Godless: The Church of Liberalism



Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a 2006 book by right-wing author Ann Coulter, and easily her most infamous. The main thesis of the book is that "Liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe."

What?
"Religion" is defined in many ways, and Ann uses that vagueness to never actually have to defend the thesis of her book. Notice how at no point did Coulter declare that liberalism has its own God or gods, which would actually be required for it to be considered a religion. She does attempt to defend this by saying "Shintoism and Buddhism have no Creator God either, and they are considered religions." However, although those religions don't have any "Creator God" specifically, they still worship theistic deities. Shintoism estimates that there could be an infinite number of gods, and many sects of Buddhism do worship theistic deities.

Coulter claims that liberals are in denial about this, writing "Liberals love to boast that they are not 'religious,' which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion." Historically theocratic civilizations have never had any issue declaring their religiosity. Is Coulter under the impression that Saudi Arabia, where “There is no god but God; Muhammad is the prophet of God," is a slogan on their national flag, hides how religious it is?

It should also be noted that Coulter takes the approach that liberalism and Christianity are inherently at odds. "Liberalism," she claims, "is a comprehensive belief system denying the Christian belief in man's immortal soul." However, this dichotomy is utterly false as many liberals have a belief in God—some of whom Coulter mentions in this very book. For example, the book makes two references to the Reverend Al Sharpton, once to mock him for watching Fahrenheit 9/11 (a film made by Michael Moore, a practicing Catholic ) and once to quote him going after Republicans for being against both abortion and programs that help poor children. (Only the second of which is mentioned in the index of the book, by the way. )

The fact is, despite Ann claiming she has "a very good idea of what [Christians] believe," it seems like she has cherry-picked the most far-right denominations of Christianity out of the over two thousand that exist. For example, Ann writes that this "godless" morality states that "Abortion is the sacrament and Roe v. Wade is Holy Writ." However, this ignores the Christian denominations that are pro-choice in regards to abortion. The Unitarian Universalists, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the United Methodist Church specifically are all more likely to be pro-choice on the topic of abortion than the general population. In the same regard, this statement totally ignores that there are atheists who are pro-life, with Christopher Hitchens serving as an example.

The absolute flimsy nature of this premise can be seen in how little Coulter does to actually justify it past the first chapter. The book does not see Coulter making genuine comparisons between--say, the way the religious treat priests and the way liberals treat public school teachers, it's just her complaining about public school teachers for an entire chapter with the occasional piece of religious jargon thrown it haphazard. The idea that the death penalty doesn't deter criminals "is an article of faith, not a statement of empirical fact" for example. Never mind that we do have empirical evidence that the death penalty doesn't deter crime. Ironically, a better example of an "article of faith" would be Coulter's claim that "there are few better methods of distinguishing the guilty from the innocent than a confession" a statement empirical evidence does fail to prove.

What Do Liberals Worship?
According to Ann, "as a matter of faith, liberals believe: Darwinism is fact, people are born gay, child-molesters can be rehabilitated, recycling is a virtue, and chastity is not." However, one could easily think of several ways many people considered "liberals" violate Ann's assumptions. Take her example of belief in evolution: Nobody would deny William Jennings Bryan was left-wing (he "fused Populist rhetoric and policies with a new Democratic coalition" writes a website dedicated to the famous people of Nebraska ), however he was also an avid creationist to the point of arguing for the prosecution in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. In the same regard, one can think of various conservatives who believe in evolution, such as Charles Krauthammer.

In the same regard as above, both Bill Clinton and Joe Biden are infamous for their "tough on crime" records. (To be fair to Ann, she does acknowledge that "No Democrat ever abandoned the Democrats' position on crime more aggressively than Bill Clinton," but that just raises more questions: Was Clinton not a liberal? If not, then why does Ann write about him so mockingly throughout this book? If so, then is Ann saying that holding an article of faith central to what she claims is the "liberal religion" is not required to actually be a liberal?) Hillary Clinton once wrote "I  think we need to do everything in our power to discourage sexual activity and encourage abstinence." For somebody who writes so much about liberalism, Ann seems to have no idea what those she writes about actually believe.

