On The 700 Club, Coulter Accused Liberals Of "fak[ing] A Belief In God

[Reverend AtheiStar]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200607240008

 

On The 700 Club, Coulter accused liberals of "fak[ing] a belief in God," repeated evolutionary falsehoods

 

Summary: On The 700 Club, Ann Coulter accused liberals of "trying to fake a belief in God" in order to court religious voters and stated that liberals have "admitted they are godless." Further, Coulter and co-host Gordon Robertson repeated many of the false and misleading claims regarding evolutionary theory that appear in Coulter's latest book and have been debunked by Media Matters for America.

 

In an interview on the July 21 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter accused liberals of "trying to fake a belief in God" in order to court religious voters and claimed that by purportedly not challenging the title of her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, June 2006), liberals have "admitted they are godless." Further, Coulter and co-host Gordon Robertson repeated many of the false and misleading claims regarding evolutionary theory that appear in her book and have been debunked by Media Matters for America.

 

In an introductory segment that aired prior to the interview, CBN senior correspondent Paul Strand reported that Coulter, in her new book, asserts that "anti-religious liberalism has actually become, in itself, a religion." Strand went on to note that she "explains how abortion is its sacrament; Roe v. Wade its holy writ; public school teachers its clergy; and Darwinism its liberal creation myth."

 

Robertson conducted the subsequent interview with Coulter, in which he noted that she has "been taking it on the chin" as of late and described the strategy of those criticizing her as "the old, you know, 'If you can't attack the message, go after the messenger and hope to win that way.' "

 

When Robertson remarked that Democrats do not like to be labeled the "godless party," Coulter claimed that liberals have "admitted" that she is correct in labeling them "godless" because liberal criticism of her book has focused on her attacks on 9-11 widows: "I think I would have noticed if somebody called me godless," she said. "But I really haven't heard people protest about that. No, they're upset about what I say about the Jersey Girls. ... So I think we are all on record now: Officially, liberals have admitted they are godless and don't even mind it." Coulter went on to say that Democrats often discuss how to attract the "believer vote," but that "[t]he way to do that ... is to be a believer and not to keep trying to fake a belief in God."

 

Turning to the two chapters in Coulter's book devoted to Darwinism, Robertson marveled at how "effective" her arguments are in disproving the theory of evolution. "I thought I was fairly informed," Robertson said. "But I confess, your book taught me new arguments that I hadn't had in my arsenal before." Coulter described evolutionary theory as a "myth" and part of liberals' "religious faith" and, in the ensuing discussion, repeated several of the "misleading claims, pseudo-scientific arguments, distortions of evolutionary theory, and outright falsehoods" recently debunked at length by Media Matters. These include:

 

Biological evolution cannot explain how the eye was formed.

The "Cambrian explosion" disproves the theory of evolution.

No evidence exists of transitional species.

Robertson joined Coulter in falsely arguing that "there's no fossil record of transitional species," and even repeated her highly misleading claim that the fossil record of bats supports this argument.

 

From the July 21 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club:

 

ROBERTSON: Well, last year, Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean called Republicans a white, Christian party. Our next guest says many liberals have embraced yet another religion entirely. Paul Strand explains.

 

[begin video clip]

 

STRAND: By the time the 1992 Democratic Convention rolled around, when broken down by religion, the largest block of delegates was not religious at all, and identified themselves as --

 

GERAULD DE MAIO: Seculars, self-identified seculars. Defined as atheist, agnostics, and those with no religious preference.

 

STRAND: Social scientist Gerauld de Maio and Louis Bolce have been tracking this trend. Turns out, in every presidential election since 1992, about 70 to 80 percent of the secular liberals vote for the Democratic candidate. And what de Maio and Bolce say the media miss is how many of the Democrats, secularists, and liberals have come to actually loathe religious conservatives. For instance in 2000:

 

LOUIS BOLCE: Thirty-five percent of Gore's, Al Gore's total vote among whites came from people who intensely dislike evangelical Christians.

