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October 16th, 2013
03:20 PM ET
What Oprah gets wrong about atheism
(CNN) - To some, Oprah Winfrey appears to have an almost godlike status. Her talents are well recognized, and her endorsement can turn almost any product into an overnight bestseller. This godlike perception is fitting, since in recent years Winfrey’s work has increasingly emphasized spirituality, including programs like her own "Super Soul Sunday." But what happens when an atheist enters the mix? A few days ago Winfrey interviewed long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad on Super Soul Sunday. Nyad identified herself as an atheist who experiences awe and wonder at the natural world and humanity. Nyad, 64, who swam from Cuba to Key West last month, said “I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist, go on down the line, and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity — all the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt.” Winfrey responded, “Well I don’t call you an atheist then.” Winfrey went on, “I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery then that is what God is… It’s not a bearded guy in the sky.” Nyad clarified that she doesn’t use the word God because it implies a “presence… a creator or an overseer.” Winfrey’s response may have been well intended, but it erased Nyad’s atheist identity and suggested something entirely untrue and, to many atheists like me, offensive: that atheists don’t experience awe and wonder. MORE ON CNN: Diana Nyad completes historic Cuba-to-Florida swim The exchange between Winfrey and Nyad reminds me of a conversation I once had with a Catholic scholar. The professor once asked me: “When I talk about God, I mean love and justice and reconciliation, not a man in the sky. You talk about love and justice and reconciliation. Why can’t you just call that God?” I replied: “Why must you call that God? Why not just call it what it is: love and justice and reconciliation?” Though we started off with this disagreement, we came to better understand one another’s points of view through patient, honest dialogue. Conversations like that are greatly needed today, as atheists are broadly misunderstood. MORE ON CNN: Behold, the six types of atheists When I visit college and university campuses around the United States, I frequently ask students what words are commonly associated with atheists. Their responses nearly always include words like “negative,” “selfish,” “nihilistic” and “closed-minded.” When I ask how many of them actually have a relationship with an atheist, few raise their hands. Relationships can be transformative. The Pew Research Center found that among the 14% of Americans who changed their mind from opposing same-sex marriage to supporting it in the last decade, the top reason given was having “friends, family, acquaintances who are gay/lesbian.” Knowing someone of a different identity can increase understanding. This has been true for me as a queer person and as an atheist. I have met people who initially think I can’t actually be an atheist when they learn that I experience awe and am committed to service and social justice. But when I explain that atheism is central to my worldview — that I am in awe of the natural world and that I believe it is up to human beings, instead of a divine force, to strive to address our problems — they often better understand my views, even if we don’t agree. While theists can learn by listening to atheists more, atheists themselves can foster greater understanding by not just emphasizing the “no” of atheism — our disagreement over the existence of any gods — but also the “yes” of atheism and secular humanism, which recognizes the amazing potential within human beings. Carl Sagan, the agnostic astronomer and author, would have agreed with Nyad’s claim that you can be an atheist, agnostic or nonreligious person and consider yourself “spiritual.” As Sagan wrote in "The Demon-Haunted World,": "When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.” Nyad told Winfrey that she feels a similar sense of awe: “I think you can be an atheist who doesn’t believe in an overarching being who created all of this and sees over it,” she said. “But there’s spirituality because we human beings, and we animals, and maybe even we plants, but certainly the ocean and the moon and the stars, we all live with something that is cherished and we feel the treasure of it.” MORE ON CNN: 'Atheist' isn’t a dirty word, congresswoman I experience that same awe when I see people of different beliefs coming together across lines of religious difference to recognize that we are all human — that we all love and hurt. Perhaps Winfrey, who could use her influence to shatter stereotypes about atheists rather than reinforce them, would have benefited from listening to Nyad just a bit more closely and from talking to more atheists about awe and wonder. I know many who would be up to the task. Chris Stedman is the assistant humanist chaplain at Harvard University, coordinator of humanist life for the Yale Humanist Community and author of Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious. soundoff (4,964 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Next »
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Is that a baby condom glued to his ear? Gross.