Evolution
The longest section of this book, taking up four entire chapters, is Ann's attempt to debunk evolution. According to her "Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution," which is rather strange given evolution isn't about "creation," that would be abiogenesis.

Ann's main objection to evolution seems to be that she can't imagine an organism changing the amount required to produce a new species. She writes:

Ann doesn't actually define what a "species" is, let alone what a new one would entail. What mutations would a bacteria have to undergo before it is no longer a bacteria? Ann writes that "Even the evolution fetishists do not claim that a mutating AIDS virus is on its way up the tree of life, soon to be a kangaroo." However, when exactly does a creature become a kangaroo? Ann doesn't answer that, because doing so would quickly cause her to learn she has no idea what she's talking about. Richard Dawkins has made the point that it's near impossible to create an exact cut-off point regarding when one species becomes another, because actually creating a timeline of ancestors shows parents having slightly different children, with the sheer amount of differences between where we started this process and where we left off being the evidence it's a different species. Ann even admits that these small changes are very much possible, but for some reason these changes cumulating over time to create a totally different species is too much.

One of Ann's more absurd claims--and that is saying a lot--is that "If a rapidly mutating bacterium or virus were proof of 'evolution,' then after three billion years of nonstop evolution, the only life forms we would have on Earth would be extremely sturdy bacteria and viruses." This claim isn't so baffling because it's incorrect--in fact, technically speaking, it's not--but more because it shows Ann has no idea what she's talking about. Yes, obviously if the only organism on a planet is bacteria, by definition "nonstop evolution" (as opposed to evolution which turns on and off with the flick of a switch, I guess) would not change that. However, bacteria has only been on this planet for, funnily enough, three billion years. Meanwhile, the Earth has existed for roughly four and a half billion years. The earliest forms of life were microbes, far simpler than even the most basic bacteria which exists today. Obviously expecting bacteria to evolve into any creature which exists today would be absurd, because those creatures split along their evolutionary paths the second bacteria became--well, bacteria. Even an article from 2006, the same year this book came out, acknowledges that "Evolutionary biologists generally agree that humans and other living species are descended from bacterialike ancestors. But before about two billion years ago, human ancestors branched off."

Jersey Girls
The most infamous chapter of this already infamous book is easily chapter five, where Ann takes on "Sobbing hysterical women," or the Jersey Girls, the four women who lost their husbands after 9/11 and became political activists as a result. According to her, "[Liberals] choose only messengers whom we're not allowed to reply to," never mind that she's writing this in a book replying to the arguments of these very people. This was made even dumber by her defending herself on The Tonight Show by saying "Other people have written acerbic remarks about Democrats sending out victims," begging the question of who exactly is being silenced here.

Coulter discussed these comments with Matt Lauer on The Today Show the same day that the book was published, specifically her saying, "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 husband's death so much." Coulter continued to double down on these comments by saying the women were "cutting commercials for Kerry," and said that these women are nothing more than Democratic Party partisans. Of course, when Lauer pointed out that these women had criticized Bill Clinton (whom Ann also claimed they were "cutting commercials for" in an interview with Tucker Carlson ) and the Democrats, Coulter replied, "not the ones I'm talking about." As if there are multiple sets of Jersey Girls out there, some who have criticized Clinton and some who haven't.

Even many of Coulter's friends were unable to defend these comments. Bill O'Reilly said of them:

Critics noted a variety of issues with the attack, both due to how cruel it is, but also because of how nonsensical the point was. As one critic of Coulter pointed out, these statements "would carry a lot more weight if it didn't come from someone who used Paula Jones as a career-ladders rung, flips her blond tresses on TV while proclaiming that her looks give her license to say what others won't, and whines about ad hominem attacks while calling mourners 'self-obsessed.'"

Plagiarism
John Barrie, a professor and creator of a software which detects plagiarism, found three examples of "textbook plagiarism" in Godless. Susan Estrich, in her book Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate, lists five such examples. The specific examples are reprinted below: