“Belief” and Knowing, Oprah-style

88 thoughts on ““Belief” and Knowing, Oprah-style”

1. “I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder, and the mystery, then that is what God is.”

   Then why complicate matters; why not just call it awe?

   Part of me wants to call Oprah a bubble-head, but this insistence of hers that we homo sapiens are somehow “special” and separate from the carbon-based evolutionary tree of life, is more a reflection of her massive ego. She lacks humility, and an understanding of our place in biology.

   1. I agree, and then some!! I wish she would open her mouth and insert metatarsals permanently. Anyone who has a spiritual advisor can’t put one foot in front of the other without being advised on how to do so without falling flat on one’s face. Her and her entourage are completely irrelevant!!

   2. I think your assessment is accurate, but I also think the same could be said about the vast majority of US citizens.

      1. One of the main points of religion is to show that “we are special”, super special even with a wide chasm between Humanity and the rest of Earth life. To them being directly connected and showing all the elements that show we are intimately part of all the beasts and filthy slime and biting things is horrible to them. To them that makes us low, debased and most assuredly ready to rapine and destroy all that is pious, clean and upright. (They do have a point about rapine, we see it in males the world over. But not for their reasons.)

         Somehow we must be of the shining super beings not of the dreary, old, mortal world we find ourselves. It was a woman’s fault humanity is in a Fallen World. So they promise much better, but you must be a slave to their religion. Lock, stock and gun barrel. Some like the Dominionist branch believe the only way their Aryan God will return is when all the Earth’s peoples are either converted, enslaved or are dead. Either way we are all in trouble if the majority of the world’s religions turn totalitarian and aggressive. And with the weapons of today, they can be very destructive. Not what we need when we should be organizing and changing how we live in order to minimize the warming. So far nothing substantial has changed. We will probably fail the test of an intelligent species. One of many before us. And any other species anywhere any when in the universe must survive in order to prosper without killing themselves.

         Religion is a stumbling block the way it is today. If it could be altered to galvenize humanity to make the changes we might have a better chance of surving the next 1,000 years or more. Projections are the 10,000 years to the next Ice Age has been extended 90,000 more years at this rate of warming.

2. My own special inner way of knowing tells me that Oprah’s explorations will lead her to conclude that what she feels is what she knows.

   1. And what she knows is what she believes…

      1. Two natural steps to what seems an inevitable conclusion. Humans are normally irrational. The rational human is an outlier in the species. Maybe one day it will be the core of it.

         1. My current opinion is that there are two important reasons for this.
            One is that our ability to be rational only had to be good enough that our grandchildren survived to reproduce.
            The other is that interactions with other humans (and to a lessor extent interactions with other animals smart enough to be self-aware) were, and are, selection-relevant characteristics of our environment….and those interactions included/include survival-affecting interactions with rationality-impaired people.

3. A very balanced interpretation of Oprah, Grania.

4. In my opinion, Oprah was quite civil to Diane Nyad in the clip linked to. Nyad, however, may not be an atheist as I think most readers of this site would think of one. Nyad babbled some nonsense about a soul living on after death. Oprah likes talking about spirit and souls.

   1. Yes, she loves her Woo.

      1. Good link. A nice summary of how so many are into woo up to their ear lobes.

      2. That little talk should be shown to every class and board room on the planet. For every human to know.

5. Thanks for this Grania.

   Oprah is clearly not an intellectual. The same is probably true for her followers!

6. Oprah used to pander to the lowest common interests on TV, but no longer, because the lowest descended to Reality TV, so she is no longer worst.

   I would rather have my finger nails ripped out than watch one of her shows.

7. I truly believe that “connecting to something greater than ourselves” makes our lives satisfying, worthwhile. However, I get frustrated with those who think that “something greater” must be god in some form. The natural world that I connect to through my work (and much else in my life) is much greater than myself and is awe-inspiring. My contributions to my scientific field connect me to a tradition greater than myself that serves both other humans and that wonderful, awe-inspiring natural world.

   This all may lack the theoretical infinity of god, but it’s way bigger than me and it has the advantage of being real.

   1. I truly believe that “connecting to something greater than ourselves” makes our lives satisfying, worthwhile. However, I get frustrated with those who think that “something greater” must be god in some form.

      I like to steer such people to the nearest electrical socket, put their tongue on it and flip the switch. Now that would be a bolt from on high!

      1. I feel the same level of nausea when I hear the masses regurgitate “Things happen for a reason”.

         1. And we can usually find that reason. No gods here. But then gods seem to hide very very well. When ever new illumination of knowledge is found they have scurried off to some other dark corner where unknown rules. They are so good at it one could consider they don’t exist and nothing at all would change!