 

STRAND: Ann Coulter's new book Godless looks at how this contempt for people of God, and especially all they believe in, has taken secularists and liberals to an ironic place. Their anti-religious liberalism has actually become, in itself, a religion. Coulter explains how abortion is its sacrament; Roe v. Wade its holy writ; public school teachers its clergy; and Darwinism its liberal creation myth.

 

[end video clip]

 

ROBERTSON: Well, Ann Coulter joins us now live from New York to talk about her new book, Godless. Ann, you've been taking it on the chin, here. I thought we sort of had the corner on the market for being beat up by the press. But you seem to have taken your own lumps lately. How do you feel about all that?

 

COULTER: Happy to deflect some of the heat from you.

 

ROBERTSON: Well, I guess -- come on in, the water is warm.

 

COULTER: Well, as you know, we kind of think it's macho as Christians, since it was predicted we would be hated.

 

ROBERTSON: You've taken a strong stand for your faith in this book. You know, are you saying that's the reason that there seems to be -- I mean, there seems to be a lot of venom directed your way these days?

 

COULTER: Yes, yes. But like I say, Christians think that is macho.

 

ROBERTSON: All right, well, you seem to be able to take it. The Democrats these days seem to be taking a lot of steps to try to open themselves up to Christians. They don't like the label, "the godless party." You know, Howard Dean has made some missteps in his efforts. [sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL] seems to be doing well with it. What do you think of their efforts so far?

 

COULTER: Well, first of all, I do want to point out that they really haven't complained about the title of my book. I think I would have noticed if somebody called me godless. But I really haven't heard people protest about that. No, they're upset about what I say about the Jersey Girls. But, oh, yeah, OK, we're all godless. So I think we all are on record now, officially liberals have admitted they are godless and don't even mind it. Maybe they are saying who-less. And as for their attempts to win believers over, they know they need the votes of Christians and you always hear them talking about how, "Gosh, how do we get the believer vote?" The way to do that I think is to be a believer and not to keep trying to fake a belief in God. Their results have not been very impressive in the past, as when Howard Dean was running for president and proposed to reporters, you know, "Let's talk religion," and one of the reporters asked him to name his favorite part of the New Testament, and he cited the Book of Job. So they really got to start placing the Book of Job in the correct testament to appeal to actual believers, I suspect.

 

ROBERTSON: You spend a lot of time on Darwinism in your book, and I think that's one of the reasons you're getting so much heat here is how effective your arguments are. I thought I was fairly informed. But I confess, your book has taught me some new arguments here that I hadn't had in my arsenal before. And I congratulate you for it. I think your book is a tour de force. It's something I recommend to everyone to read.

 

COULTER: Thank you. And by the way, they haven't argued with me directly on that either. I mean, the left really hates me. But no one seems to want to argue about the Darwinism. I mean, it's exactly like my defense of Joe McCarthy a couple of books back in Treason. Liberals build up this 50-year myth on Joe McCarthy in one case, on Darwinism in the other. And you know, I come along and say it's all a crock, and no one wants to argue back. If you read a single paragraph from my book in the Darwin chapters in a public school, the teacher would be fired -- would be banned from ever teaching again. But I go on -- it's about a third, a quarter of the book -- and no one wants to argue directly about it because it is a myth. It is part of their religious faith. There is no evidence for it -- not the evidence Darwin expected to find. It is what scientists refer to as a pseudoscience. There is nothing they will accept to disprove Darwin's theory. It's like tarot-card reading.

 

ROBERTSON: But isn't that why you are getting attacked? It's the old, you know, "If you can't attack the message, go after the messenger, and hope to win that way."

 

COULTER: I suspect that is part of it because Darwinism is obviously very important to liberals. They bring lawsuits whenever anyone mentions in a high school biology class, for example, the Cambrian explosion, where every animal, phyla appear in the blink of an eye -- no evolutionary process -- there it is, including the eye by the way, which they've never figured out how the eye could have evolved by natural mutation -- random mutation, and natural selection. Well, there it is -- the fossil record disproves it. But we can't mention the Cambrian explosion or the Chinese fossil bed that appeared before that. I mean, what you see over and over again with species is not the gradual change from one species to another, or even to create an all-new, novel biological form. You see a species appearing fully formed, minor adaptations for whatever it is -- a hundred million years -- and then poof, totally disappearing. Almost like there was a flood or something.

