[idealboy]

From the article, I think this is the important distinction with spirituality versus your other examples:

“And because spiritual matters are generally ‘elusive to external objective standards,’ that makes them a ‘suitable domain for illusory beliefs about one’s superiority.’”

In bodybuilding or science, there are objective standards that you can be measured against. In spirituality, it’s oftentimes too easy to claim superiority without any method of objective measurement. I think that’s what makes it so appealing to some people.

[javajosh]

>without any method of objective measurement [of spiritual superiority]

I guess I disagree with this assertion, then. There is a way to objectively measure your spiritual superiority, and that's to examine the person and where they are, and what direction they are going- wrt their behavior. What are their qualities? Patient? Honest? Hard-working? Organized? Reliable? Easy-going? Empathic? Insightful? Generous? Good judgement? I think that you can't be all of those things (all of which require emotional/reactive control) without your spirituality (and physicality, it must be said) being in good order. And this is all observable.

[rmah]

I guess the issue is that I (and I suspect many others) do not consider the qualities you listed as having anything at all to do with spirituality.

[Godel_unicode]

That's a very dangerous road you're suggesting walking down there, "observing" others and making judgements about the whole of their character based on isolated examples is a fruitful source of prejudice and cognitive bias.

[javajosh]

Well, no. In the best case you have a panopticon into their life. But since people will rarely give you that in real life, you do the best you can and always take what you observe with a grain of salt.

[pjc50]

> There is a way to objectively measure your spiritual superiority

Saying things like this is a good way to indicate that one has not yet reached enlightenment.