Posted on 06/30/2006 12:42:04 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The most amazing thing about Godless is the amount of intellectual meat Ann Coulter has packed into its pages.
Godless: The Church of Liberalism
by Ann Coulter
(Crown Forum, 310 pages, $27.95)
What's most amazing about Ann Coulter's book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, is the amount of intellectual meat she packs into 281 breezy, barb-filled pages. Among the topics the blonde bomb-thrower discusses in some depth are the following: liberal jurisprudence, privacy rights and abortion, Joe Wilson's modest career and inflated ego, and the solid record of failure in American public schools. The topics of Intelligent Design and Darwinism, to which the last eighty pages of text are devoted, are analyzed in even greater detail.
As one would expect from an author with a legal background, Supreme Court cases are high on Coulter's hit-list -- especially the idea of a "living Constitution." Citing various cases-in-point, Coulter shows that this popular doctrine is nothing more than a paralegal pretext for making the Constitution say whatever liberal judges want it to say. Though such a philosophy grants to the nation's founding document all the integrity of a bound and gagged assault victim, it at least has the virtue of mirroring liberals' self-referential view of morality.
Another dogma that Coulter skewers is the liberal commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Punish the Perp." This counterintuitive principle not only rejects the link between incarceration and lower crime rates, it also permits benevolent judges (like Clinton federal court nominee Frederica Massiah-Jackson) to shorten the sentence of child rapists so that other innocent children can pay the price for society's sins.
An unexpected bonus in this chapter is the author's extended sidebar on Upton Sinclair, the muckraking author of Boston who, as his own correspondence shows, knew Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty but chose, for ideological and financial reasons, to portray them as innocent victims. In a related chapter, "The Martyr: Willie Horton," Coulter provides detailed information about Horton's crimes, Michael Dukakis' furlough program, and the precise nature of the Horton ads aired in the 1988 presidential campaign
CONTINUING THE RELIGIOUS IMAGERY, Coulter asserts in chapter five that abortion is the "holiest sacrament" of the "church of liberalism." For women this sacrament secures their "right to have sex with men they don't want to have children with." A corollary of this less-than-exalted principle is the right to suck the brains out of partially born infants. How far liberal politicians will go to safeguard this sacrament whose name must not be spoken (euphemisms are "choice," "reproductive freedom," and "family planning") is shown by an amendment offered by Senator Chuck Schumer that would exclude anti-abortion protestors from bankruptcy protection. How low these same pols will go is illustrated by the character assassination of Judge Charles Pickering -- a man honored by the brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers but slimed by liberals at his confirmation hearing as racially insensitive. Coulter notes that the unspoken reason for this "Borking" of Pickering was the judge's prior criticism of Roe v. Wade.
The single chapter that Coulter's critics have honed in on is the one that exposes the liberal "Doctrine of Infallibility." This religiously resonant phrase applies to individuals who promote the Left's partisan agenda while immunizing themselves from criticism by touting their victim-status. In addition to the 9/11 "Jersey Girls," Coulter identifies Joe Wilson, Cindy Sheehan, Max Cleland, and John Murtha as persons who possess, at least by Maureen Dowd's lights, "absolute moral authority." Curiously, this exalted status isn't accorded victims who don't push liberal agendas. Perhaps the fact that Republican veterans outnumber their Democrat counterparts in Congress, 87 to 62, has something to do with this inconsistency.
Coulter's next chapter, "The Liberal Priesthood: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Teacher," focuses on the partisanship, compensation, and incompetence level of American teachers. A crucial statistic in these pages concerns the "correlation [that exists] between poor student achievement and time spent in U.S. public schools." In this regard, comments by Thomas Sowell and Al Shanker stand out. Sowell notes that college students with low SAT and ACT scores are more likely to major in education and that "teachers who have the lowest scores are the most likely to remain in the profession." From a different perspective, the late President of the American Federation of Teachers stated, with refreshing bluntness, "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children." The words of John Dewey, a founder of America's public education system, also fit nicely into Coulter's state-of-the-classroom address: "You can't make Socialists out of individualists -- children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent." Coulter responds, "You also can't make socialists out of people who can read, which is probably why Democrats think the public schools have nearly achieved Aristotelian perfection."