 

ROBERTSON: You're right. On a scientific basis, there's no fossil record of what transitional species or even transitional -- you know, how did we get a bat wing? There is no pre-bat wings in the fossil record.

 

COULTER: Right.

 

ROBERTSON: And we just seem to ignore that, conveniently.

 

COULTER: Well, they have little stories about how a bear fell into the ocean and became a whale. But we don't have the actual bear and the whale. And also, since they often play a sophistical game with this, they have species that could, in theory, be a transition between one animal and another. But as I say in the book, this is like saying, you know, Elton John looks like Janet Reno. Therefore Elton John gave birth to Janet Reno. They can't prove the descendent relationship. All they can do is find an odd-looking duck that looks like another duck. And in fact, the ones they have maintained were transitional species -- because other fossils will appear that disprove it -- tend to fall away. What you ought to have under the theory of random mutation and natural selection is a whole lot of transitional species or animals, far more than you have of the final product. In fact, there really never is a final product because we're always moving on to something better. You know, humans ought to be sprouting new wings and tails as we speak.

 

ROBERTSON: And you also, I will, I've got -- they are telling me we're out of time. I will end on this. You also point out, very cogently, that if same-sex beings tried to mate under natural selection, they should be automatically eliminated from the gene pool.

 

COULTER: That's right.

 

ROBERTSON: Yeah.

 

COULTER: Fortunately, the religion of liberalism believes in miracles, so they can hold together completely contradictory beliefs at one time.

 

ROBERTSON: So you can be biologically born that way, but at the same time the genetic code seems to indicate you would be automatically selected away --

 

COULTER: Right.

 

ROBERTSON: -- in the survival of the fittest just for the mere fact you do not reproduce.

 

COULTER: That's right.

 

ROBERTSON: Anyway, Ann, wonderful book again, thanks for being with us. If you need friends while you're being beat on, just, you know where to call.

 

COULTER: Thank you, great to be here.

[Legion]

Coulter has gone completely over the top with this book IMO.

 

I am reluctant to admit it, but whenever I hear someone dismiss ToE I become dismissive of their critical thinking skills. It seems almost like denial to me.

 

I wish that Ann Coulter could better appreciate the grandeur of what has taken place here on Earth.

[LosingMyReligion]

Wow, she's just as dumb as Pat Robertson. I didn't think that was possible.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Coulter has gone completely over the top with this book IMO.

 

I am reluctant to admit it, but whenever I hear someone dismiss ToE I become dismissive of their critical thinking skills. It seems almost like denial to me.

 

I wish that Ann Coulter could better appreciate the grandeur of what has taken place here on Earth.

 

Yeah, those are definitley lacking in her head! If you notice, she speaks in sweeping generalities -- the same type of thinking that morons like the the Klan use. It shows a very limited intellect as black and white is much simpler than billions of shades of gray. It's no wonder she can't comprehend evolution.

 

Wow, she's just as dumb as Pat Robertson. I didn't think that was possible.

 

Her, Pat and Gordo(n) seem to be the best of buddies. It makes sense. They both love lying, scamming and sucking the money right out of the wallets of believers. With so much in common, how couldn't they be friends?

[Japedo]

 

In an interview on the July 21 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter accused liberals of "trying to fake a belief in God" in order to court religious voters and claimed that by purportedly not challenging the title of her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, June 2006), liberals have "admitted they are godless."

 

 

By her line of thinking, She must really be a Shim because she/he never disputed it or proved otherwise publicly.

 

Ann is a propagandist hateful has-been. She and her opinion matter to me about as much as Robertsons

[Reverend AtheiStar]

By her line of thinking, She must really be a Shim because she/he never disputed it or proved otherwise publicly.