I thought Allah was God. Isn't He? So what's with this 'Jesus' stuff? Is that the Mexican God?
I'm quite confused.
A rose by any other name...
A Jose by any other name...
The issue is actually the other way round, using one name (God) to label everything.
Although a lot of Mexicans, and most other Latinos believe in God, Jesus was born in Israel and raised as a Jew by His Mother and Step-Father.
Overly simplistic explanation: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all worship the same God–the God of Abraham. He goes by multiple names in each of the three religions, including (but not limited to) Allah in Islam and Yahweh in Judaism. Islam descended from Abraham's son Ishmael. Judaism descended from Abraham's son Isaac. Christianity began as a Jewish sect, which recognizes Jesus as the Son of God (Messiah). Eventually, Christianity became its own religion and recognizes the Trinity–one God in three parts–God the father (God of Abraham), God the Son (Jesus) and God the Holy Spirit.
I see nothing has changed here.
Did you expect it to? Then perhaps you were being unrealistic in your expectations. Try thinking it out a little next time, ok?
If religion had never existed, and we were for the most part creatures of logic.....and someone walked up to you and said:
"You really need to hear about this invisible spirit that I worship. I talk to him, and he talks back. Nobody can see him but he is there. There is no physical evidence, but he is for real. By the way, if you don't worship him, you will be facing eternal torture in an invisible fire pit by an invisible red horned devil".
You would move away from them quickly, and stay away from them, and you would think they were insane. But for some odd reason, in 2013 America, we still accept that people think this way.
You forgot to mention...
"And if you agree to join me, you'll have to donate 10% of your earnings to my cause."
You're right – you would look for the closest exit and step away toward it.
I agree with Oprah. I would not call that atheism.
Atheism seems to be the only word in the dictionary that Christians think has mistakes in the definition.
Not true. "Macro" and "Micro", "historical science" and "operational science", creation "science".
They have there own dictionary.
their not there
The only difference between christianity and other forms of mythology that were popular in the past, is that it hasn't been discarded YET. But overall, in America, the number of people attending church and worshiping invisible spirits, is thankfully on a steady decline.
My stereotypes have evidense from "The Christian Soldier" song to the Pope's own support for Just Wars in Medieval times as well. You still didn't doubt that christians went for a very very long time with slavery even in Liberal New England or Canada of all places had slaves. Yes, christian scientist formulated eugenics in the early 20th century and even used empires to quash minorities of varing faiths than almost all other faiths combined that is what helped to formulate modern cut up ethnics in Africa that lead to genocides of all types in the 20th century. Thank you Christians for absolutely nothing from supporting the Death Penalty, mass starvations, wiping out native americans (my ancestors) and everything that the world would be better without you...
There's so many Logical Fallacies here that I don't know where to begin.
I'd very much encourage you to take a course in Formal Logic.
Speaking of logic, Peter Q Wolfe is dead on. Very few Christians live a life resembling Christ. Organized religion itself is likely the antichrist if you want to know the truth of it.
Yet you couldn't state even one of them...
@THR
Literally every single sentence. For example, the first, about the Church and medieval times. A) It's almost 100% inapplicable because it happened hundreds of years ago with 100% different individuals and tried to apply it to a completely different situation today. The one, cherry-picked example of bad behavior by some in power has nothing to do with the core belief.
That's just one example.
Just off the top of my head I recall St. Kateri Tekawitha, of Algonquin-Mohawk birth, Juan Diego of Mexican Indian (don't remember the tribe) who the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared, and I'm sure if I looked harder I would find many other Native American examples of Saintly Catholics. Don't confuse what the Church teaches with how some people falsely interpret it.
How come a "god" can't get his message across such that it can't be wrongly interpreted? Maybe you should try inventing a better god than the last one Christians made for themselves.
Go back to the Casino bud.
Atheist
We are supported by our rich, Christian parents. Who we hate! Grrrrr.