The last third of Godless focuses on matters scientific. Chapter seven, "The Left's War on Science," serves as an appetizer for Coulter's evolutionary piece de resistance. Prior to that main course, Coulter provides a litany of examples that illustrate the left's contempt for scientific data that doesn't comport with its worldview. Exhibits include the mendacious marketing of AIDS as an equal opportunity disease, the hysterical use of anecdotal evidence to ban silicon breast implants, and the firestorm arising from Lawrence Summers's heretical speculation about male and female brain differences.
THE REMAINING CHAPTERS OF GODLESS all deal with Darwinism. Nowhere else can one find a tart-tongued compendium of information that not only presents a major argument for Intelligent Design but also exposes the blatant dishonesty of "Darwiniacs" who continue to employ evidence (such as the Miller-Urey experiment, Ernst Haeckel's embryo drawings, and the famous peppered moth experiment) that they know is outdated or fraudulent.
Within this bracing analysis, Coulter employs the observations of such biological and philosophical heavyweights as Stephen Gould, Richard Dawkins, Michael Behe, and Karl Popper. The price of the whole book is worth the information contained in these chapters about the statistical improbability of random evolution, the embarrassing absence of "transitional" fossils, and the inquisitorial attitude that prevails among many scientists (and most liberals) when discussing these matters. Unlike biologist Richard Lewontin, who candidly admits that a prior commitment to materialism informs his allegiance to evolution, most of his colleagues (and certainly most of the liberal scribblers Coulter sets on the road to extinction) won't concede that Darwinism is a corollary, rather than a premise, of their godlessness.
Coulter's final chapter serves as a thought-provoking addendum to her searing cross-examination of evolution's star witnesses. "The Aped Crusader" displays the devastating social consequences that have thus far attended Darwinism. From German and American eugenicists (including Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger), to Aryan racists, to the infanticidal musings of Princeton's Peter Singer, Darwinian evolution boasts a political and philosophical heritage that could only be envied by the likes of Charles Manson. Yet it is a history ignored by liberals for whom Darwin's theory provides what they want above all else -- a creation myth that sanctifies their sexual urges, sanctions abortion, and disposes of God.
Coulter's book is clearly not a systematic argument for the idea that liberalism is a godless religion. Indeed, prior to the material on evolution, the concept is treated more as a clever theme for chapter headings than as a serious intellectual proposition. In those final chapters, however, Coulter manages to present a cogent, sustained argument that actually begins to link modern liberalism (or more specifically, leftism) to an atheistic perspective. At the very least Coulter succeeds in raising an important issue -- namely, that American courts currently ignore the religious or quasi-religious character of a philosophy that pervades public institutions and is propagated with public funds. This fact, if honestly recognized, would render contemporary church-state jurisprudence untenable. A Court taking these arguments seriously would have to recognize that all philosophies, including "liberalism," swim in the same intellectual current as religion.
THUS FAR, THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA have focused almost all their attention on Coulter's take-no-prisoners rhetorical style -- and particularly on the "heartless" remarks about those 9/11 widows who seem to be "enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." Clearly, diplomatic language is not Coulter's forte, as one would also gather from this representative zinger: "I don't particularly care if liberals believe in God. In fact, I would be crestfallen to discover any liberals in heaven."
What undercuts the liberals' case against Coulter on this score, however, is their own (not always tacit) endorsement of vile epithets that are regularly directed against President Bush and his supporters by the likes of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and a gaggle of celebrity politicos. Coulter employs the same linguistic standard against liberals (with a touch of humor) that they regularly use (with somber faces and dogmatic conviction) when they accuse conservatives of being racist homophobes who gladly send youngsters to war under false pretences to line the pockets of Halliburton executives. Hate-speech of this stripe is old-hat for leftists.
