Godless: The Church of Liberalism

Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a book by deranged conservative columnist Ann Coulter, published in 2006. The book is focuses are American liberalism, slandering it with notions such as "anti-science," "faith-based," and replaces the God of the Bible with myths and theories.

This article will provide a side-by-side analysis of this book. While this book does contain many political points, it is laced with misinformation regarding scientific facts and observable reality. While RationalWiki does keep a close eye on Conservapedia, RW will focus more on fact checking for this book.

Content

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter tries to argue that liberalism is a form of religion. She tries to argue that the following are tenets of liberalism, Creation myths (the theory of evolution) Sacraments - Coulter compares abortion to "virgin sacrifice" Holy Writ (Roe v. Wade) Martyrs (from Alger Hiss to Mumia Abu Jamal) Clergy (public school teachers) Place of worship (government schools, where Coulter claims that prayer is prohibited but condoms are free) Doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokespeople from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland) Cosmology (The Big Bang Theory, by which Coulter concludes that mankind is an inconsequential accident) Throughout the book, Coulter provides quotes and arguments for intelligent design and dedicates about one-third of the book attacking the theory of evolution (which she calls "Darwinism") and those who support it (calling them cult members).

Setting the record straight right now: liberalism is not a religion any more than conservatism is a religion. Liberalism is a political philosophy, a belief in progress over tradition. It does not have any universal or set beliefs in any of the above that Coulter included. Liberals are free to hold any various beliefs as they see fit, just like conservatives. While we will not provide the same fallacious argument as conservatism is a religion (that will make us no better than Coulter), we will just explain why liberalism cannot be a religion based on Coutler's arguments. The theory of evolution does not explain the origin of the earth, galaxy, life, universe, etc. Coulter fails here. That is just sick. By this logic, the Civil Rights Acts and the abolishment of slavery are holy writs. However, none of them (including Roe v. Wade) are "holy"; rather, they are Constitutional. Roe v. Wade passed to defend a women's rights and freedom, that is the bottom line. It seems Coulter is not always in favor of defending the Constitution and what the United States was founded upon. Martyrs do not make ideologies "religions." This is simply ridiculous. Places of worship imply worship. Coulter cannot name a single instance where the Liberal Party decides at a certain time a year to gather at all local or specific public schools to worship squat, much less regard the teachers as agents for the metaphysical. As any liberal will tell you, no human is infallible (unless they themselves are religious, but they only credit infallibility to actual holy men). What does this have to do with religions? Not to mention Coulter is completely wrong regarding how the Big Bang came to be.

Chapter 1: On the 7th Day, God rested and Liberal schemed

This chapter begins with a Bible verse Romans 1:25-26. Coulter 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."

"I have a fairly good idea of what they believe" we seriously doubt that. Is Coulter even aware that there are over 30,000 different denominations in Christianity alone? Does she know of the beliefs of those who believe in the Bible, but think that John the Baptist was the actual messiah?

Coulter claims liberals love to say they are not religious, equating it to people who support state-sanctioned religion, and states that liberalism is a religion. She says it has its own worldview, saints, explanations for the universe, beliefs in the supernatural, churches, priests, and such. She goes on to say liberalism is being indoctrinated to school children.Liberalism beliefs, according to Coulter, are less provable than Noah's Ark. These liberal beliefs (which are based on 'faith') are the following: "Darwinism" is a fact, people are born gay, recycling is a virtue, child molesters can be rehabilitated, and chastity is not a virtue. Coulter says if any of these are challenged, liberals get as violent as Islamic extremists.