🙂
I have been supporting myself for over thirty years, but nice lie, gummo.
Uh, no. I'm an atheist, as is my husband, and neither of us has been supported by our parents since College. That's 20+ years of no support. Nice straw man though!
Atheist = people who have science as their god.
There is no such thing as an atheist. I don't believe in Atheists, and you can't prove they exist either. Sure – you can SAY you are an atheist, you can SAY that you know people who CLAIM they are, but since no professed atheist can be trusted at all we can't rely on that now, can we?
I'm in awe of the human spirit as well – how Sh$tty and selfish it is.... thank heaven for God.
Yeah, god is really great isn't he? How he starves all of the innocent children and allows them to die from torture....all thing he could prevent right? What a great guy! Where do I sign up to worship him?
I don't think of aetheists as negative or bad. I think of someone without a soul. At least they do not believe they have a soul , if they did they would have to believe in the hereafter and some divine spirit. Most aetheist that I have known also seem to enjoy meditation and Budhist type spiritulism cenetered on themselves. A sort of egotism that has no bounds.
So then don't have the imaginary invisible spirit that you have....the one you get by worshiping an imaginary spirit in an imaginary sky city, all to avoid an imaginary red horned devil in an imaginary fire pit.....got it.
Isn't mythology just grand!?
Big Bang "Scientists" believe in *their* mythology.
And yes, I believe in the Big Bang.
I know you think that doesn't make sense.
Scientists have differing views on how the world started. No it hasn't been fully worked out yet, but ANY explanation based in science is a whole lot more rational than relying on mythology as early humans once did. As you might not have noticed, as science has taken hold, mythology has continued to fade away. That is NOT by coincidence.
@THR,
There is evidence that the Big Bang model is fairly correct. How is that mythology?
The end result of it as intentionally misused in the religion known as Atheism is the "conclusion" that "the Big Bang happened, therefore there is no God. Science will explain it ONE day."
A.) Science, by definition, cannot explain the root cause of the Big Bang.
B.) Proposing an alternate route does not explain what the root impetus was in the first place, in fact, it's almost-completely unrelated. Yet Atheists often resort to the logical fallacy of claiming, "The universe was created not in seven days, but over billions of years by the Big Bang, therefore there is no God."
There is a lot of evidence that a "Big Bang" actually happened, and is a possible theory, just as Creationism is another possible theory. Facts require tangible and repeatable proof which is why I say "theory". I also believe that IF there was a Big Bang, then God "lit the match" that set it off!!
Southerncelt....and who lit God's match? Do you see the flaw in your "logic"?
@THR
"The end result of it as intentionally misused in the religion known as Atheism is the "conclusion" that "the Big Bang happened, therefore there is no God. Science will explain it ONE day."
1) Science does not equal Atheism nor vice versa.
2) There is evidence that the "Big Bang" did happen. Do we understand exactly how it happened or what the cause, if there was a cause, no, we do not.
3) The Big Bang and science in general do not speak to the existence of god(s).
"3) The Big Bang and science in general do not speak to the existence of god(s)."
If that were widely-held to be true, then Atheists wouldn't use the big bang theory so often in order to try to explain the non-existence of God.
Believe it or not we're on the same page. Read what I said carefully. I'm not arguing against the Big Bang Theory, but it's irrelevance to the existence or non-existence of God.
@THR,
While not a disproof of the existence of God, the Big Bang and science in general do disprove claims of a literal Bible being true, which is often used as evidence of God in one way or another.
Are you claiming that Jesus is a myth or did not, in fact, walk the Earth? Or is it you just don't believe in anything Science can't explain? That is the basic requirement for a 'miracle' and there are lots of examples, or does it have to happen right in front of you?
SouthernCelt,
There once was no scientific explanation for lightning. It just *had* to be the work of a god. That was the *only* explanation available.
Benjamin Franklin was roundly castigated by Christians for his discoveries about lightning and the invention of his lightning rod. They thought that he was sinfully thwarting the will of "God".