 

Ann is a propagandist hateful has-been. She and her opinion matter to me about as much as Robertsons

 

lol... Good point! I believe it. Have you seen her monkeyish hands? Wow! I'm thinking shim had her "adam's apple" done. I have to wonder, though, are the pork and beans still around or has it been slit, gutted and turned inside out?

 

Well, her opinion matters not because we believer he/she, but rather because her moronic flock does. We have to deal with what her zombies repeat from her.

[Jubilant]

IMHO, Christianity would best be debunked by using other religions, not evolutionary science. I've yet to see a Christian TV show go into how other religions believe that the world was formed, they have practically zero training in apologetics concerning creation arguments outside of evolution, from what I haven't seen that is. If someone was bold enough to ask that wench, "Prove that it was Christian God that created the world" she wouldn't know how to argue it.

[Warrior_of_god]

I didnt know how much I hated her until about 2 days ago. She was on Hardball and was being interviewed by the liberal host. All she did was insult people. The host kept asking her why she would say that the wives of the men who died on 9/11 had bad and if that was fair to say marriges and the bitch actually sat there and defended her using that in her book. Thats just wrong. Then they had some Q and A with the audience. One woman came up and asked her something about the Iraq war and Ann responded: "Well anyone who can think can see thats not true, so obviously you cant think." Or something like that. I just really wanted that woman to walk over and strangle Ann with her own hair.

[Japedo]

I am telling you, the best way to beat her is not give a heated response. If people must ask her questions, do it in a nonthreatening way, preferably with a smile, and then let her go bananas ripping their heads off and then make sure there is video of that and make her look like a fool and then turn it against her. You must understand, you cannot allow her to frame the debate. The more angry you appear at her the more you fall into the trap she has set for you.

-----------------------

 

You have the right idea, except ask the question in such a way as to say to Ms. Coulter, "gee,...could you give an example as to how the Christian view of creation is better than the Hindu version." Then she will step back and try to adhominem attack. What you do is simply smile and lower the voice and say something to the effect, "well, I know Christianity is the majority religion and has it's views but does the Hindu not have his?"

 

It must be asked without warning and with a sweet as sugar smile. Essentially, she must be put on the spot.

 

The chances of anyone on this board asking Mr/Ms Coulter a question directly or what ever is extremely remote. I don't really understand what you're getting at with this post on advice of how to talk to Ann? She/He is a hate mongerer and it doesn't really matter what the tone or phrasing, if it's from a Liberal standpoint Coulter will rip into the person in her stark raving, foaming at the mouth Anti-American Anti-God heathen you don't matter anyway response. Giving points on how to talk to an irrational person rationally is moot IMO.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

IMHO, Christianity would best be debunked by using other religions, not evolutionary science. I've yet to see a Christian TV show go into how other religions believe that the world was formed, they have practically zero training in apologetics concerning creation arguments outside of evolution, from what I haven't seen that is. If someone was bold enough to ask that wench, "Prove that it was Christian God that created the world" she wouldn't know how to argue it.

 

I do that all the time. You're right, they get so confused! Their little heads start spinning and their eyes roll back in their head! In the following essay I spell out the basics of the attack:

 

http://www.reverendatheistar.com/proving_a_negative1.htm

 

Now we come to my all time favorite collection of evidences against the existence of gods and goddesses. These are amazing and indispensable! I call any one of these an Argument from Polytheism. They just seem to fit so well into every argument I have with theists. They comprise many of which I would consider classic Atheist responses. For example, if a Christian was to accuse an Atheist, and they do this often, of hating their god what you can come back with is that they hate, basically, any other god or goddess. This serves as a trap because what you'll usually get back is that that god doesn't exist. Now you've exposed their Atheism and you can begin to show their hypocrisy. That's when the fun begins!

 

Anyway, here's the jist of the argument. If there exists a god, or gods and goddesses, then why is there so much disagreement in every area? Why can't they agree how many gods there are? Why do they have radically different versions of our universes' creation? Why are there so many different explanations dealing with the origin of the life on our planet and the appearance of our species? Why can't they agree on what the afterlife is or if it exists, at all? The following examples will illustrate just how much they disagree!

