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Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Godless: The Church of Liberalism

Godless is a nonfiction book by American conservative author Ann Coulter. The book argues that American liberalism is the equivalent of a religion, a state enforced form of faith which has "its own cosmology, its own explanation for why we are here, its own gods, its own clergy. The basic tenet of liberalism is that nature is god and men are monkeys."

Her fifth major work, it was published on June 6, 2006 (06/06/06), a date meant to coincide with the Number of the Beast "666" in The Book of Revelation.

Central thesis

Coulter argues that liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, yet bears all the attributes of a religion itself. Coulter argues that the tenets of the liberal "church" are:

Jersey Girls controversy

In the book, Coulter criticized the Jersey Girls, four 9/11 widows who helped push for the 9/11 Commission and have been critical of US security policies. Coulter wrote "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." She also wrote, "And by the way, 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.... " On the June 6, 2006 broadcast of NBC's The Today Show, Coulter had a contentious interview with host Matt Lauer in which she defended her statements in Godless and accused Lauer of "getting testy" with her. Coulter alleged that the 9/11 widows were part of the "Left's doctrine of infallibility" and that they were using their grief "in order to make a political point while preventing anyone from responding."

On June 7, U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) called Coulter's charge a "vicious, mean-spirited attack." Coulter later responded to Senator Clinton on Sean Hannity's radio show by saying, "Before criticizing others for being 'mean' to women, perhaps Hillary should talk to her husband who was accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick and was groping Kathleen Willey at the very moment Willey's husband was committing suicide."

On June 8, U.S. Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) called Coulter a "hatemonger" on the floor of the House and urged his Republican colleagues to denounce her as well. Later, Tim Roemer, a member of the 9/11 Commission and a former Democratic U.S. Representative, called Coulter's statements "reprehensible and undignified" and urged Americans not to buy her book.

Also on June 8, Coulter appeared at a book signing in Huntington, New York, home of many who died in 9/11, where she was handed a letter stating "Your latest comments deriding the widows of 9/11 are a disgrace to thousands who perished on that day," and that her claim that the women had profited from their husbands' death is a "nauseating misrepresentation of their struggle to keep the memory of what happened that day alive." by Huntington town board member Mark Cuthbertson, who told her "I'm here on behalf of many of my constituents. We are disgusted with your comments." Coulter tore up the letter.

Christianity as it appears in the book

The book begins with a quotation from Christian scripture: "They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the creator.... Therefore, God gave them up to passions of dishonor, for their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature. — Romans 1:25-26"

Coulter also says in a footnote, "Throughout this book, I often refer to Christians and Christianity because I am a Christian and I have a fairly good idea of what they believe, but the term is intended to include anyone who subscribes to the Bible of the God of Abraham, including Jews and others."

She also criticizes the Episcopal Church in her book, saying, "Howard Dean left the Episcopal Church -- which is barely even a church -- because his church, in Montpelier, Vermont, would not cede land for a bike path."

Science and intelligent design

Coulter devotes approximately one-third of the book to polemical attacks on science and evolution, which, in keeping with the religious right, Coulter terms "Darwinism." Admittedly having no background on the science of the subject herself, Coulter says she turned to tutors in writing this section of the book: "I couldn't have written about evolution without the generous tutoring of Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and William Dembski..." Behe, Dembski and Berlinski are all fellows of the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement, which Coulter endorses in the book.

Chapter 8, The Creation Myth: On the Sixth Day, God Created Fruit Flies, advances the book's thesis that liberalism is a religion, this time by attempting to show what she argues is its cosmology. The chapter begins:

"Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor. It's a make-believe story, based on a theory that is a tautology, with no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record—and that's after 150 years of very determined looking. We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God."

Later in the chapter, she presents a fanciful concept - the "Giant Raccoon's Flatulence Theory" - to illustrate what she sees as fallacious arguments of those who espouse the theory of evolution. The "theory" states:

Imagine a giant raccoon passed gas and perhaps the resulting gas might have created the vast variety of life we see on Earth. And if you don't accept the giant raccoon flatulence theory for the origin of life, you must be a fundamentalist Christian nut who believes the Earth is flat.

The imagine, perhaps and might (italicized by Coulter in the book) refer to what she believes is the speculative, mythical, "made-up-story" nature of the modern evolutionary synthesis theory that species evolved through mutation and non-random selection.

Chapter 9, entitled Proof for How the Walkman Evolved into the iPOD by Random Mutation begins:

"Darwiniacs do not have a single observable example of one species evolving into another by the Darwinian mechanism of variation and selection. All they have is a story. It is a story that inspires fanatical devotion from the cult simply because their story excludes a creator. They have seized upon something that looks like progress from primitive life forms to more complex life forms and invented a story to explain how the various categories of animals originated. But animal sequences do not prove that the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection caused the similarities. It is just as likely that the similarities are proof of intelligent design, creationism, or the Giant Raccoon's Flatulence theory. The animal-sequence drawings allegedly demonstrating evolution by showing, for example, a little runt horse gradually becoming a grand stallion, are just that: drawings."

To back her opinion, Coulter refers to examples used in long-standing creationist arguments against evolution, such as Galapagos finches, the peppered moth, Piltdown man, Archaeoraptor, Haeckel's drawings, and the Miller-Urey experiment, presenting them as flawed, discredited, or made-up evidence and stating arguments to support her case. While portraying evolution theory as a "religion," Coulter portrays intelligent design as legitimate science:

"Nor are intelligent design scientists looking at things they can't explain: Quite the opposite. They are looking at things they can explain but which Darwin didn't even know about, like the internal mechanism of the cell, and saying, That wasn't created by natural selection—that required high-tech engineering. By contrast, the evolution cult members look at things they can't explain and say, We can't explain it, but the one thing we do know is that there is no intelligence in the universe. It must have been random chance, or it's not "science.""

