Ann Coulter generates a lot of controversy, mostly because she says some really stupid shit but I’m absolutely totally shocked and horrified at the latest kerfuffle she has spawned. But this time, for a change, she was being perfectly reasonable (well except for believing in god) and it is her critics that are totally fucking nuts. So in case you haven’t heard during Coulter’s appearance on The Big Idea with Donny Deustch the interview slipped into talk about religion and the relation between Christianity and Judaism. I recommend you go take a look at the transcript yourself but I’ll excerpt the notable segments here.

DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes. …. DEUTSCH: That isn’t what I said, but you said I should not — we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or –

COULTER: Yeah. …. DEUTSCH: You can’t possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes. ….. DEUTSCH: “Let’s wipe Israel off the earth.” I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn’t really say that, did you?

Amazingly these remarks have generated a huge outraged response. The Anti-Defamation League stated that they, “strongly condemns Ann Coulter for her anti-Semitic comment.” The American Jewish Committee is “outraged” by her remarks and the National Jewish Democratic Council is circulating a petition demanding networks stop inviting Coulter to be a guest on their shows. Even some catholic organizations are getting in on the action with the director of Catholics United being reported as saying, “I’m just dumbfounded that a Christian would even say this in America.” Of course the reactions in the blogosphere make these criticisms seem like high praise. The more sober criticisms merely saying her comments were anti-Semitic while more extreme reactions compared her remarks to Blood Libel. When Don Imus made his clearly faultable¹ remarks people seemed able to maitain a degree of distance but in this case people are taking this thing really personally. The number of people wishing death upon her in blog comments and this digg discussion seems way above normal.

This is totally fucking nuts! Of course it is better for people to believe true things. It would be better if Global warming skeptics realized their error and supported the science and similarly if Jews are mistaken about Christ it would be better for them to realize their error. Now I think believing in Christ or any sort of God is deeply mistaken so naturally I hope that religious Jews realize their error and convert to atheism. The idea this sort of belief makes one an anti-Semite is so absurd I can hardly believe anyone accepts it much less most Jewish organizations and many mainstream Americans. The day when Christians, Jews, and the rest of them become more perfect less severely flawed and finally give up on religion can’t come soon enough.

What should horrify people here is not Coulter’s statements but Deustch’s amazed offense at them (quoted below). I mean the irrationality and total lack of comprehension in the following segment just blew my mind yet he is being held up. Sam Harris is right, religious moderation is fucked up.

DEUTSCH: You said — your exact words were, “Jews need to be perfected.” Those are the words out of your mouth.

COULTER: No, I’m saying that’s what a Christian is.

DEUTSCH: But that’s what you said — don’t you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic –

COULTER: No!

DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You’re an educated woman. How do you not see that?

COULTER: That isn’t hateful at all.

DEUTSCH: But that’s even a scarier thought. OK –

COULTER: No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want you being offended by this. This is what Christians consider themselves, because our testament is the continuation of your testament. You know that. So we think Jews go to heaven. I mean, [Rev. Jerry] Falwell himself said that, but you have to follow laws. Ours is “Christ died for our sins.” We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all.

Below the break I document in detail the fact that Coulter said nothing that isn’t contained in mainstream Christian dogma (and most other religions) and discuss what this means about the nature of religious faith.

So what reasons did these criticisms give for finding these remarks offensive? Well the ADL’s press release says:

Ann Coulter may be a political pundit but she clearly knows very little about religious theology and interfaith issues. Coulter’s remarks are outrageous, offensive and a throwback to the centuries-old teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism. The notion that Jews are religiously inferior or imperfect because they do not accept Christian beliefs was the basis for 2,000 years of church-based anti-Semitism

Well the throwback they likely mean is the pre Vatican II Catholic doctrine that salvation could only be attained through the church. For instance, under this doctrine members of isolated native tribes (and babies dying before baptism) could never attain salvation. Now as one can see in this statement by Pope John Paul II (not Benedict) the church now grants that those who don’t know Christ through no fault of their own can also be saved. John Paul II explicitly remarks that being brought up in another religion is a social barrier to true faith so even Jews, Muslims and members of other faith can still be saved. However, even the relatively ecumenical Pope John Paul II is quite clear about the fact that faith in another religion is a barrier not merely another path to salvation and closeness with God.