   2. +n

      1. N++

8. By the way, I admire Oprah for achieving success and leadership in broadcasting, a field like most others usually dominated by men. She has promoted some good causes, too. I agree about the woo she’s been peddling increasingly, though.

   1. Oprah, for better or worse, is an absolute Titan in broadcasting. My career in television, which began well after Oprah had established herself as a leader in the field, was that women are better represented there, particularly in leadership positions, than in other industries. IMO, the fact that a single African-American woman is a Mt. Rushmore type of figure in that industry is a major contributing factor in the number of women that pursue careers in broadcasting.
      Her penchant for woo is troubling, but the positive impact that she has had in other areas is undeniable.

   2. You summarize my thoughts on Oprah pretty well.

      I admire her business smarts, her mojo, her drive to succeed and her generosity to many.

      Can’t stand her shows. Can’t stand her woo. But she is a good role model and leader in many other ways for African Americans and women.

9. The mention of exploring different religions made me think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INxp98-2i6A The relevant,8 minute,section begins at 9:42.

   1. You beat me to it! I remember watching this as a teenager, and thinking it was brilliant. The TW3 Consumer Guide to Religion.

10. I would love to connect with something greater than myself, but it is possible that the collective experience of humanity and the biosphere may be sufficient.

    Connecting with a shark greater than myself would be undesirable, and I worry about the myopia of those who cannot distinguish them from similarly shaped dolphins. (That’s a symbolic metaphor. I don’t know if Karen “all-religion-is-allegory” Armstrong will get it or not.)

    I have a soft spot for Sufi mystics & whirling dervishes, so I may want to catch that episode.

    =-=-=

    The one really bad experience I had with an excessively politically correct teacher in grad school was in a course on black feminism who gave a whole new level of meaning to the phrase MAD AS HELL. Regarding one bitter dispute we had, Oprah said something publicly that backed my position, and the prof backed down. I have to admit I owe her one.

    1. “Connecting with a shark greater than myself would be undesirable”

       That’s pretty funny.

       1. We do have connexions to greater, or larger things. Including our species, biology of the planet, solar system, galaxy to the entire universe that is far larger than most can even conceptualize. But no dogs er, gods reside there or anywhere.

11. Meanwhile, scientific academia wrings its hands over difficulty in attracting black students. Seems to me that Oprah and the legions of black preachers out there stand out as reasons why. On the other side, who can the black community look to for reason? Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Barack Obama. Who else?

    1. There aren’t any examples that I can think of which are nearly as high profile, but there is Hakeem Oluseyi. He is a professor of physics at the Florida Institute of technology and appears on the Science Channel’s “Outrageous Acts of Science.”

       1. I never knew he was at FIT!

          My kids and I like watching that show. Hakeem also appears on another show, How The Universe Works.

    2. Would have been nice had Tyson been on her show. I perceive that it has been her wont to interrupt/cut off others. She would have found it quite difficult to do that to Tyson. Same with Hitch; I don’t believe she could have handled not being able to dominate him.

    3. Damon Tweedy
       Ta-Nehisi Coates
       Coretta Scott King (RIP)
       Colin Powell
       Juan Williams
       Whoopee Goldberg
       Serena Williams
       Condoleezza Rice
       Charlayne Hunter-Gault
       Michele Norris
       Isabel Wilkerson
       Andrew Young
       Joycelyn Elders
       Keith Ellison
       Ed Bradley (RIP)
       Bryant Gumbel

       etc.

       1. Don’t forget Ban Carson (before politics).

12. It’s the sixth anniversary (plus a few days) of the three deaths caused by Oprah-endorsed Secret star, James Arthur “Death” Ray. Soon afterwards, it turned out that another participant had died during an event and he’d abandoned her body and concealed the death from all the other participants.

    (He got off with a light prison sentence of 2 years.)

    Some of the dead had first heard of Ray through Oprah. She never apologized, distanced herself from it, or even mentioned it.

    Oprah also promoted the psychotic hoaxer Marlo Morgan, who stole the cultural identity of Australian Aborigines and then declared them extinct, in her 1991 book Mutant Message Down Under.

    Oprah also promoted Louise Hay — the mother lode of evil cancer quackery, as well as Neale Donald Walsh (aka God Himself), who runs the standard evil authoritarian business scam based on woo that all the New Age gurus seem to run.

    Generally, if someone is running a highly successful, dangerous scam based on woo, Oprah has promoted them. She loves populist spirituality because it’s an easy sell and keeps her ratings sky high, and they love her because she sends their sales through the roof.

