedian and Tim Minchin, in a speech at The University of Western Australia in 2013 (6:41 min). Many variations on the theme that life is short, finite and deeply meaningless. On paper, this stands in stark contrast to a new-age and even, perhaps, in some sense, a traditional religious worldview.

"You will soon be dead. Life will sometimes seem long and tough and, god, it's tiring. And you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad. And then you'll be old. And then you'll be dead.

There is only one sensible thing to do with this empty existence, and that is: fill it. Not the fillet. Fill. It."

(You can read Minuchin's speech here.)

Psychologically, it is less interesting what someone believes in, compared to how they believe in one or the other. […]