Okay, lets work down the list, starting with the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is NOT based on faith, rather it has mountains of evidence to support it and has not been proven wrong for the past 150 years. The topic of whether people are born gay is presented with facts gathered by qualified intelligent men in their specific field; not faith based data scribbled onto paper by superstitious desert goat-herders. What does Coulter prefer over recycling? Toxic chemicals released into the soil and air (thus causing diseases and mass death)? Does she like the sight of mountains of treasure in her backyard, a local stream, or market? Or would she prefer to ship all that garbage to a third-world country to damage the health of those inhabitants? What seems to skip Coulter's mind is that among the top child molesters of the present are clergy men. The Freedom From Religion Foundation keeps a very detailed log on such crimes performed by holy men called the "Black Collar Crimes." Chastity is a individual's choice, and that is fine. What Coulter may be referring to is abstinence. The problem is that abstinence programs are simply not effective. One study found that teen “virginity pledges” postpone intercourse for eighteen months on average—while, in the meantime, these virgin teens were more likely than their peers to engage in oral and anal sex. American teenagers engages in about as much sex as teenagers in the rest of the developed world, but American girls are four to five times more likely to become pregnant, to have a baby, or to get an abortion. Young Americans are also far more likely to be infected by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The rate of gonorrhea among American teens is seventy times higher than it is among their peers in France and in the Netherlands. It seems when simple facts that speak for themselves is presented in schools, conservatives like Coulter get annoyed when people see the reality that conservative fantasies are completely incorrect.

Coulter says while liberalism is the nation's state religion while Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law. Liberalism hates science, denies the Christian belief in the immortal soul and the Bible's notion of domain and progress. She says that liberalism is in direct opposite of Biblical concepts.

This is simply mind-numbingly stupid. Christianity and Judaism prohibited by law? The world Coulter lives in is anybody's guess. All it takes is a simple observation around you, or even a bad understanding of history, to know this is not true. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and all religions are protected under the Constitution. Anyone is free to believe what they wish, there is no national or state endorsed religion. There is something called "separation of church and state." If liberals hate science, why is it they promote science and keep religion out of science classes (like creationism and intelligent design)?

Chapter 2: The Passion of the Liberal: Thou Shalt Not Punish the Perp

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter claims former President Bill Clinton turned down an offer from the Sudanese government to hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States in 1996.

Apparently this is a long refuted story. Her endnotes quoted two articles from October 2001, one from the Associated Press and one from The Guardian. However, as the portions Coulter quoted in her endnote indicated, neither article in any way lent support to her claim that Clinton rejected an offer from Sudan to turn over bin Laden.

Chapter 3: The Martyr: Willie Horton

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter addresses the mainstream media attention on George H.W. Bush during his 1988 presidential campaign against former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, and the vast majority of the media turned ugly.

Coulter names three articles and provides citations, however these sources are not articles they are opinion pieces. As for the ugly reference, she provides no references and it is blatantly false.

Chapter 4: The Holiest Sacrament: Abortion

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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In this chapter, Coulter attacks Democrats, labeling them "pro-abortion zealots." She addresses the cost and funds the Democrats raise for abortion clinics "They need the money. In 2004, pro-abortion groups gave over $1.4 million in hard money to candidates for national office -- more than twice as much as did pro-life groups. Emily's List is a political fundraising group that gives money only to female candidates who support abortion. In 2004, Emily's List raised $34 million. By comparison, the National Right to Life Committee raised only about $1.7 million."

Coulter's citation was from a 2004 letter to the editor from former Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt writing to the Chicago Tribune.

Chapter 5: Liberals' Doctrine of Infallibility: Sobbing Hysterical Women

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter blames the terrorist attack on the Clinton administration, because the administration destroyed evidence uncovered by Able Danger, a now-defunct military intelligence unit that some congressional Republicans have claimed -- without evidence -- identified Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as a terrorist over a year before the attacks occurred. Coulter wrote, "Able Danger wasn't "historically significant" in the sense that the intelligence gathered by this operation did not stop the 9/11 attack. It could not have prevented the attack, because the information produced by Able Danger was destroyed by the Clinton administration."

Coulter's source for this claim was a February 16 Washington Times article, titled: "Probe fails to find pre-9/11 Atta data." The article, however, merely noted that Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), one of the congressional Republicans baselessly claiming that Able Danger had identified Atta, "has said the Clinton administration destroyed Able Danger documents, shut down the program and prevented intelligence officers from sharing the information with the FBI."

Chapter 6: The Liberal Priesthood: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Teacher

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter states that "Teachers in the private sector earn about 60 percent less than public school teachers."

The source Coulter cited -- "Fringe Benefits" -- actually found that, "Starting pay in private schools begins at 78 percent that of public schools, rises to 92 percent of public school pay by a teacher's 12th year, and declines thereafter." Where Coulter got 60 percent less (which suggests 40 percent of) is unclear.

