-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
On a recent show of Soul to Soul, Oprah interviewed Diana Nyad, the long distance swimmer who, at age 64, swam from Havana to Key West. During the interview Oprah mentions that Nyad told the producers that she (Nyad) is “not a God person.” Nyad responds: “I’m an atheist.” Oprah responds incredulously: “But you’re in the awe.” Oprah just can’t believe that an atheist could feel awe. While atheists often use reason to understand reality, they have the same emotions exhibited by non-atheists. Atheists just don’t feel the need to affix the “God” label to their feelings.
Nyad saw no contradiction between her atheism and her ability to experience awe, or as she calls it: “weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity.” Oprah was having none of this when she said “I don’t call you an atheist then. I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, then that is what God is.”
Nyad, maybe sensing Oprah’s uneasiness, offered a concession to the faithful by saying that her “definition of God is humanity and the love of humanity.” That an atheist would make a theist uneasy indicates the theist’s lack of confidence in their worldview. The comfort of theists is not a primary concern for those who advocate reason.
Nyad also went on to explain she’s a “spiritual” person and believes in souls that live on after death. While atheism is not a set of beliefs, it is simply not believing in any god, most atheists don’t accept the other beliefs that accompany God belief. For all the reasons that belief in God unreasonable, belief in the soul is also unreasonable. Nyad’s beliefs freely crisscross the atheist-theist divide.
Oprah’s prejudice against atheists reinforces negative stereotypes. Her viewers will see Oprah’s prejudice as a trait to be imitated and the cancer will spread. For her viewers who already hold anti-atheists biases, those biases have been validated.
Many Christians have characterized Oprah’s beliefs as a form of pantheism, where the universe, or nature, is identical with divinity. While Oprah calls herself a Christian, pantheism is generally not accepted as part of Christian theology. Oprah’s promotion of Eckhart Tolle and his books has done nothing to ingratiate her with Christians.
Overt displays of bigotry against non-believers are tolerated if not encouraged by our society. Studies show that atheists are among the least liked people. This dislike keeps many atheists in the closet. The anonymity of the internet allows atheists to come out on-line while maintaining their disguise at other times. On the internet, people can learn counter-arguments to theological claims and use their own mind to decide which is more compelling.
H/T: Dave Niose, JT Eberhard, Jerry Coyne, Mano Singham, Hemant Mehta, David Edwards.
My most favorite Harpo clip
Fun to watch how these thread evolve! I love us!
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_to_self_transcendence.html
Oprah spulled backwards is Harpo. God spelled backwards is Dog.
It is kind of Marxist. As in Harpo Marks. Groucho and Chico. She is a reincarnation of Harpo. The gods and dogs are all laughing.
Premise: Most species evolve on an individual basis by genetics alone – me against the rest of the world. Other than on the most basic family level – e.g., pride of lions – the struggle is one against the rest of the world.
A few species – most notably ants and termites, bees and wasps – evolved on a communal basis but still driven largely by genetics in that each member of the community was a sibling from one queen; nonetheless the struggle became our kin against the rest of the world.
About 2.5 million years ago our human ancestors began eating meat and their forebrains exploded in size and about 250 thousand years ago culture in addition to genetics became a driver of human evolution {which in itself, as an aside, indicates that we might be able to direct our own evolution by intentionally changing our culture}, with religion performing a role in shaping a morally directed community — something which the religious still cling to. The struggle then became our group against the world.
Basis for premise: prof. Edward O. Wilson’s book, the Social Conquest of Earth
Question: Assuming, as I do, that religion served a valuable role in the evolution of mankind – and I accept the mere existence of religions as proving the assumption – is religion of any value today? Isn’t it actually deleterious? Should we keep it or abandon it? Change it?
The evolution of the world
^ http://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history.html
The evolution of man (see especially 45 min. + for present state of human conflict). Professor Wilson’s speech is about 50 minutes long, then there is a 40 minute discussion and q&a
http://longnow.org/seminars/02012/apr/20/social-conquest-earth/
The evolution of religion, the need for transcendance
^http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_to_self_transcendence.html
Why should we restrict any personal point of view. As long as we are free to pursue our own.
Bosoms? Oprah has a rack.
Who is this Higgs guy and what do his Bosons have to do with Oprah??? 🙂
James: ???
“It is quite doubtful anything useful can be “made” of Higgs bosons.”
The future has not yet been written. Future theory will doubtless be based on these findings, and the only certainty from this vantage point is that the picture remains woefully incomplete. It remains to be seen the extent to which the Higgs makes that a little less so.
I don’t like the word ATHEIST — seems to suggest I am AGAINST something which I deny even exists. I prefer the word FREETHINKER — kinda sums it up.
I’ve heard Oprah say to guests on her show, something to the effect of, Oh, what a MIRACLE that you survived, or, You have an ANGEL looking over you. I always felt sorry for the Oprah viewers who had loved ones who did NOT survive — I guess they didn’t have an angel or deserve a miracle.
Even Big Media newscaster use the word “miracle” or “miraculous” to describe events — bugs me when they do.
And even our politicians say “god bless America” after their speeches, which I can imagine is seen by people in other nations as self-centered, to say the least.
Dredd: The Higgs boson is unstable. With a mass around 126 GeV, it will decay to lighter particles, on average, in about 1.26 x 10^{-22} seconds (about 12.6 sextillionths of a second, if that helps).
