Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Hardcover)

by Ann Coulter (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
"If a martian landed in America and set out to determine the nation's official state religion, he would have to conclude it is liberalism, while Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law.

Many Americans are outraged by liberal hostility to traditional religion. But as Ann Coulter reveals in this, her most explosive book yet, to focus solely on the Left's attacks on our Judeo-Christian tradition is to miss a larger point: liberalism is a religion—a godless one.

And it is now entrenched as the state religion of this county.

Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, it bears all the attributes of a religion. In Godless, Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us its sacraments (abortion), its holy writ (Roe v. Wade), its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal), its clergy (public school teachers), its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free), its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland), and its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident).

Then, of course, there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

For liberals, evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But Coulter neatly reverses the pretense that liberals are rationalists guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method. She exposes the essential truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: it is bogus science.

Writing with a keen appreciation for genuine science, Coulter reveals that the so-called gaps in the theory of evolution are all there is—Darwinism is nothing but a gap. After 150 years of dedicated searching into the fossil record, evolution's proponents have failed utterly to substantiate its claims. And a long line of supposed evidence, from the infamous Piltdown Man to the "evolving" peppered moths of England, has been exposed as hoaxes. Still, liberals treat those who question evolution as religious heretics and prohibit students from hearing about real science when it contradicts Darwinism. And these are the people who say they want to keep faith out of the classroom?

Liberals' absolute devotion to Darwinism, Coulter shows, has nothing to do with evolution's scientific validity and everything to do with its refusal to admit the possibility of God as a guiding force. They will brook no challenges to the official religion.

Fearlessly confronting the high priests of the Church of Liberalism and ringing with Coulter's razor-sharp wit, Godless is the most important and riveting book yet from one of today's most lively and impassioned conservative voices.


"Liberals love to boast that they are not 'religious,' which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course 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. In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as 'religion.'" —From Godless

About the Author
Ann Coulter is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), Treason, Slander, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors.


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Crown Forum; 4th Printing edition (June 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400054206
• ISBN-13: 978-1400054206
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (950 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #212,276 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3,403 of 4,092 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Republican Jesus wins out, June 7, 2006

By	Gen. JC Christian, patriot (Tremonton, UT United States) - See all my reviews

I've always been a huge fan of Mr. Coulter's. How can you not love someone who calls for the bombing of newspapers, demands the conversion of non-Christians by the sword, and mocks the grieving of Cindy Sheehan for her son and the 911 widows for their husbands. Coulter's popularity is the ultimate proof that America has rejected the old, compassionate, French-minded Jesus of the Beatitudes and adopted the Jesus of Our Leader, a savior who isn't afraid to [...] and slay nations, a redeemer who despises the weak and belittles the grieving.

The logic Coulter employs in "Godless" is impeccable. Liberals, she proclaims, detest science. They ignore the empirically observable truth that God fashioned Eve from Adam's rib while they promote superstitious Darwinism. They deny the science supporting the use of adult stem cells to cure disease because "Liberals just want to kill humans." How can you argue with that?

111 of 146 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Mean Spirited, June 7, 2006

By	!Edwin C. Pauzer (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

In Coulter's latest attack of liberal America she lashes out at public education, democrats, abortion, science, and the "religious beliefs" of liberalism.

Her first hypothesis is that liberals worship secularism and godlessness, hence the title. At the very beginning this charge appears to be absurd when she makes such pronouncements that Judaism and Christianity are virtually the same. (Was someone passing the jug?) With vivid imagination she pens that this church has its own high priests and priestesses.

She spends several chapters on Darwinism and evolution claiming that it is no longer a valid theory because it has gaps. What Coulter won't tell you is that there are gaps in evidence, but the theory has been proven to be factual thousands of times over. This is vintage Coulter being the Pied Piper playing the fundamentalist fiddle satisfying those who believe in Creation, something she doesn't even believe herself.

It is surprising for Ms. Coulter, a graduate of Cornell and the University of Michigan Law School, to present the reader with a false dichotomy i.e. if evolution has gaps, that proves that it is false, and that also proves that intelligent design is accurate. That could only mean this highly educated woman is either uneducated or misleading. Her gift appears to be misdirection and provocation for the illiterate offering fake pearls before swine rather than pearls of wisdom.