Chapter 7: The Left's War on Science: Burning Books to Advance "Science"

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter attacked "liberals" who would "foist" sex education topics such as "anal sex, oral sex, fisting, dental dams, [and] 'birthing games'" on kindergarteners. Her source was an article from Times published on November 8, 1987.

The Times article cited by Coulter, titled "At Dartmouth, A Helping Candor," (subscription required) was about the sex education programs available to adult students at Dartmouth -- not children in kindergarten. Not only is the article about adult students, but it is from November 1987, close to 20 years old -- hardly what would be considered to be relevant information on current sex education policies.

Near the end of the chapter, Coulter address stem cells. She briefly mentions a report, "Michael Fumento wrote about Hwang Mi-soon, the South Korean woman who began to walk again thanks to adult stem cells, there was no mention of it in any document on Nexis."

There are 47 articles, 36 of which, mentioning Hwang's newfound ability to walk, were published prior to October 20, 2005. The first article to appear in the Nexis database about Hwang is a November 28, 2004, Agence France Presse article titled, "Paralyzed woman walks again after stem cell therapy" -- published almost one full year before Fumento's column. CBS News ran a segment on Hwang on the CBS Evening News on December 1, 2004. Additionally, Coulter must have known her claims were false, because her first reference to Hwang annotated a Korea Times article, "Stem Cell Research May Be Money Game," published on July 8, 2005 -- almost three and a half months before Fumento's column.

Chapter 8: The Creation Myth: On the Sixth Day God created Fruit Flies

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter writes, Although God believers don't need evolution to be false, atheists need evolution to be true. William Provine, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell University, calls Darwinism the greatest engine of atheism devised by man. His fellow Darwin disciple, Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, famously said, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."1 This is why there is a mass panic on the left whenever someone mentions the vast and accumulating evidence against evolution.

The Washington Post articles Coulter cited are actually one article by Michael Powell, with the headline, "Doubting Rationalist," accompanied by the subhead, " 'Intelligent Design' Proponent Phillip Johnson, and "How He Came to Be." But nowhere in the article will one find the Dawkins quote Coulter cited. Atheism does not require evolution to be true, which is proven by the fact some atheists do not accept evolution at all. Coulter falsely attributed the quote, "[t]he probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd," to Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA's double-helix structure, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1962; however, the quote actually belongs to Fred Hoyle, a British mathematician and astronomer.

Chapter 9: Proof for How the Walkman Evolved into the iPod by Random Mutation

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter begins this chapter with "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." Coulter mocks phylogeny and states that we have no idea if a particular animal descended from another (calling it all guesswork). She says the progress of evolution is not due to mutation or natural selection (accidents as she calls it), but careful intelligent design.

This is blatantly not true, scientists have observed and documented hundreds of species evolving into a new species, a process called speciation. Again, Coulter is blatantly false regarding phylogeny. There is massive evidence for phylogeny. Finally, Coulter does not provide any case at all to prove intelligent design (in fact no has). Coutler's claims here are baseless and wishful thinking.

Coulter provides a well known quote mine of Stephen J. Gould about the lack of transitional fossils.

Coulter straw mans whale evolution, saying that "evolutionists" claim a whale evolved when a bear fell into the ocean.

Evolution does not say that an animal suddenly becomes a new species when stumbling upon a new environment. A few instances Darwin was off, to which Darwin admitted he was wrong. Just two years after penning his bear-to-whale tale, Darwin lamented to a friend (letter to James Lamont, February 25, 1861), “It is laughable how often I have been attacked and misrepresented about this bear.” However, Darwin's bear-to-whale fable turns out not to be far off, in the sense that science has revealed that whales did indeed evolved from land animals. As the famous biologist, Stephen J. Gould revealed in an article and paleontologist Kevin Padian proved in the famous Kitzmiller v. Dover case

Coulter presents the following evolution "hoaxes" Galapagos finches the peppered moth Piltdown Man Archaeoraptor Haeckel's drawings the Miller-Urey experiment Coulter states the all the above are flawed, discredited, or made-up evidence and stating arguments to support her case.