    1. Yes, and what makes that particularly frustrating in this case is that those would all make good shows. Exposing scams is interesting; exposing scams which prey on trusting, desperate, or marginalized groups is even more interesting. People watch that, feel that, and talk about it later.

       Oprah is supposed to be a marketing genius AND a role model. But it’s as if she’s sacrificing good television for ideology — and her ideology is on the side of the Bad Guys.

       1. Yes, and in this case everything is on police records and sworn testimony, and the facts were not disputed by his lawyers (at least not once they read the witness statements).

          1. I wonder why someone hasn’t come up with a sort of Anti-Oprah show exposing the criminality of the high profile guests she has on. A very big risk of course. But still diamonds waiting to be dug out of the shit they are buried in.

             1. +1

             2. I like that idea! I wonder who could host it. Frank Zappa has sadly passed on….

             3. Penn Jillette

    2. Don’t forget too that Deepak Chopra owes much of his success to being featured on her show.

       1. Yep – she’s pretty much thumbed her way through the whole Who’s Who of Woo!

          1. 😀

13. I won’t name names but I happen to be close friends with one of the most famous pop stars in the world right now. He talks like Oprah when he talks about God. I think when someone is massively successful, belief in God becomes even more important because if God didn’t decide that they should have riches while so many others suffer, well then it’s hard to justify the disparity.

    1. I think that for many, attributing their success to God is a way of being, or at least appearing to be, humble. The logic doesn’t work if you dig into the statement because it means God chose you to do good things for. On the surface it’s why we have the idea that atheists are arrogant – because we don’t thank God for the good stuff.

       1. “The logic doesn’t work if you dig into the statement because it means God chose you to do good things for.”

          Yeah I’ve never understood the idea that we’re arrogant when they’re the ones who think the all powerful creator of the universe cares about them

          1. There is a reason why such religions as Christianity has in it admonitions for those believers to be humble, not boastful. Doesn’t work too well though. Such swelled heads.

14. I predict that what will happen is that strong emotional experiences of people going through crises and life-changing challenges will simply be taken as a a vague fuzzy endorsement that supports whatever the viewer and Oprah want to believe in.

    And I predict that these emotions and experiences will be taken as strong endorsements of the necessary requirement that you believe in ANY religion or form of spirituality.

    Atheism is flat out. Oh, they may try ‘balance.’ But natural versions of “I don’t believe in God but I’m ‘spiritual'” will be acceptable only if there’s still some supernatural component in there — or if the speaker themselves delivers a hasty reassurance that it’s just wonderful if other people have faith and yes, yes, they totally respect and admire that. You know — good atheism. Accomodationism.

    A lot of atheists view this ‘fuzzy’ sort of spirituality or religious ecumenicism as a modified version of humanism. It can certainly look like it. There’s an emphasis on what we have in common, how we treat people, and the need to get along with each other. But hidden under the smiles and hugs I discern a very nasty form of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationality — along with a real hatred of atheism.

    Conservative religions say “you have to follow God the right way.” Liberal spiritualities say “any way you follow God is okay.” But both of them take as sacred the idea that God and faith are sacred, with “following God” being equivalent to whatever virtues are valued. And by removing any need to intellectually challenge one view against another, the only real ground our atheism stands on — that of reasoning from the evidence — is now gone. Contra the superficial similarities with humanism, it seems to me that there’s an even deeper divide than before

    Generally speaking, fundamentalists at least respect the concept of rational analysis because they believe that faith is not enough. You might have faith in a false God or a wrong religion. They can consider the wisdom of throwing out a religious belief because it’s not true — even if it “works” for them. On some level then, they “get” us. Truth matters.

    But this New Agey “God can be anything as long as you’re happily infusing mental and emotional components into the fundamental nature of reality” is SO pro-faith that alternatives can’t even be entertained intellectually. Wrong? Nobody is wrong. Nobody is wrong except the people who tell other people they’re wrong.

    Well, that and those who don’t seek or love God, of course. Those are both equally arrogant. It’s a double bind masquerading as universal tolerance.

    1. Well said.

    2. Double well said. “Nobody is wrong except the people who tell other people they’re wrong.” Brilliant. It’s like people who say “we should celebrate our differences” whilst simultaneously criticizing the views of new atheists.

    3. “And I predict that these emotions and experiences will be taken as strong endorsements of the necessary requirement that you believe in ANY religion or form of spirituality.”

