Ann Coulter's "Today Show" Interview and religion

I must respond to Ann Coulter's interview on The Today Show this morning.

Ann Coulter does NOT represent the views of all conservatives or Christians. As a politically-conservative Christian, I very much resented how she represented those two groups of which I am a member.

Ms. Coulter's book (which I have not read, though I intend to) appears to be wrong even from the title. From what she said in the interview, how she said it, and how she named her book, she appears to be a political conservative (though NOT a Christian) trying to incite the large Christian base of the Republican party into a frenzy over whatever claims she makes in her book. What's sad is that she either doesn't know or doesn't care how much her own desperation is hurting her cause and that of those she claims to represent.

There IS a religion for Christians to be aware of, however, though Ms. Coulter misses it completely. I am sure that there are many well-meaning, sincere, and faithful Christians who vote on the left side of the aisle. I harbor them no grudge. I am also CERTAIN that there are many political conservatives who are as godless as can be.

And this brings me to the religion that Christians need to be aware of. Philosophers would (these days) call it "scientific naturalism". Preachers would call it "godlessness" (as I will in this post).

Godlessness is every bit as much a religion as Christianity. But to back that statement up, I'd better define the term "religion." A religion starts from a fundamental assumption. Someone who adheres to a particular religion makes at some point a decision to believe or accept the religion's fundamental assumption. This decision is made apart from any evidence pro or con. Those who believe in a religion will often expend considerable time, money, and effort to convert others to their religion. Most of these resources are spent trying to "prove" the fundamental assumption of the religion. But for some people (regardless of religion), the effort to "convert" is more of a jihad than anything else. These extremists consider as enemies those who do not accept their religion.

Now let's compare Christianity and Godlessness. The fundamental assumption for Christianity is that the Bible is true, and that God created everything we see and set it in order. The fundamental assumption for Godlessness is that God does not really exist, and that everything we see can be explained by the interaction of time, laws of nature, and random chance.

The Intelligent Design "movement" seeks to prove the fundamental assumption of Christianity. However their approach has two fatal flaws. First, they're trying to prove a decidedly metaphysical statement through physical evidence. Second, they're trying to prove something (the existence of God) while vigorously disclaiming any knowledge of the implications (the rest of Christianity).

The scientific community at large has the same fundamental flaws, however. They're trying to prove through physical evidence that God does NOT exist, which suffers the additional logical problem of proving a negative. They're also trying to support through evidence, research, and experiments a decidedly religious statement ("God does not exist") while emphatically denying that they support any religion at all.

I do not appreciate Ms. Coulter's representation of Christian conservatives. And I believe that she is wrong on several of her main points. But I appreciate her raising awareness that there IS a religion that's permeating the courts and lecture halls without acknowledging itself as a religion. I just wish she had correctly identified it, and been more tactful in drawing attention to it.