Until Air America, Helen Thomas, and most Democrat constituencies alter their rhetoric, I see no reason for conservatives to denounce Coulter for using, more truthfully, the same harsh language that leftists have employed, with no regard for accuracy, since the time of Lenin. When liberals denounce communist tyrants as fervently as they do real Nazis, then it will be time for Coulter to cool the rhetoric. Until that time her "verbal reprisals" serve a useful function within an intellectual marketplace that resembles a commodities pit more than a debating society.
Richard Kirk is a freelance writer who lives in Oceanside, California. He is a regular columnist for San Diego's North County Times. His book reviews have also appeared in the American Enterprise Magazine, First Things, and Touchstone.
And I doubt any of them are luddites, which was my point.
The only degrees that count are those in biology (and not all biology degrees at that). Otherwise, it's like taking an auto mechanic's word on nuclear physics.
I have a degree in biology, so your point is? But you said not all degrees at that, so obviously only those with biology degrees you happen to agree with count.
A lot of the evolutionary stuff I was taught in biology (at a Christian college btw) has been recognized as wrong.
Can't you see that evolution is a theory - one of several? I agree its a theory, why can't you acknowledge there are others?
That is close. Real close.
I do not have the time or luxury to be able to spend hours or even minutes watching so called teachers at work. There is a certain element of trust between us all. You know, like a Covenant sort of thing.
Unfortunately, the teachers are coming up short on their part of this bargain. When weighed in the balances they are are seriously found to be wanting from my perspective.
Whatever. You can do the political fellatio with the scholastic frauds if you choose.
As for me and my House,...we shall read books, more, and look at things with our eyes wide open.
You have a degree in biology? Then give us, in your own words, what the theory of evolution actually states.
You don't know jack about the Bible!
The Christian Identity movement. Google it if you don't believe it.
Hoyle's views on Abiogenesis, which Coulter freely conflates with Evolution, were based on faulty initial conditions in his probability calculations. Due to those errors his view lends nothing to the 'doubt' of Abiogenesis or Evolution.
We know far too little about the initial conditions required for the first pre/proto-life to form, how can we possibly produce accurate calculations?
Most Abiogenesis probability calculations are based on a fairly large complex chemical strand of amino acids spontaneously combining in a specific order. It is as if only one possible combination would work. Scientists do not expect that the origin of life was remotely like that - complexity was built up slowly through replication errors. This single point throws Hoyle's calculations out the window. We haven't even considered the number of trials, the number of possible successful combinations of amino acids (both order and length), and the fact that the first trial has roughly the same probability to be successful as the last.
Probability calculations for abiogenesis are meaningless without far more information and a more realistic approach. Even then a posteriori probability calculations in a case such as this are misleading.
Ex. If you were to shuffle a deck of cards, any order you come up with will have a probability of 1.24-68 yet you successfully managed the feat.
Considering Hoyle's opinion in the manner that Coulter did is a logical fallacy in itself, - the appeal to authority. Hoyle was an astronomer and an SF author, he knew very little about biology and the requisite chemistry to make his views worth more than any other layman's.
" Ann didn't endorse the alternative that Hoyle suggested - - she just said that Hoyle's skepticism about evolution shows that evolution is not a proven scientific fact and has some big weaknesses.
Had Coulter been more honest she would have considered Hoyle's doubts in light of the many refutations of Hoyle's work done by chemists and biologists. She failed to do that and presented Hoyle's opinions as the views of an authority on Abiogenesis and Evolution. Hoyle's views are simply wrong and have been refuted many times.
"Wow, your dishonesty in saying that Ann buys Hoyle's alternative - or you weakness with logic -- makes it easier to understand your uncritical support for evolutionary theory; you're not a rigorous thinker
If you are looking for a rigorous thinker why are you reading Ann Coulter?
I know of no supporter of Evolution that gives the SToE uncritical support. Most of us have reached the conclusion that it is a solid set of theories because of critical analysis.