Okay, we will put to rest each off these arguments that have already been refuted long ago. Neither Darwin's finches or the peppered moths are flawed or discredited or made-up. There are all authentic and have massive evidence for each. As for Piltdown man, there was no way to adequately examine such things back in 1915. Chemical tests –common today- didn’t yet exist and we didn’t yet have a practical understanding of radiation. And before the first australopiths were discovered, we didn’t know exactly what to expect of the links that were then still missing between humans and the other apes known at that time. But as we began filling in the gaps in human evolution with thousands of legitimate fossils, a pattern emerged which left Piltdown an increasingly obvious anomaly. Consequently it was taken off display and stored away almost continuously for decades. It lost importance in most discussions because, in light of everything else we discovered over the next few decades, it just never fit, and was eventually dismissed from the list of potential human ancestors for that reason. As the years wore on, criticism arose against everyone who ever promoted the Piltdown collection because there seemed to be so much wrong with it. Finally, in the 1950s, it was taken back out of the box and scrutinized via more modern means. First fluorine dating revealed that it was much too recent, and it was shown to have been chemically-treated to give a false impression of its age and mineral composition. Then it was finally determined that the jaw must have come from an orangutan, and that it had been deliberately reshaped with modern tools in a well-crafted and deliberate forgery. No one knows who did it either. And more importantly, why? Errors were already known and previously reported, but few ever suspected fraud because, what would be the motive? Nearly everyone who stood accused was a man of high reputation and credentials. Maybe that was the motive. Maybe Piltdown man was just a joke that had gone too far. But no one was laughing, and they weren’t going to let it happen again. Archaeoraptor, only a handful of scientists ever saw Archaeoraptor, but every one who did noted that it was composite piece, and the artistic amateurs who paid for the fossil were repeatedly warned that some parts of it might not even belong to the whole. Popular press foolishly scooped the story prior to peer review, where it was instantly exposed as a fake by multiple experts, and each submission to scientific journals was immediately rejected. Archaeoraptor therefore fooled no one in the scientific community at all. The irony there is that the tail of the alleged Archaeoraptor turned out to belong to the as-yet undiscovered Microraptor, a four-winged and apparently gliding feathered dinosaur which turned out to be even more compelling proof of avian evolution from dinosaurs than Archaeopteryx was in Darwin’s day. The scientific process of peer-review seeks out and exposes fraud by design. But antievolutionist arguments are withheld from peer-review because they are driven entirely by frauds including misstatements, out-of-context quote-mining, and contrived or distorted falsehoods, and terms erroneously redefined into instigative reactionary nonsense unintelligible as anything other than propaganda. In short, if creationists knew how to expose a fraud, they wouldn’t be creationists anymore. Ernst Haeckel was a pioneer zoologist and taxonomist whose numerous contributions to biology go largely unnoticed compared to a couple rather odd errors. First, he proposed that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", suggesting that embryonic development reflects the organism’s evolutionary ancestry. To illustrate this, he produced about a hundred drawings of embryos at various stages. But he later admitted that about a half-dozen of them were ‘falsified’ due to a lack of visual references. The fact that any of his drawings were admittedly without reference has disgraced Haeckel’s name in the annals of science. Darwin wrote that embryology contained compelling evidence of evolution. Creationists dismiss this on the assumption that Darwin’s theory was inspired by Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings, and that consequently, evolution is a fraud. But of course the truth is the other way around. Darwin referred to real embryos; Haeckel’s drawings didn’t even exist until years after Darwin’s final publication. What is especially sad about Haeckel’s “embellishments” was that they were unnecessary. Creationists adamantly complain that textbooks referred to his admittedly inaccurate drawings for so long. But for some reason, they continue to accuse those authors of fraud even when those books replace the drawings with microphotographs which still indicate those same evolutionary parallels which Haeckel envisioned. Now his original assumption that embryonic development would indicate adult species in an organism’s ancestral history was proven false by 1910. But the fact Darwin recognized, that embryology does provide testable confirmations and predictions of phylogeny was already evident before Haeckel ever picked up his pencil, and has recently began a new embryological study known as “evo devo”. Among other discoveries, this field revealed the evolutionary origin of the feather, as implied by transitional stages in the fossil record, and summarized in the formation of feathers in developing chickens. It is no hoax that mammalian embryos temporarily have pharyngeal pouches, which are morphologically indistinguishable from the gill slits in modern fish embryos, and that the divergence of development from there matches what is indicated in the fossil record. This is fact, not fraud. And none of these facts should be true unless evolution were true also. Finally, the Miller-Urey experiment still remains authentic, which first revealed the fact that organic molecules form naturally in all sorts of environments. We know from the Urey/Miller experiment and other discoveries, that even the nucleotides required for genetic structure also form naturally even in the hostile environments we should expect of the pre-biotic earth. We also know through repeatable experiments how these can combine in the right common medium into polynucleotides and so on.