In fact, whoever does not know Christ, even through no fault of his own, is in a state of darkness and spiritual hunger, often with negative repercussions at the cultural and moral level. The Church’s missionary work can provide him with the resources for the full development of Christ’s saving grace, by offering full and conscious adherence to the message of faith and active participation in Church life through the sacraments.

While for some reason the Catholics often get shit for being conservative they are actually far more ‘modern’ on this issue than protestant denominations, many of whom are still debating whether or not it is even possible for non-believers to be saved as most of the mainstream denominations subscribe to the notion of salvation through faith alone (often formulated as salvation through faith in Christ alone). There is no doubt in the official dogma of most mainstream christian denominations that faith in Christ is a virtue. In fact except for a few groups like the Unitarian Universalists, the Ba’Hai and some variants of Judaism all religions believe it is both good and important for people to have faith in their religion.

While some christians like this one try really hard (but without knowing enough theology) to square the idea that it isn’t worse for people to believe in other faiths with mainstream Christianity it just isn’t possible. Either it matters what you believe or not. If it is a virtue to believe in the true faith then by definition one is less virtuous for not believing in that faith and if you are less virtuous you are less perfect. Hell, even if you think, in direct conflict with the dogma of salvation by faith and all sermons stressing the importance of faith in Christ, that God doesn’t care what you believe so long as you think your religion is true then other things being equal people would be more perfect if they believed it. Either Christ was the son of God and rose from the dead after being crucified or he wasn’t. Either the Jews are persisting in a false belief or the Christians are deluded. Why wouldn’t it be better for everyone to stop believing false things and all agree on the truth?

The mere fact that other people used similar concerns in the past to justify religious hatred is mostly irrelevant. It perhaps suggests that one shouldn’t bust out with things like, “The Jews are flawed by their lack of faith,” but it can’t be allowed to suppress polite attempts to express reasonable logical consequences of widely believed ideas. It’s just a flat out fact that if Christ was the son of god then people should believe it just like they should believe in facts like global warming. Of course Christ wasn’t so they shouldn’t but the conditional point is clearly valid.

Other than merely repeating their outrage that someone could suggest that America would be better if everyone was a Christian the only other arguments offered were various versions of this one:

It is wrong to think Christians are perfect and Jews are not. It. Is. Wrong. All of us have the same potential for good and evil. It is what you do and how you treat others that counts - not your beliefs

Putting aside the fact that no major Christian denomenation I am aware of solely believes in salvation through works, i.e., faith doesn’t matter, this criticism just gets what was said in the interview totally wrong. Coulter was saying nothing of the kind and her language wasn’t even confusing. Imagine the following exchange between a British prime minister and an American journalist.

PRIME MINISTER: I think there are areas where the US could learn from us as well. For instance in the US even speech inciting people to racial hatred is protected by the first ammendment.

JOURNALIST: Are you suggesting that the first amendment was a mistake?

PRIME MINISTER: No, I want — I just think that your conception of free speech could be perfected.

Does anyone have the slightest difficulty understanding what was meant here? Was the imaginary prime minister claiming that the English laws on free speech were absolutely inerrant? Of course not. The use of the word ‘perfected’ like this communicates the fact that you don’t think that whatever your describing is bad or harmful just that it could be made even better. Anyone who isn’t gripped with outrage at the mere suggestion that it would be good for Jews to convert could easily see that the use of the word ‘perfected’ here is merely an attempt by Coulter to be polite and sensitive not a claim that Christians or even Christianity were perfect.

Now to be fair a few conservative blogs like The Volokh Conspiracy did defend Coulter but many of the others offered half-hearted defenses saying that they knew what she meant but criticizing her choice of language. In other words this is only paritally a partisan dustup, people really really believe this is offensive (but normal Christian beliefs aren’t).

Ultimately this whole episode has finally totally and utterly convinced me of the total irrelevance of reason to most people’s beliefs. I always knew basic religious assumptions were totally unjustified but apparently people can’t even draw basic logical conclusions about what they do believe. If people really believed in their religion in anything like the sense that I believe in global warming, the fact the earth is round, or that welfare is a small fraction of the US budget it wouldn’t even occur to them that it was unreasonable to suggest other people should convert to your faith. But apparently most people approach religion as if it was more like a question of style than a matter of fact. At least this finally explains why some people are actually offended by atheism. They really don’t understand that the atheist is disagreeing with a factual assertion made by religion and not just making meaningless rude noises.