Blindly believing Hoyle's 747 in a junkyard analogy as Coulter does shows a fair bit of uncritical thinking. It indicates a lack of consideration of the chemistry involved, the initial conditions, applicable non-random selection forces, and the number of different combinations that would be considered successful.
From the Christian Identity movement.
I'll make a deal. Y'all stay out of the science class with your bible and I will quit embarrassing you with biblical philosophy.
The biopolymers Hoyle speaks about are not formed by random shuffling. They are formed by the aggregate build up of monomers which are in turn so easily formed that many have been found in space. The first self-replicator which did not have to be what we consider life need not be anywhere near as complex as modern RNA let alone DNA.
Note that I am not saying that we know how life got started, we do not. We have some promising work underway but the evidence for abiogenesis is so far minor and somewhat unconvincing. What I am saying is that Hoyle's opinion on Abiogenesis is ill founded, poorly considered, misleading and overall meaningless.
Before we proceed to the tar pit, just what growing body of scientific evidence supports Coulter's statements in her book?
Please come here to Thailand on vacation so I can laugh in your face. Please.
Please explain how the tissue was soft and what it implies for Evolution, if you would be so kind.
One multi PhD in multi fields who does not hold to evolution is worth how many multi PhDs in multi fields who do hold to evolution?
Care to be more specific? Perhaps mention a few?
Can't you see that evolution is a theory - one of several? I agree its a theory, why can't you acknowledge there are others?
Again, care to list a few alternative theories?
RE: your comments that the Word of God can be disproved, men do make mistakes, but God's Word is infallible.
We could throw links supporting our positions at one another until doomsday. Suffice to say that we each choose to believe what we will.
RE: the matter of each of us relying on faith, these excerpts pretty much express my opinion...
"1. No view, dealing strictly with the concept of origins (which is beyond the purview of empirical investigation) can be classified as “science.” Science is based upon observation, experimentation, etc. From the nature of the case, that which cannot be examined and tested cannot be called “science” legitimately.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the testimony of Dr. Francisco J. Ayala (University of California – Irvine), a supporter of the N.C.S.E., whose name is listed on their letterhead: “A hypothesis is empirical or scientific only if it can be tested by experience….A hypothesis or theory which cannot be, at least in principle, falsified by empirical observations and experiments does not belong to the realm of science” (American Scientist, Nov/Dec, 1974, p. 700; emp. WJ). Evolution, therefore, is not science!"
"2. Many skeptics have conceded that the ideology of “evolution” is very much a faith matter. Dr. Robert Jastrow, Professor of Astronomy and Geology at Columbia University (an agnostic), in discussing the evolutionary view of the spontaneous origin of life on earth has said this: “The [evolutionary view of life’s origin] is also an act of faith. The act of faith consists in assuming that the scientific view of the origin of life is correct, without having concrete evidence to support that belief” (Until the Sun Dies, New York: Warner Books, 1977, p. 52; emp. WJ). Dr. Louis More of Princeton wrote: “The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based upon faith alone…” (The Dogma of Evolution, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1925, p. 160; emp. WJ)."
"Away,then, with this arrogant drivel that evolution is “science,” while belief in creation is just “superstition.”
"Here is an interesting question: Why is it considered “religious” dogma to teach there was a “creation” (which implies a Creator), and yet it is viewed as “science” to assert there was not a “creation” or a “Creator.” If one is a religious view, then why isn’t the other – merely in a negative format? Does logical consistency mean nothing to these people?" (Wayne Jackson @ Christian Courier)
I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED
By: Daniel W. Whittle
I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known,
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
I know not how the Spirit moves,
Convincing us of sin,
Revealing Jesus through the Word,
Creating faith in Him.
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
I know not what of good or ill
May be reserved for me,
Of weary ways or golden days,
Before His face I see.
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
I know not when my Lord may come,
At night or noonday fair,
Nor if I walk the vale with Him,
Or meet Him in the air.
But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
Do you think Buddha lived a moral life or taught a moral code, and let's go with "moral" as defined by you, not Nazis.
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