Coulter addresses the Cambrian Explosion, specifically the Chengjiang fossils of the Cambrian period. Coulter quoted a New York Times article, "Spectacular Fossils Record Early Riot of Creation," as stating that the fossils appeared "as though they were just planted there."

The phrase, "as though they were just planted there," appears nowhere in the Times article.

Chapter 10: The Scientific Method for Stoning and Burning

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter says that the victories of "Darwiniacs" is not in science but in rhetoric, convincing anyone who questions evolution does so out of "religious fervor." Coulter repeats the argument that accepting evolution is possible with belief in God. Coulter replies "Yes, and it is possible to believe in Spiderman and believe in God, but that doesn't prove Spiderman is true."

Coulter then, using a quote froma Times article, that the ID proponents of the Discovery Institute are not fundamental Christians. Coulter blames the liberal media for making "dazzling distincts" between types of Muslims (fundamental Osama bin Laden and seculaar Saddam Hussein). Coulter claims that the liberal media has given design proponents a false image. She says ID proponents are not snake handlers while speaking in tongues, rather they are "real scientists——biochemists, astrophysicists, chemists, and mathematicians." Coulter quotes Michael Behe, who claimed that intelligent design has been around since Aristotle. Coulter then goes on giving the credentials of William Dembski

Coulter tries to boost Dembski's image with his achievements to make him look impressive. However, such a tactic does not give Dembski's views and models and credulity. Interestingly, coulter does not try to do the same for Michael Behe. All the major scientific societies in the United States have issued statements supporting evolution and rejecting intelligent design. Behe’s own department at Leigh University has put it as well as any: "The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and the recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experiments, and findings that can be replicated by others. The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of “intelligent design.” While we respect Prof. Behe’s right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that the intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."

Ann Coulter writes, In an article in the New York Times on intelligent design, the design proponents quoted in the article keep rattling off serious, scientific arguments -- from [Michael J.] Behe's examples in molecular biology to [William] Dembski's mathematical formulas and statistical models. The Times reporter, who was clearly not trying to make the evolutionists sound retarded, was forced to keep describing the evolutionists' entire retort to these arguments as: Others disagree. That's it. No explanation, no specifics, just "others disagree." The high priests of evolution have not only forgotten how to do science, they've lost the ability to formulate a coherent counterargument.

The New York Times article Coulter cited -- "In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash" -- appeared on August 22, 2005, as Part 2 of a three-part series on the debate over the teaching of evolution. Coulter's claim that the article's author, reporter Kenneth Chang, offered "[n]o explanations" and "no specifics" from the proponents of evolution is flat-out false. Chang offered detailed explanations of how evolutionary mechanisms gave rise to blood-clotting systems, modern whales, and speciation among birds on the Galapagos Islands ("Darwin's finches"). Chang also noted: "Darwin's theory ... has over the last century yielded so many solid findings that no mainstream biologist today doubts its basic tenets, though they may argue about particulars." Finally, and most egregiously, the phrase "others disagree" appears nowhere in the article.

Chapter 11: The Aped Crusader

Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism

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Coulter begins this chapter with a Bible verse, Romans 1:21-23. "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things."

Basically, Coulter is quoting scripture to make the statement that everyone knows there is a god and we are without excuse. This does not prove God any more than the Primordial Covenant in Islam proves Allah (7:172-174: "When thy Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam -from their loins- their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves, (saying): "Am I not your Lord (Who cherishes and sustains you)?" They said: "Yea! We do testify!: (This), lest ye should say on the Day of Judgment: "Of this we were never mindful;" or lest ye should say: Our fathers before us took false gods.) In other words: Allah created our souls before we took human flesh at birth, and we testified in his presense that he did create us and we know it, and we cannot claim ignorance of this when we die. It is common for religions to include a system that links all human beings as being created by a specific creator and humans are without excuse, such as "thetans" in Scientology.