"As late as 1770 many religious Americans still felt that, since thunder and lightning were tokens of the divine displeasure, it was impiety to prevent their doing their full work. It took a few decades for the devout to abandon their religious prejudices regarding the use of the lightning rod, but eventually it was demonstrated to all but the most dense that both the "vengeance of God" and the "Prince of the Power of the Air" were forced to retreat before the lightning-rod of a heretic." – A. D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology & E.T.B.
Jesus as a person may have existed – there is no evidence outside of the bible for the Jesus it describes.
p.s. A real god would know exactly what "miracle" would convince me (if 'he' cared) - just like, according to the old legend, he knew how to convince Doubting Thomas. I do not need to be more "blessed" than this Thomas.
I think is egosistical to believe that human beings are the predilect object of an anthropomorphic, anthropocentric Creator and that the entire universe exist as it does simply to have us in it.
The "anthropomorphism" is only an analogy so that the slow can understand.
OH, atheists misrepresent and lie and misunderstand about what Christians ACTUALLY believe???
*GASP!* Who KNEW!???
Congrats, you're a snot and can prove it. Bug off.
So you're familiar with the particular beliefs of all the Christians from the tens of thousands of different sects?
What do the Rosicrucians think about God's appearance?
Another Logical Fallacy.
Misinterpretations of the Truth are not a reflection of the nonexistence of the Truth.
THR, So present some evidence.
@THR,
So what exactly is analogy and what is not?
Is God Himself an analogy for workings of nature?
So, you judge someone else first? You specifically say an atheist has no soul and you can't just think "Oh, he's going to be pleasantly surprised when he finds out God loves him unconditionally." I would say that you are the one lacking a soul.
Grown man who believes in magic alert!
David
I don't believe that I have superpowers or magical ability either, do you?
WHAT? "Almost"?!?! "god-LIKE"?!?!? Next you're be denying the deity of the current POTUS!
Speak English!
Nothing holds mankind back like religion. Nearly every war being waged today, is being fought over mythology. Religious mythology is behind most starvation, torture, terrorism, etc. It works to keep people ignorant, uneducated, and dependent.
Religion is a cancer, but thankfully studies show it's in remission, at least in this country.
All wars are fought over property disputes. I blame real estate agents! They are the cause of all the evil!!!!
Yeah, no war or killing involving islam and the word of mohammad.....nothing to see here, just move along folks...
People aren't killing each other on my streets right here in the USA each night over religion.
JC....you are correct, but only because people like myself REFUSE to allow the state to get involved with religion.
Oh, shut up. Trolling religious boards isn't serving your country. There are religious people that don't want a theocracy, either. Maybe you call ally with some of them if you stopped being so stereotypical with your hate.
JC...that wasn't very kind or christian of you. Now go ask the sky fairy for forgiveness so that you don't burn in a fiery pit for all of eternity.
In response to JC: "People aren't killing each other on my streets right here in the USA each night over religion." Um, what the Boston Marathon Bombing? What was 9/11 about?
lol, they're fairly disgusting eh JC.
It's about power, and will always be about power. Religion is just on way to control, politics another.
I think this opinion article is very interesting.
RIGHT up 'till the part where you got sent to Hell for *all* of eternity.
A trillion years? You're just getting started.
It IS real. Oh, it's not?
What if you're wrong.
"Re-form your life. The Kingdom of God is at-hand."
You die. There is no eternal fires. You just don't get resurrected. That is Christian belief.
Maybe you'll miss out on Valhalla becuase you choose to die meekly in bed instead of gloriously on the field of battle.
What if the Mormons are right and you'll never see the Celestial Kingdom without learning the secreat, masonic handshakes and passwords?
Maybe Ma'at will weigh your heart against a shu feather and find the balance lacking.
Maybe your karma will be bad and you'll be reincarnated as a dung beetle.
Pascal's Wager assumes that the only possible afterlife is the Christian one – but there are endless possibilities.
You can't please all of the gods.