But the real low point in this book is her denigration of the New Jersey widows who fought hard to get a 9/11 commission that the administration didn't want, and dragged their feet in establishing. While being in the public eye subjects one to scrutiny or criticism, Coulter resorts to name-calling and offers that they were dupes for liberals, never had it so good since their husbands' deaths, and that their husbands were going to divorce them anyway. She refers to them as the witches of Eastwick.

Such comments are not just low but mean-spirited, and represent a darker side of the human character. It appeals to the worst in all of us. It also lowers the bar of civil political discourse in our society, and increases the political Balkanization of Americans. Maudred of the Round Table would be proud.

A quick search of her footnotes reveals sources that are wanting. Many of them are misquoted or taken out of context. Her statistics are selective to fit her hypotheses or charges.

This book lacks depth. It is to literature what theatrics is to wrestling. Its only redeeming feature is that it is what a liberal might hope a conservative will bring to the debate.

"Godless" is prevarication, inaccurate, and just plain mean-spirited.

59 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A self-described "Liberal," who actually read the book with an open mind, July 19, 2006

By	Junis L. Baldon (Columbus, OH, by way of Upper Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm a liberal, but often I read books by conservative authors such as Robert H. Bork ("Slouching Towards Gomorrah"), Thomas Sowell ("Black Rednecks and White Liberals"; "Economics Politics"; and "Race and Culture: Around the World"), Walter Williams, and Shelby Steele. I jokingly say to my friends, "It's good to know what the enemy's thinking." But on a serious note, some of these more illuminating conservative writers have very good arguments concerning the various political and social problems of the day and arguments, which are grounded in logic, experience, and reason.

That bring us to Ann Coulter's book, "Godless". I read it because of the controversy surrounding the book. I'm a native New Yorker, so it was interesting to read her book coupled with her public comments. In conclusion, I must say that the book is full of witty satirical prose, but the book is very short on arguments. Instead, it delves into ranting, at times, downright hatred of liberals. The arguments are very one-sided, which is disappointing because it seems that Coulter engages in a classic "strawman" argument: setting up the opposition and their positions in the weakest manner possible and then countering them, not with logical arguments: premise, premise, conclusion; but rather straight to conclusions--very outrageous and particularly harsh ones at that. In addition, the number of times she engages in the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem (appeal to ridicule) is unforgivable, particularly for a writer and scholar of her supposed ability and stature (this is the first Coulter book I've read). For the few arguments that may be somewhat logical and convincing, Coulter's ability to jump to dubious universally applicable conclusions based on skewed facts and quotations paired with the unbelievably harsh prose at times, is a real turn-off for a person approaching the book with an open mind or politcally moderate. Further, the book seems to ignore examples that stand contrary to Coulter's standard liberal caricature, as if Coulter casted the liberal ideology accurately and confronted them head-on, the book might have been decent--but I find Coulter's intellectual honesty inherently suspect throughout the book. If one does get this book, I would suggest checking the sources, as I did (particularly concerning the 9/11 widows and the 9/11 commission--I won't supply my findings here, I suggest you read the book and draw your own conclusions), and even the Biblical quotations are skewed and crudely interpreted to imply divine hatred of liberals.

In this book, there is no debunking of a somewhat accurate liberal belief system, with straight analysis and facts, that you might find in Bork, Sowell, Williams, or Steele. While those aforementioned authors can be harsh writiers as well, their analysis is clear and logical. Certainly, Sowell and Steele in particular, made me reconsider and challenge some of the political and social perceptions concerning my race--a mea culpa of sorts (I'm an African-American male). I didn't become greatly more conservative as a result, but those authors added more clarity to the political discourse concerning race in our country. It was a refreshing intellectual experience, and I was well-rewarding for reading those who challenged my preconceived notions of how the world operates. However, if you are looking for such an experience in this "Godless," I would emphatically urge you to look elsewhere. But, if you want to fill your head with at times, nonsensical ranting, unsupported facts, and virulent hatred then read the book. The other conservative authors I listed above, I would recommend you reading instead, regardless of your political ideology. In conclusion, I would simply chalk Coulter's book as another step in the decline of reasonable and civil political discourse in this country.