Coulter claims that even without any evidence, evolutionary scientists rush foreward with it anyway "to their main point, which is that God does not exist." Coulter even admits that it is possible to accept evolution and believe in God. Coulter mentions Daniel Dennett who says that religion can be studied and cancer, and he wants to know why man "craves" for belief in God. Coulter mockingly asks Dennett to prove people's "craving" to believe in natural selection? Later on, Coulter says that in Dennett's book, Breaking the Spell, Dennett attacks religion in a malevolent manner. "It seems the miracle mechanism of natural selection has fallen down on the job if it failed to eliminate this harmful mutation [faith and religion]." After Coulter repeats Dennett's scientific claim that prayer is useless, she claims that evolution eats through logic.

Evolution, and science in general, does not comment on the supernatural. Couler admits accepting evolution is compatible with belief in god. For decades those behind the creationism movement have tried very hard to portray the illusion that one cannot accept evolution and still believe in God. They know better, but they still want you to believe that evolution is atheistic, and that it is either evolution without God, or God creating without evolution. That’s been their central claim since the creationism movement began. But this supposed controversy never was about whether or not there is a god. Most people believe there is a god, and they believe he is in control of all the seemingly-random events of our lives. This is true of most of the people who accept evolution also. Most of them believe in God as well, and they believe that God is in control of evolution; that evolution, like every other system in nature, is part of God’s design. Of the couple hundred different, and often violently-conflicting denominations of Christianity, the largest of them by far is Catholicism followed by Orthodoxy. Both of these have stated support of evolution and denounced creationism. Pope Benedict recently described evolution as an “enriching reality” and described creationist contests against it as “absurd”. Both of the popes before him advised Christians ‘round the world to consider evolution to be “more than an hypothesis” and not to fear acceptance of that as being any challenge to their faith in Christ. The early pioneers of evolutionary science were all initially Christian, (including Darwin) and many leading proponents of modern evolutionary science are still Christian today. For example, microbiologist Dr. Ken Miller, (who testified against intelligent design creationism in Kitzmiller v. Dover) -is a Catholic. Another outspoken proponent of evolution, Dr. Robert T. Bakker, (who has PhDs from both Harvard and Yale) is not only one of the leading, and most recognizable paleontologists in the world today, but he also happens to be a Bible-believing Pentecostal preacher; though he interprets Genesis differently than literalists would. In his book, Bones, Bibles and Creation, he says that to treat the Bible as though it were common history is to degrade its eternal meaning. One of the earliest geneticists, Theodosius Dobzhansky was an Orthodox Christian who many times professed his belief that life was created by God, but that nothing in biology made sense except in light of evolution. All these men agree that even if there really is a god, and even if that god is the Christian god, and even if that god created the universe and everything in it, -which they all believe- evolution would still be at least mostly true, and creationism would still be completely wrong. Evolution does not "eat through logic" no more than atom theory. Creationism on the other hand does, simply due to the fact that it invokes magic and argues that certain myths actually took place (when we know that none of them ever did). Coulter did not provide any counter-argument, data, or proof in favor of prayer. And finally, people to not "crave" to believe in natural selection. Rather, the cravings for truth reveals the observable and testable fact of natural selection. Similarly the search for truth reveals many facts that fly in the face of religions in general, but yet certain people refuse to give up faith. Despite accepting observable reality they would rather believe certain fantasy, and this is the question Dennett wants to answer.

Coulter says that "Darwiniacs" have faith in "some biological mutation process that dictates a consistent set of beliefs and faiths." Coulter concludes that consciousness was not the result of evolution (or as she says, random mutation), and the main thing that separates us from the other animals is morality, language, mathematics, art, beauty, music, love, longings for immortality, a sense of symmetry, the souls ascent, the ability to accessorize, and such——to Coulter, none of this can be explained by evolution.

Unfortunately for Coulter, several explanations do exist, it should be noted that in science, one theory is not meant to explain everything. Gravity does not explain any of what Coulter listed, but she does not express any doubt towards gravity.