Well then thank the Lords of Kobol that there's only one true God. 😉
Let me guess – that would be the god you worship, right?
So we should believe for fear of it being real?
So then too should I lay awake at night cowering under my covers for fear the boogeyman will come and get me?
Religious belief through fear is exactly why the creators of most religion write it into their stories. Don't be a sheep, think for yourselves.
But what if there isn't a boogyman but there is a robber?
Then the one hiding under the bed survives.
Don't misrepresent a misunderstanding of the qualities of a danger with the fact that the danger is there.
Hell was invented to keep the uneducated, and uninitiated in line.
Ditto heaven.
You've been presented with a carrot and a stick, and are acting as your human masters want you to.
Let's don't forget the new form.
The Bill Mahr's group.
The Hatetheist.
Don't forget to learn how to spell...
Have you threatened your children with eternal damnation today?
"Worship me, or I will torture you forever."
Love, god.
You got anything intelligent to say? Or are you just another example of an uneducated atheist who imagines declaring there is no God makes himself seem smarter?
Just pointing out the essence of christianity....."worship me or I will torture you for eternity". Isn't that the bottom line? Is it not a rule of fear? Of course it is...but saying so would send you to the invisible fire pit, so you won't say it. You know living a life based on mythology is illogical, but you do it anyway out of fear and ignorance. Pascals wager basically.
Do you think that declaring there is a God without evidence makes you seem even a little bit smart?
Show me where I did that. Can you?
Sorry! You clearly did not claim to be smart.
You have nailed it...except instead of God torturing, He will ALLOW satan to do that. Remember God is Love. He even lets you make the choice.
If "god" allows that to happen when he could stop it, then he is an accessory to the crime. And by the way, since he COULD stop all of the innocent children from starving and dying and doesn't, isn't he also an accessory to murder?
Why would he allow Satan to do that? Any authority that allowed an independent agency to torture people it sees as its enemies would be considered to be just as responsible for the torture as the ones actually doing it.
Great point.
Only sheep need a shepherd.
They don't need a shepherd. Sheep have survived a long time before humans domesticated them for their own use. Shepherds are more like parasites to sheep. Kinda describes the relationship clergy have to their "flocks", doesn't it?
People with imaginary friends scare me.
I don't believe in good.
And people without imagination scare me.
Believing in imaginary friends =/= "having imagination". The condition is normally described with terms like "schizophrenia".
"Worship me forever without any evidence of my existence, or I will torture you for eternity in a fiery pit. Oh yeah by the way, I really love you."
God
"Worship me forever without any evidence of my existence, or I will torture you for eternity in a fiery pit. Oh yeah by the way, I really love you."
An atheist's understanding of God
Oh really? Are you not required to worship him or face eternal torture? And can you provide me with a link showing some evidence of god's existence?
What do you worship?
What do I worship? Absolutely NOTHING! I love my family and myself, and my friends, but worship? No. I will hold nobody and no thing up to the level of deity.
Oh, you worship yourself.
God’s fingerprints are all over. We can find him anywhere we look. He does not appear in all his glory, or write across the sky in orange letters “I exist!” because he loves us enough to give us the free will to accept him or not. Overt displays of his existence would be coercion, not love. Evidence of his loving presence can be found, but many choose not to see and believe. This is a choice for each one of us, rendered by God.
QC, grow some balls and answer the question you were asked, coward.
Post by 'Marco' contains a form of the Secret Decoder Ring fallacy, with additional similarity to the Argument from Ignorance fallacy.
http://fallacyfiles.org/glossary.html
Why don't you point out the atheist fallacies?
Ted, you are a baby coward.
http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/aquinasfiveways_argumentanalysis.htm
Is that what you were looking for? Just do a general search on Thomas Aquinas Proofs should do it. Whether or not you believe or accept them as proof is the bigger question.
FS 201, maybe you should give that some more thought...
Marco
You can point to perfectly normal, natural things and call them "God's fingerprints", but that doesn't make them so.