       This viewpoint is not new. Dwight Eisenhower, shortly before being inaugurated as president said the following as quoted in Wikipedia:

       “And this is how they [the Founding Fathers in 1776] explained those: ‘we hold that all men are endowed by their Creator…’ not by the accident of their birth, not by the color of their skins or by anything else, but ‘all men are endowed by their Creator.’ In other words, our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply-felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is. With us of course it is the Judeo-Christian concept, but it must be a religion with all men are created equal.”

       For Ike, if you’re an atheist, you can’t believe in the American form of government. He would probably say to atheists if he were alive today: “Why are you being so difficult? There are so many to choose from. Just pick out one and stop causing trouble.”

       1. A curious interpretation. To me, “by our creator” means our parents.

          1. No, Creator means God. The term is taken from the Declaration of Independence.

             “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

             1. They may have meant God, but substituting “nature” as “Creator” works just as well on a philosophical basis. That’s because they were invoking not a God of revelation and mysticism, but Nature’s God, placing an emphasis then on this world rather than the next.

             2. Yet when it comes down to it you speak of your parents as your creator not some deity don’t you? They would too if asked. Just like Nature’s God sure isn’t Jehovah, Pan maybe.

       2. Ike got more religious in the 1950s, changed religious affiliations, signed the bills adding “In God We Trust” to the US paper currency and “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.

          Prior to all that, he seemed like a not-very-interested generic sort of Xian (though his parents were into some pretty weird stuff — this seems to have affected his outlook to hold that church at arm’s length) and generally just practical and logical.

15. I have watched the previews for some of the series and what I get is more tradition and ritual. Disappointing but expected woo.

    There is a short segment on an atheist.

    [A]theist Alex Honnold walks the edge between life and death as a world-renowned free-solo climber. He faces his mortality and finds meaning in his life as he climbs – with no ropes or harnesses – up a towering cliff in the Moab desert in eastern Utah. http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/oprah-winfrey-presents-landmark-7-night-event-series-belief-premiering-sunday-october-18-20150723

    1. That’s nice. I just hope they don’t sell it as some sort of “we all live on faith, trust, and hope in something — like not falling” deepity.

16. Here is a review I published of Kitty Kelley’s bio of Okra Winfrey’s biography, in which I make satirical mention of her religious predilections. http://ishmaelreedpub.com/Everywoman-A-Review-of-Oprah My only regret is that I didn’t title it “Apres Moi le Deluge.”

17. One of my worst nightmares is ending up in a hospital bed with Oprah on the TV and the bedside remote not working.

    I have never watched more than snippets of her shows, but that was enough to reveal the shallow pool that passes for her intellectual capacities. Her only talent is in telling people what they want to hear, which accounts for her massive popularity.

    If we want to celebrate and promote women and minorities, let’s find the ones who actually do something of value.

    1. I can sympathize. I think I’d need a constant drip of a potent antiemetic to get through an episode of Oprah.

       I freely admit, and think it is important to do so to be accurate and fair, that Oprah has done quite a bit of good. But that doesn’t mean I can stomach the bad, or how she uses the authority and reach that her wealth and fame give her to support bullshit and oppose rationalism.

       I also have serious doubts that the intense caring for others that she emotes so well is sincere. In my experience it usually is not. It is usually used as a tool.

18. In the event that Oprah endorses Ben Carson (likely?), at least Michael Che beat her to the anti-endorsement on SNL the other night.

    1. Don’t think Oprah will go for Carson. The rules are that you’re only allowed one loony doctor endorsement and Oprah already gave us Dr. Phil.

       1. I’ve never known her to endorse a conservative candidate either, and Carson is running about 30 feet to the right of Attila the Hun these days.

19. I am sure that she is sincere in her beliefs, however elusive they are. But what is also true is that her big tent marketing of beliefs has been and will continue to be immensely profitable for her.
    The little phrase about the eye of the needle comes to mind.

20. Hey – the English speaking world does extend a little outside the US. I don`t think OW is a household name here in littl` ol` Engerland (wales actually)

    1. I’d disagree. Maybe you just don’t watch enough UK daytime TV …

       /@

    2. The Oprah Winfrey Show was shown in 150 countries. So in fact, her fame probably extends well beyond the English speaking world.

       ~Grania

21. Yeesh, Oprah’s interview with Diane Nyad was pretty cringe-inducing. Not for the way Oprah treated her, but that here was Oprah directly addressing an atheist on TV and, unfortunately, it has to be an “atheist” who
    spouts almost as much mushy-mindedness as Oprah herself.

    1. I also noted that. Nyad seemed to be confused about a lot of things. However, as I considered her comments, it sounded as if she was leaving a lot of wiggle room without going completely woo. She made the point that nature is as awe-inspiring as any notion of God. That’s a good start. She was later asked if she was spiritual, and, while I think she could be a materialist at heart, she seemed to lack the appropriate materialistic vocabulary. Vocabulary might be a significant reason so many people who aught to know better seem to waffle when trying to express those “spiritual” sentiments.

