{"id":53,"date":"2013-10-24T19:40:05","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T19:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=53"},"modified":"2015-10-13T19:12:56","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:12:56","slug":"oprah-wonders-about-atheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2013\/10\/24\/oprah-wonders-about-atheism\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah Wonders About Atheism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Last week atheist bloggers<a href=\"http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/2751032645001\/atheists-demand-an-apology-from-oprah\/\">\u00a0expressed their frustration<\/a>\u00a0when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/arts-entertainment\/tv\/news\/oprah-winfrey-suggests-atheists-must-believe-in-god-if-they-experience-awe-and-wonder-8884013.html\">Oprah Winfrey suggested that distance-swimmer Diana Nyad\u2019s atheism wasn\u2019t really atheism<\/a>.\u00a0Op-eds from authors in the secular community reminded us that <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/QAhydNwFJj\">atheists appreciate lots of wonder in the world<\/a>, and warned about\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/DKywa6usZT\">stereotypical views of non-religious people<\/a>. A few pieces of sociological work can also help explain the weight of her words.<\/p>\n<h5>Americans already hold negative opinions about self-identifying atheists, and many say atheists \u201cdon&#8217;t agree with their vision of American society.\u201d<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.soc.umn.edu\/people\/edgell_p.html\">Penny Edgell<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.soc.umn.edu\/people\/gerteis_j.html\">Joseph Gerteis<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.soc.umn.edu\/people\/hartmann_d.html\">Douglas Hartmann<\/a>. 2006. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/asr.sagepub.com\/content\/71\/2\/211.short\">Atheists as \u2018Other\u2019: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society.<\/a>\u201d <em>American Sociological Review<\/em> 71(2):211\u201334.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ut.edu\/content.aspx?bio=1&amp;id=4402\">Ryan T. Cragun<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/internet2.trincoll.edu\/facprofiles\/default.aspx?fid=1267287\">Barry Kosmin<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/internet2.trincoll.edu\/facprofiles\/default.aspx?fid=1266329\">Ariela Keysar<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.public.iastate.edu\/~hammer\/\">Joseph H. Hammer<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/class.georgiasouthern.edu\/psychology\/facstaff-2\/\">Michael Nielsen<\/a>. 2012. &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/Academics\/centers\/isssc\/Documents\/Cragun%20et%20al%20%20%202012%20%20On%20the%20Receiving%20End%20Discrimination%20Toward%20the%20No.pdf\">On the Receiving End: Discrimination toward the Non-Religious in the United States.<\/a>&#8221;\u00a0<i>Journal of Contemporary Religion<\/i>\u00a027(1): 105-127.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>Oprah\u2019s fame makes her a \u201cmoral entrepreneur\u201d\u2014 someone with the power to define who the insiders and outsiders are in society. This makes her opinions more likely to influence viewers&#8217; misunderstandings about atheism.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/home.earthlink.net\/~hsbecker\/\">Howard Becker<\/a>. 1973. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Outsiders-Studies-The-Sociology-Deviance\/dp\/0684836351\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1382642031&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=outsiders+becker\"><em>Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance<\/em><\/a>. New York: Free Press.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week atheist bloggers\u00a0expressed their frustration\u00a0when Oprah Winfrey suggested that distance-swimmer Diana Nyad\u2019s atheism wasn\u2019t really atheism.\u00a0Op-eds from authors in the secular community reminded us that atheists appreciate lots of wonder in the world, and warned about\u00a0stereotypical views of non-religious people. A few pieces of sociological work can also help explain the weight of her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[9080,38543,42,94],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-atheism","tag-culture","tag-religion","tag-television"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2013\/10\/4601490383_4dfd3afcba_z.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}