A human parent may love their children enough to let them have their independence, but they do not hunt down and punish the ones who choose to live away from home, do they? A loving God would just let nonbelievers leave without consequence. If your God even just allows hell to exist as a place for those who do not believe in him then he is not a "loving" being.
Ben-
"...but they do not hunt down and punish the ones who choose to live away from home, do they?"
Right. Nor does God. God wants you to have a personal relationship with you, but he's not going to force you. We are given chances throughout our lives to accept his love or reject it. God never wants you to reject his love, but he loves you too much to force you to love him. If you coerced your spouse into marrying you, that wouldn't be the most loving relationship. So it is with God. If Heaven is living in God's presence, Hell is the absence of God...the absence of love, hope, peace. It is all despair. Sadly, some people still choose this rather than the offer God extends to them.
QC, how is the statement incorrect?
"All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return."
Ecclesiastes 3:20
So the guy below you quotes more mythology as a rebuttal.....just amazing.
Yeah, and he probably thinks it's prophetic. Religion would be just a joke, if it wasn't so harmful.
People who believe in this mess is too weak to think for themselves. They are also allowing themselves to do immoral things because their fairy will forgive them if they pray, say phrases, anoint themselves with some form of liquid. Non believers don't have that kind of luxury. They have to do the right/moral thing because there is no fairies to save them.
I was Christian until well into my late teens (DEVOUTLY so in fact). Went the pagan -> agnostic -> atheist route. I've attended mainline Protestant and Catholic schools, as well as worship services of both those and less mainline (as well as Orthodox Greek) churches. I've done catechism. I have read the Bible.
And quite honestly, it does boil down to "Believe in me and follow my rules or I will punish you forever." On top of that, every. single. thing that the Christian god is 'saving' his 'children' from is something that He Himself caused. His arbitrary and impossible to follow rules. His evil creations (he made everything? He made Satan then, didn't he?). His imperfect creation (we are hardwired to do things that God considers worthy of damnation).
footnotegirl,
Yes, and according to the mythology, "He" knows before he creates each and every "child" what this "child's" eventual eternal fate will be... and creates them anyway!
is everyone here unemployed?
We are supported by our rich, Christian parents. Who we hate! Grrrrr.
I'm busy making sauce and have a little too much thyme on my hands.
Happily retired. 🙂
Weird hours this is my weekend.
I don't think you understand what the word "unemployed" means. I bet you have trouble with other big words, too.
Self-employed. What's the matter, not smart or brave enough to be an entrepreneur?
Why do christians moral opinions change over time? I'll conjecture that its because they learn by the use of modern knowledge via natural science and technology not a unscientific static book built on mythologies. Christians at one time in America eugenicized the disabled like me and my brother just like many supported the Tuskegee Experiments, slavery, segregation, Just Wars, or the alike. I cannot trust such a shifty placement but as equally can't trust a secular state or its equivalent either. Ultimately atheists are short-sighted and put everything as a value and religious people hope for something that doesn't exist, so I am neither just agnostic.
You are stereotyping. Not all Christians supported slavery, segregation, wars, etc. Christians have been victims of slavery, segregation, wars, etc, too.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/modern-day-slavery-exists-new-york-city-and-christians-fight-article-1.1483299
His initial question still applies.
It depends on what morals you are thinking about and who you are calling Christian. Prior to the Protestant Reformation there was only one Christian Church. It's still here and teaches the same things, but there are hundreds if not thousands of Protestant Churches believing in who knows what. You acknowledge Natural Science which is where St. Thomas Aquinas got his Proofs of God's existence came from, yet have you ever read it? A simpler answer is that all Men (and Women) sin. Everyone of us. Some Big, most little but we all sin. Repentance and Forgiveness are the answer.
Dear Catholic Church and the Pope,
Thanks for helping all of those Nazi commanders escape Germany after WWII ended. It makes my heart happy that you were able to help so many for butchering millions. I thought there was some sort of rule about killing writting somewhere?