The scientific community discounts the allegations, such as Coulter's, that the modern evolutionary synthesis lacks scientific rigor, is based on a tautology, is without experimental or physical proof or that it "disproves God." The claim that modern evolutionary theory lacks rigor is emphatically rejected by the United States National Academy of Sciences which says that evolution is one of the most thoroughly tested and confirmed theories in science. Coulter's assertion that evolution is based on a "tautology" is also widely considered to be baseless, as are her claims that evolution is without proof and is atheistic. The scientific community also views intelligent design not as a valid scientific theory but as pseudoscience or junk science. The National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions and propose no new hypotheses of their own.

Coulter's reliance on controversial sources for science, intelligent design proponents and creationist sources, has prompted critics of the intelligent design movement to analyze her claims. PZ Myers, against Coulter's claim that there is no evidence for evolution, points to the scientific literature that contains hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of articles about various aspects of evolution. He also argues Coulter has it backwards: The issue is not whether there is evidence that supports evolution, but whether there is evidence that is explained by evolution, since 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 and contrary to science.

One of Coulter's primary points is that there is no mention of intelligent design in the public school system. Coulter believes students should have the opportunity to debate scientific design vs intelligent design in a classroom setting, rejecting scientific consensus that intelligent design is not legitimate science and the ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that that intelligent design is not science but is essentially religious in nature. Coulter argues that any challenges to the theory of evolution are immediately disqualified as being based on religious beliefs. Coulter claims this is evidence a of a liberal-left conspiracy to create a generations of atheists taught through the public school system.

Accusations of Plagiarism, Distortions and Falsehoods

Coulter's book has been accused of multiple counts of plagiarism. John Barrie, creator of a popular digital plagiarism-detection software product, apparently found three instances of plagiarism in the book (as well as several instances in her syndicated opinion column). Her book also evidently copied text from the Illinois Right to Life website. On July 7, 2006 the TPM Muckracker provided a "complete" list of examples of plagiarism discovered so far. After an investigation, the president of Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes Coulter's newspaper column, rejected the allegations. Coulter's book publisher characterized the charges as being "as trivial and meritless as they are irresponsible."

Alleged Distortions and Falsehoods

On August 7, 2006 Media Matters for America issued a report claiming Coulter, misrepresented and distorted the statements of her sources, omitted information in those sources that refuted the claims in her book, misrepresented news coverage to allege bias, relied upon outdated and unreliable sources, and invented "facts." According to Media Matters, this analysis was written due to a failure of Crown Publishing Group to review Coulter's work. Several examples of distortions and falsehoods were offered in the report. On August 9, 2006 David Brock appeared on MSNBC to discuss the falsehoods.

References

  1. "Ann Coulter’s new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism is about how Liberalism has literally become a state enforced form of faith." Ann Coulter's Godless Makes the Liberals' Heads Spin With Obfuscation!
  2. In Ann Coulter's latest book, she asserts that "liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as 'religion,'" including a creation mythology (evolution), priests (public school teachers) and a holy sacrament (abortion). CyberCast News Service
  3. ^ Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition. National Academy of Sciences. 1999. Last accessed: 6 July, 2006
  4. Claim CA500: Natural selection, or "survival of the fittest," is tautologous Index to Creationist Claims, edited by Mark Isaak. The TalkOrigins Archive. 2005.
  5. Claim CA202: Evolution has not been, and cannot be, proved. Index to Creationist Claims, edited by Mark Isaak. The TalkOrigins Archive. 2005.
  6. 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent. Theobald, Douglas L. The Talk.Origins Archive. Vers. 2.83. 2004. Last accessed: 6 July, 2006
  7. Claim CA602: Evolution is atheistic. Index to Creationist Claims, edited by Mark Isaak. The TalkOrigins Archive. 2005.
  8. See: 1) List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design 2) Kitzmiller v. Dover page 83. The Discovery Institute's Dissent From Darwin Petition has been signed by about 500 scientists. The AAAS, the largest association of scientists in the U.S., has 120,000 members, and firmly rejects ID. More than 70,000 Australian scientists and educators condemn teaching of intelligent design in school science classes. List of statements from scientific professional organizations on the status intelligent design and other forms of creationism.
  9. National Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science
  10. "Biologists aren’t alarmed by intelligent design’s arrival in Dover and elsewhere because they have all sworn allegiance to atheistic materialism; they’re alarmed because intelligent design is junk science." H. Allen Orr. Annals of Science. New Yorker May 2005.Devolution—Why intelligent design isn't. Also, Robert T. Pennock Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism.
  11. Ann Coulter: No evidence for evolution? PZ Myers. Pharyngula, scienceblogs.com June 18, 2006
  12. Ann Coulter: Clueless Ian Musgrave. The Panda's Thumb, June 18, 2006
  13. Secondary Addiction: Ann Coulter on Evolution Part I Part II James Downard. TalkReason, June 2006.
  14. Ann Coulter's "Flatulent Raccoon Theory" Media Matters Jul 7, 2006
  15. Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, Case No. 04cv2688. December 20, 2005
  16. Copycatty Coulter Pilfers Prose: Pro Philip Recchia. The New York Post, July 2, 2006
  17. In new book, Coulter 'cribs' stem cell list from right-to-life group Ron Brynaert, June 14, 2006
  18. List of Coulter Plagiarism Allegations Justin Rood, July 7, 2006
  19. "Syndicator denies Coulter lifted material." Sun Herald. July 10, 2006. Retrieved on July 11, 2006.
  20. Endnotes in Coulter's latest book rife with distortions and falsehoods Media Matters for America August 7, 2006

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