To Coulter, the Bible creation story gives a simpler and better explanation, and we must be the result of special creation in God's image. Coulter also mentions that no matter which religion you follow, if it teaches that man is separate from the other animals then according to Coulter, "you are with God." Coulter portrays evolutionary scientists as dogmatic that will still believe we descended from an ape-like ancestor regardless if the evidence says otherwise simply because evolution allows them to ignore God. So the evolutionary scientists will claim anything proves evolution (from good traits, bad traits, drinking poison, to discounts at Macy's). This is a flat out lie. There is no "evidence" against common descent, in fact all the evidence favors common descent. Coulter says Darwin is liberal's god, but this is simply slander. Coulter then tries to portray Hitler as an evolutionist. According to Coulter, Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, is written in Darwinistic terms. She claims that Darwinism leads to eugenics, abortion, racism, infanticide, genocide, Soviet gulags, and Nazism. Her source is intelligent design proponent Richard Weikart and his book From Darwin to Hitler. In it, there is a quote from Darwin addressing the rise of these deeds in Germany. The quote says "The support which I receive from Germany is my chief ground for hoping that our views will ultimately prevail." Coulter portrays Darwin as perfectly fine with eugenics (a term coined by Darwin's own half-cousin) and actually supported it.

Darwin never supported eugenics nor does his theory permit it. Eugenics is based on genetic principles that are independent of evolution. It is just as compatible with creationism, and in fact at least one young-earth creationist (William J. Tinkle) advocated eugenics and selective human breeding. Many eugenics arguments, such as the expected effect of selective sterilization and the results of interracial mating, are based on bad biology. Better biology education, including the teaching of evolution, can only counter the assumptions on which eugenics is based. As for Hitler, the only time he ever mentioned Darwin was to diss and bash him and his theory. The first edition of Mein Kampf suggests that Hitler may once have believed in a young earth: "this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men." The Nazi Party in general rejected Darwinism and supported Christianity. In 1935, Die Bücherei, the official Nazi journal for lending libraries, published a list of guidelines of works to reject, including: "Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (Häckel)." As for the other evil deeds, any morals derived from evolution would have to recognize the fact that humans have evolved to be social animals. For instance, evolution teaches that we are all the same, and thus evolution refutes racism. Creationism, on the other hand, while not inherently racist has been used to justify racism. A more important point, all of Coulters points about the "evils" of evolution does not matter on the science and evidence of evolution. Coulter then quotes Hitler mentioning the words "evolution" and "struggle", but in the context of it Hitler meant change. Change was what he was aiming for, and struggle was inevitable. Coulter says that Hitler hated Christianity, because it filled the peoples heads with "helping the weak and infirm." If this last part was true, then have Christians throughout history encouraged racism and burning children for crimes of witchcraft.

Coulter jumps to Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, as a believer in Darwin eugenics to promote her "religion of birth control." However, Coulter notes that Hitler was anti-abortion and anti-homosexual. To Coulter, Hitler's "family values" is confusing, since Darwinism gave him an excuse to be pro-abortion. However, Coulter and Weikart claim that Hitler was only anti-abortion towards "White Aryans." At the end of the chapter, Coulter claims that "truth is truth whether we like it or not. While secularists are constantly comparing conservative Christians to Nazis, somehow it is always the godless doing the genocides. By their fruits ye shall know them."

What a mouthful. First of all, the first claim is correct. Truth, but as this review shows (as well as hundreds of other documented reports) that Coulter is far from honest and the content of these pages contains almost no truth at all. Secularists do not have to compare conservative Christians to Nazi, they were Nazis! And that absolute statement, that it is always the godless committing genocide, all one has to do is look to men like Christopher Colombus, Pope Urban, Vlad the Impaler, The Ku Klux Klan, Kamini Debbarma of the NLFT(a Christian terrorist group in India), Hernán Cortés (and many other conquistadors), and Joseph Kony (leader of the Lord's Resistance Army). None of these men were godless, neither was Hitler. Christians are more than capable of committing atrocities, but for Coulter to push it all on atheists is extremely dishonest and shameful.

Accusations of plagiarism and distortions

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.

On August 7, 2006, Media Matters for America claimed that 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."

External Links

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