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Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Godless: The Church of Liberalism
Cover
AuthorAnn Coulter
LanguageEnglish
SubjectLiberalism in the United States
PublisherCrown Forum
Publication dateJune 7, 2006
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
ISBN1-4000-5420-6
OCLC69594152
Dewey Decimal320.51/30973 22
LC ClassJC574.2.U6 C667 2006b

Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a book by best-selling author and American far-right columnist Ann Coulter, published in 2006. The book is an argument against American liberalism, which Coulter claims is anti-scientific, faith-based, comparing it with primitive religion, purported to have "its own cosmology, its own explanation for why we are here, its own gods, and its own clergy." Coulter argues that "the basic tenet of liberalism is that nature is god and men are monkeys."

The book drew criticism for its statements on the Jersey Girls, alleged plagiarized content, the promotion of pseudoscientific intelligent design, its incoherence, and its factual inaccuracy.

The 9/11 "Jersey Girls"

Throughout the book, Coulter criticizes the four 9/11 widows, known as the "Jersey Girls", who helped push for the 9/11 Commission and have been critical of US security policies, writing:

These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. ... I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much ... the Democrat ratpack gals endorsed John Kerry for president ... cutting campaign commercials ... how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy.

These statements received national attention after an interview on The Today Show, and were widely criticized. Coulter refused to apologize, and responded, "I feel sorry for all the widows of 9/11 ... I do not believe that sanctifies their political message ... They have attacked Bush, they have attacked Condoleezza Rice, they're cutting campaign commercials for Kerry. But we can't respond because their husbands died ... I think it's one of the ugliest things 'the left' has done ... this idea that you need some sort of personal authenticity in order to make a political point ..."

Also on June 8, New Jersey Assemblywomen Joan M. Quigley and Linda Stender issued a joint press release, calling on "... New Jersey retailers to ban the sale of her book throughout the state."

Jews

Christopher Hitchens noted that Coulter implied neoconservatives and Jews are one and the same:

If liberals are on Red Alert with one born-again Christian in the cabinet of a Christian president, imagine how they would react if there were five. Between 25 and 45 percent of the population calls itself "born-again" or "evangelical" Christian. Jews make up less than 2 per cent of the nation's population, and yet Clinton had five in his cabinet. He appointed two to the Supreme Court. Now guess which administration is called a neoconservative conspiracy?

Science and intelligent design

Coulter's reliance on intelligent design and creationist sources for science, has prompted some critics of the intelligent design movement to analyze her claims. Biologist P. Z. Myers, countering Coulter's claim that there is no evidence for the theory of evolution, points to the scientific literature that contains hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of articles about various aspects of evolution. He also argues that Coulter has it backwards: The issue is not whether there is evidence that supports evolution theory, but whether there is evidence that is explained by evolution theory, since scientific theories are explanations for data. In response to Coulter's citing of Jonathan Wells' arguments concerning peppered moth evolution, Ian Musgrave argues that Coulter misrepresents the significance of the peppered moth experiments, makes a number of factual errors, and a "wildly ignorant misrepresentation of evolution." James Downard criticized Coulter's favoring of secondary sources over primary sources, saying "she compulsively reads inaccurate antievolutionary sources and accepts them on account of their reinforcement of what she wants to be true."

Media Matters for America responded to Coulter's strawman arguments against evolution by noting 11 types of distortions in her writing and going into detail explaining why her claims are false, pseudoscientific and contrary to science. A satirical account of Coulter's take on evolution was written by probabilist Peter Olofsson, whose tongue-in-cheek argument was that Coulter had in fact written a veiled criticism of the intelligent design movement, much like Alan Sokal did to the postmodern movement in his famous hoax.

Reception

Christopher Hitchens, in a critical review of Godless for The Liberal, pointed to the book's incoherent prose and factual inaccuracy.

John Barrie, creator of iParadigms, LLC's plagiarism-detection software, found in the book three instances of what he claims to be plagiarism. The Rawstory website claims that she used text taken from the Illinois Right to Life website, making only slight changes for the book. The TPM Muckracker website provided a "complete" list of examples of alleged plagiarism discovered so far in all of Coulter's works. Coulter's publisher Crown Publishing Group has since characterized the charges as being "as trivial and meritless as they are irresponsible."

See also

References

  1. Rosenberg, Eli. "Ann Coulter once called Trump a 'god.' Now she says he's 'gutless' if he can't build the wall". Washington Post. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
  2. Sollenberger, Roger (21 December 2018). "Ann Coulter, of All People, Just Handed Democrats Their Strategy for 2020". pastemagazine.com. Archived from the original on 17 February 2019. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
  3. "Ann Coulter says Jews, like rest of Democratic base, 'hate white men'". www.timesofisrael.com. The Times of Israel. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
  4. Conroy, J. Oliver (17 October 2018). "Ann Coulter believes the left has 'lost its mind'. Should we listen?". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
  5. "Ann Coulter's "Godless" Makes the Liberals' Heads Spin With Obfuscation!". 12 June 2006. Retrieved January 13, 2011.
  6. Coulter, Ann (June 6, 2006). Godless: The Church of Liberalism. New York City: Crown Forum. ISBN 9781400054206.
  7. Christine Grimaldi (July 16, 2006). "Writer's claims disturb families of 9/11 victims". North Brunswick Sentinel. Archived from the original on November 4, 2006. Retrieved November 10, 2006.
  8. "Ann Coulter attacks 9/11 widows". CBS News. June 7, 2006. Retrieved July 10, 2006.
  9. Lathem, Niles; Algar, Selim. "Give-'em-hill Fury vs. Coulter Archived July 3, 2006, at the Wayback Machine." New York Post. June 8, 2006. Retrieved on July 10, 2006.
  10. Elliot, Philip. "9/11 Commissioner criticizes Coulter." ABC News. June 9, 2006. Retrieved on July 10, 2006. Archived February 21, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  11. "Ann Coulter Fires Back at Critics". Fox News. June 8, 2006. Retrieved December 4, 2007.
  12. Taranto, James (June 9, 2006). "The Coulter Kerfuffle". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 28, 2009.
  13. ^ Hitchens, Christopher. "Non-Fiction Review - Godless". theliberal.co.uk. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
  14. Ann Coulter: No evidence for evolution? Archived 2006-06-22 at the Wayback Machine PZ Myers. Pharyngula, scienceblogs.com June 18, 2006
  15. Ann Coulter: Clueless Archived 2013-01-21 at the Wayback Machine Ian Musgrave. The Panda's Thumb, June 18, 2006
  16. Secondary Addiction: Ann Coulter on Evolution Part I Part II Part III James Downard. TalkReason, June 2006.
  17. "Ann Coulter's "Flatulent Raccoon Theory"". Media Matters for America. July 7, 2006. Archived from the original on May 5, 2009.
  18. The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement. Peter Olofsson, Skeptical Inquirer, 2007
  19. Copycatty Coulter Pilfers Prose: Pro Archived July 5, 2006, at the Wayback Machine Philip Recchia. The New York Post, July 2, 2006
  20. In new book, Coulter 'cribs' stem cell list from right-to-life group Archived 2006-08-05 at the Wayback Machine Ron Brynaert, June 14, 2006
  21. List of Coulter Plagiarism Allegations Archived 2006-07-09 at the Wayback Machine Justin Rood, July 7, 2006
  22. "Syndicator denies Coulter lifted material Archived July 19, 2006, at the Wayback Machine." Sun Herald. July 10, 2006. Retrieved on July 11, 2006.
Works by Ann Coulter
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