       1. Not so Hitch of course: « I’m a materialist…yet there is something beyond the material, or not entirely consistent with it, what you could call the Numinous, the Transcendent, or at its best the Ecstatic. I wouldn’t trust anyone in this hall who didn’t know what I was talking about. It’s in certain music, landscape, certain creative work, without this we really would merely be primates. It’s important to appreciate the finesse of that, and religion has done a very good job of enshrining it in music and architecture. »

          Nor Terry Pratchett: « So what shall I make of the voice that spoke to me recently as I was scuttling around getting ready for yet another spell on a chat-show sofa? More accurately, it was a memory of a voice in my head, and it told me that everything was OK and things were happening as they should. For a moment, the world had felt at peace. Where did it come from? Me, actually — the part of all of us that, in my case, caused me to stand in awe the first time I heard Thomas Tallis’s _Spem in alium_, and the elation I felt on a walk one day last February, when the light of the setting sun turned a ploughed field into shocking pink; I believe it’s what Abraham felt on the mountain and Einstein did when it turned out that E=mc². It’s that moment, that brief epiphany when the universe opens up and shows us something, and in that instant we get just a sense of an order greater than Heaven and, as yet at least, beyond the grasp of Stephen Hawking. It doesn’t require worship, but, I think, rewards intelligence, observation and enquiring minds. I don’t think I’ve found God, but I may have seen where gods come from. »

          /@

          1. Whoa. That Tallis is remarkable.

22. Further to Grania’s balanced post, Oprah is under the “larger than life” delusion, this is OK if she is admitting to fiction, but she is not. It’s about herself and life, she just can’t except there is nothing else, BUT life.. in all it’s glory and ugliness.
    Her influence is a hand brake on evidence based truths and the perpetuation of bad ideas (I could make few bad guesses as to why) makes her cringeworthy.
    For various reasons I never watched her show before and I won’t watch her shows now.

23. I am connected to something greater than myself:

    Its called the universe.

    For those that want more:

    Good luck

24. I wonder why Oprah i$ $o $upportive of $upernatural woo and promote$ all the fad$. It’$ a my$tery.

    1. £O£!

       /@

25. Great post, Grania! Can we count on you to review “Belief” once it’s aired? 😀

26. “My confidence comes from knowing there is a force, a power greater than myself that I am a part of, that is also a part of me.”

    That would be the Higgs Boson, I believe. It has as much mystery and power as any other woo. The Higgs field is a field-field, which bestows upon other particles the property of mass, thereby granting them a gravitational field. Or so my limited understanding of particle physics would have it.

    It’s as mysterious and awesome and deep as you could want, with the added quality, so lacking in all others, of having a sufficient body of evidence behind it, to establish that it is in fact real. And being real rocks.

    1. “My confidence comes from knowing there is a force, a power greater than myself that I am a part of, that is also a part of me.”

       That would be our genes, I believe.

       1. Or nature/the universe.

    2. If somebody is confident even though they don’t ‘know’ there is a force, a power greater than themselves that they are a part of, that is also a part of them, would that make them a better person, a lesser person — or would it not matter and depend then on other things?

       Before somebody promotes some belief as the most important and significant aspect of anyone’s character and life, a discovery which changes everything, they need to contemplate that question. A lot.

27. “The Higgs field surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together…”

    /@

28. The only time I have watched an entire one of Oprah’s shows was when she had the Bible Code guys on. With no skeptics, and not even an audience member with anything other than a dumbfounded stare. So it has been going on a while. I had hoped for a brief moment that this would have been a public opportunity for science, reason, etc. but alas not …

    Speaking of which, I wonder if Drosnin will appear in this new series? 🙂

29. Id love to see this segment,

    “Two leaders in Nigeria who were former enemies 20 years ago, Christian Pastor James Wuye and Muslim Imam Muhammad Ashafa, come together to reconcile and to honor one of the most sacred teachings at the heart of both their faiths: love your enemies”

    Only 1 of those faiths truly believes in loving your enemy. What a pile of whitewashed woo woo.

    1. I think it would be better to write “Only 1 of those faiths has loving your enemy as a central tenet”. Looking back over their histories, neither has shown any great indication that they truly believe in the concept.

30. “My confidence comes from knowing there is a force, a power greater than myself that I am a part of, that is also a part of me.”

    Several times over the years I’ve heard rather pious souls declare “I KNOW.”

    It must be so, since the person SAID so.

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