 

Hinduism teaches that there are many gods and goddesses -- hundreds of millions, in fact! Fortunately for the worshipper, though, there are only several hundred popular deities. Some of these include Vishnu, the Protector, Brahma, the Creator, and Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and learning.

 

Their creation hypothesis states that in the beginning there was nothing in the universe but Lord Vishnu laying on his serpent, named Shesha, resting. When this god awoke from sleeping, a lotus plant grew out of his navel and a flower blossomed from it. From this another god was born -- the god of creation, Brahma. This god, right after he was born apparently, started to create the universe inside a little golden egg called the Hiranyaagarbha, or the golden womb.

 

The afterlife, by Hindu belief, is something that varies depending on what your karma, or the total effect of your actions and conduct, looks like. If you have bad karma then you will be reborn, or reincarnated, over and over until you get it right. During this process, if you have to be reincarnated, the goal is to go up in castes, or social levels in society. When you finally do attain perfect karma, you will be in a place of happiness with the gods for eternity.

 

The Egyptians believed there were many gods and goddesses, as well.

 

Their creation hypothesis starts out with only Nun existing, the primal ocean of chaos. Out of this ocean came Ra, the sun god, who gave birth to Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture. Tefnut, in turn, gave birth to Geb, the earth god, and Nut, the sky goddess. The physical universe now existed. Men were created, oddly enough, out of Ra's tears.

 

Their afterlife was only to be reached after completing a treacherous journey which included monsters, poison-spitting snakes, fire and boiling lakes. Apparently, even though you were dead, you could be killed again, this time for good. If you survived all the dangers there that meant you had made it to the Hall of Two Truths. Here your heart was weighed on a scale against the Feather of Truth -- this feather containing everything bad you had done in your life. If your heart outweighed it, then Osiris, Anubis and Thoth, the gods judging the weighing, let you pass and onto Yaru you went. If the feather was heavier, then your heart was tossed into the waiting mouth of the Devourer, a beast that was part crocodile, part hippopotamus and part lion. At this point, just like the previous scenario, you were dead for good.

 

Norse mythology also states there are many gods and goddesses. Some of these include Odin, the king of the gods, Aegir, god of the ocean, and Hel, the goddess of the underworld.

 

Their creation hypothesis begins with Ginnungagap, also called the "yawning void." It was a great limitless space of nothingness and it went on for infinity in all directions. At some point, it isn't specified, there came to exist a world. This world was a world of fire with everything, even the air, being engulfed in a constant, scorching blaze. It's name was Muspell and it's name meant 'Home of the Destroyers of the World." It was only the fire giants that later inhabited this region. There came to be another world shortly after this one. It was called Nifleheim and it was the exact opposite of Muspell. It was cold and covered in ice and snow. A dense fog could be seen everywhere and there were vast forests that stretched as far as the eye could see. In this land there was also a great fountain named Elivagar and out of this bubbled a poisonous scum that formed black ice glaciers. Eventually these two areas that inhabited the yawning void, after growing larger and larger, met for the first time. When fire met ice there was a great explosion and the fire from this explosion changed the scum into a giant named Ymir. There appeared a giant cow from which Ymir nursed. This cow also licked an icy continent and from this a god appeared. His name was Buri. To make a very long story short, Ymir had descendents and so did Buri. These descendents and Ymir had a giant fight and Ymir was killed. Odin, Vili and Ve, his killers, dragged his body to the middle of Ginnungagap. His blood formed all the bodies of water on earth. The rest of his corpse was used to make the mountains, hills, trees, and beaches and everything else on our planet -- except the clouds. They were made of his brains! For the sky they threw his skull cap up in the air and had four dwarves hold it up forever. Their names, Nordi, Sudri, Austri and Westri. The first humans were made from driftwood that Odin breathed into and were named Ask (Ash) and Embla (Elm).