It is quite doubtful anything useful can be “made” of Higgs bosons, either on purpose or by accident. Plus they are all one thing, and not even fermions; it would be like trying to make something out of soap bubbles likely to pop at any moment.
Dredd: I don’t know what you mean by “machine god.” Your link did not mention it, neither did Lederman’s book.
That said, I think the most plausible origin of life is probably the RNA world hypothesis; it makes sense to me; particularly around thermal ocean vents where all the chemical supplies, compounds, and physical support systems are present with an abundance of excess energy and turbulence to naturally and randomly form some extremely inefficient self-replicator.
No intelligence is required, therefore nothing that would plausibly be described as a God, if “Machine God” is supposed to imply some intelligence devised the non-living chemically reactive machinery that gives rise to life.
Elaine,
Amen. Hitchens should take heat about his stance on torture and the Iraq war.
Jill: Except I DO believe in free will; whether I can explain its origin or mechanism or not, I see plenty of evidence every day, in my own life and in others, that suggests free will is a very real thing.
Being an atheist does not automatically consign one to a deterministic universe, or even a randomly deterministic universe (the result of invoking quantum mechanics).
Until there are no more questions in physics and no more error or ambiguity in its predictions, physics is an incomplete model of the natural world.
I do not think the future is already determined by the configuration of the past; I think people’s choices are real choices and the future is a fluid, with a front of crystallization we call the present, and a crystallized (and unalterable) past. I believe free will is real, it doesn’t have to be outside the laws of nature (supernatural) to be real.
Before the concept of atomic fusion was discovered in the 1920’s, there were these crazy theories of how the sun worked, like the furnaces they knew, and could generate the requisite amount of heat. They were all B.S. and unworkable, most physicists of the time knew that, but they had no theory — until a new natural mechanism came along in fusion. Then everything made sense, and was coherent.
This is the problem we find ourselves in now. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, The Big Bang and Inflation, the chasm between General Relativity and Quantum ChromoDynamics (and a few other theories): It almost makes sense but is incoherent, we can’t glue them altogether without big gaps between the pieces.
I am not convinced by those that appeal to the current state of physics and use it to argue that free will does not exist, anymore than if they used it to argue that apples do not exist. I see evidence for both things; and if their logic is correct then their premise is wrong, and certainly there must be something wrong with the premises if there are unexplainable physical phenomena we cannot explain with the theory.
“Being an atheist does not automatically consign one to a deterministic universe, or even a randomly deterministic universe”
Tony,
I agree and I don’t see even the connection. There’s plenty of room for free will and not believing in a God running the show.
Higher and lower. Two concepts which pertain to religions catma. A supposedly superior being is a “higher being” and the direct reference is to up above not below. Then the “lower being” is an evil one or certainly a lesser one. So Heaven is above with God and the Angels and Hell and the Devil and lesser beings who failed on Earth (at least on the surface) who were sent there by Saint Peter.
But if we were put a little science into our thoughts we might reverse this dynamic. The Earth spins, things flow outward and there is in fact good evidence that good comes from within. If one breaks through the bottom of a volcano or a volcano erupts, then one sees that there is lava down there. That would be indicative of the description given Hell by the religious nuts. But it is also heat and from the heat we have an Earth that can grow plants and not be in an ice age. A frozen planet with a cold interior would not grow humanoids.
If we examine some of the scientific and obvious facts in our face every day, we cannot any longer surmise or believe that there are Angels up on those clouds above us. When on an airplane you can observe the humanoids looking out over the tops of the clouds looking for a glimpse of Aunt DoeDoe. We never see angels up there. If lightning comes down from above is that not indicative of a Devil being up there and not God. Of course it is convenient to say that God sends down lightning bolts from above. But then who is responsible for volcanos?
You humans ought to think some of these things through. We in the dogpac have it figured out a bit better. Oprah knows nuthin bout birthin babies. I do. I have had litters of eight.
patslyvania, Wow! Please continue to read and comment here. You are a free thinker and badly needed.
Elaine, Hitchens has said numerous times he never saw how “progressives” operated until he supported that war. Hitchens was the darling of the left, but he ALWAYS thought for himself and ALWAYS thought critically. People who were long time friends would no longer speak to him. What do you think Hitch would say to you about your “lost respect” for him. I can assure you he would chew you up and spit you out, as only he could. Without researching, you wouldn’t have a clue why Hitch was in favor of the war. It’s not in that classless article you posted. Hitch had a long and abiding love for the Kurds and deplored the way they suffered under Hussein. You couldn’t shine his shoes.
Hitchens was mostly a pompous ass, who at times reached certain clarity in the manner of H.L. Mencken. His reasoning on religion was often skewed and illogical. One can be right about something and yet be so, so wrong. That he wrote elegantly was not necessarily the test of a rational thinker. His stance on Iraq and torture was fairly repugnant. An interesting man but certainly not the stuff of legends.
When Oprah told Nyad “I don’t call you an atheist then…” One response could have been, “Then perhaps you should revise your ideas of what atheism is.”
James Knauer 1, October 19, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Dredd, such is not your intent, that much is certain. Observing evolution, already a non-starter for many simply because “I Believe,” has led us to bacterial messaging, and if evolution was “insulting,” the bacterial messaging is going to be considered blasphemous. One wonders if Oprah has “evolved” to that point yet. Her inability to see beyond “awe” does not fill one with hope.
No disrespect intended to you personally, only that you routinely bear witness to things in our universe that really ought to be more widely known.
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No charge here either.
It is all free.