 

The Norse afterlife was different for whatever the person happened to be in Viking society. It all depended on which god or goddess chose you. If you were a warrior and died a heroic death your soul would be carried by the Valkyries, beautiful flying maidens, to Odin's Valhalla and were served, by the same beautiful female beings, meat and mead, or medieval beer. Also, if they were to fight in this hall, and they did, their wounds would heal overnight, no matter how severe. If you were a sailor and died at sea then you would go to Aegir's hall which was at the bottom of the ocean. Or if you simply died of sickness or old age then your soul would be under the control of the Goddess Hel. You could be sent to Eljudnir, her hall, if you were good, or Nifleheim if you were bad.

 

Christians, the Trinitarian variety, believe in four gods but like to pretend they only believe in one. These gods include Yahweh, the all-powerful king of the gods, Jesus, prince of the gods, the Holy Spirit, the messenger god, and Satan, the god of the underworld. They get away with claiming to be monotheistic by saying that the first three are one and the last is not a deity, at all. Their assertion is, of course, not supported biblically and shows a lack of understanding of mythology.

 

Their creation hypothesis takes place over the period of six days with Yahweh creating the universe out of nothing and then proceeding to populate the new world, Earth, with life. In one version man and woman are created at once. In another, the man, Adam, is first created and placed in the Garden of Eden. Then, after a short period, Yahweh takes one of Adam's ribs and makes an incestual bride with which they are to populate the entire Earth.

 

The Christian afterlife is typically divided into two eternal spheres: heaven and hell. Heaven is supposed to be a place of happiness in the clouds and is a place of reward for the believer that has met certain criteria and follow certain rules during their lifetime. Hell is supposed to be a place of anguish and torment that is located inside the Earth. The believer who did not meet the above criteria and broke the rules is to come here. Believers of all the previous faiths and indeed every other faith that ever existed, by their mythology, end up there, as well. This includes those who don't have a faith, Atheists.

 

Muslims believe in one god and call him Allah. This does not translate to the word "god," but is rather his personal name. Their god is differentiated from other gods by the curious fact that it is forbidden to assign him a human form. To do so is considered blasphemy. If they were to, though, he'd be just like all the other gods and look like the race that created him. Perhaps this is why Mohammad chose to make that a sin. He didn't want his deity's popularity being limited by appearance.

 

Their creation hypothesis is virtually identical to Judeo/Christian set forth in the Old Testament with the only differences appearing in the wording. Allah makes the world in six days, but didn't get tired. Apparently Mohammad realized that an omnipotent god wouldn't get weary, ever! The first humans, Adam and Eve were made out of clay. And the similarities go on and on. This is, of course, because Islam evolved out of these two religions several hundred years after the invention of Christianity and so absorbed much from these two dominant forces.

 

Can all these contradictory creation accounts be reconciled with each other? Can their gods and goddesses? Furthermore, how can one determine what would be the right combination or correct religion out of the thousands? After sampling but a few of the world's huge pantheon the absurdity of such a task becomes painfully obvious. The only logical conclusion is that they are all false as they are all man-made.

 

Our ancestors, in different cultures, in different times, under different influences came to totally different conclusions about how to explain the world around them and how it came to be. Using their imaginations, they dreamt up these fanciful anthropomorphized beings to fill the void of knowledge they were so desperate to fill.

 

It has only been in modern times that science has answered enough of the questions of existence to satisfy our hunger and all but vanquish the gods of the gaps. I have confidence, though, that the constant march of scientific progress will eventually eradicate any gaps that remain and finish the job that started so long ago when the struggle first began.

[Guest aldous]

My favorite counter to people who fitz about the incomplete fossil record is that 'Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence.' And, yes, that's a good point Jubilant, since we have to prove everything now indisputably and categorically, where's her proof that god created the earth? jeeeebus.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

My favorite counter to people who fitz about the incomplete fossil record is that 'Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence.' And, yes, that's a good point Jubilant, since we have to prove everything now indisputably and categorically, where's her proof that god created the earth? jeeeebus.

 

She has none -- at least nothing to those who actually want something more than a book of mythology to point to. All she has is half-assed negative argumentation that does more harm than good to her cause. It just screams, loud and clear: I know almost nothing about evolution! But then, again, of course, neither does her flock! lol... Ignorance attracts yet more ignorance.