Though liars and loonies are common features of political talk shows, rarely have I felt so sure as then, that the squeak-toy before me was an impostor. Perhaps even a saboteur! S.E. Cupp stands accused.
Cupp, out with her shiny new book “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity,” claims to be an atheist. What a curious title, then, is ‘Losing OUR Religion,’ considering her professed lack of one. Smell something fishy? I do.
Cupp, out with her shiny new book “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity,” claims to be an atheist. What a curious title, then, is ‘Losing OUR Religion,’ considering her professed lack of one. Smell something fishy? I do.
My suspicion is that by playing at atheism she aims to appear credible and impartial regarding “Christian persecution in the media.”
Of course, one could be an atheist and still write such a book, even if the premise is ridiculous; so the book’s subject is only the warning flare – not the dead giveaway. What betray her are her words - slip-ups that are almost inexplicable as coming from an atheistic perspective. Many of these will be familiar chestnuts for any unbeliever who has debated the faithful.
The remark “I don’t believe in God, but I’m not, like, mad at him… ya’know” is one that would never occur to me. I don’t believe in a god, so I could never be mad at him (nor am I mad at naughty unicorns... to be clear). Oddly, this nonsense is put to me by the religious, in the form of a question, with terrific frequency. The very tired “why are you so mad at God?” Indeed, after the show, Cupp put it exactly this way: “yes, I think it’s nice [religion]. Why are you so mad at God?”
When Maher then asks her to justify the discord in affirming atheism whilst denying that those who believe in God are deluded, Cupp spills over with more specious reasoning.
Maher: “you’re an atheist, so you think people who believe in God are deluded, and yet…”
Cupp: “no, I don’t, I – I totally get the appeal.”
The response betrays her ignorance of the relevant argument first, and of the English language second. The question did not concern itself with whether, as an atheist, she understood the compulsion toward religious belief. It had nothing to do with religion’s appeal. It should have been clear to her, indeed to anyone familiar with this dialectic, that the question concerns the validity of belief itself.
Yet she responds that believers are not deluded, as she has met many smart ones, and because 90 percent of the world believes in God/gods.
Does she not understand that the veracity of a belief is independent of its holder’s intelligence, and likewise concerning the number of believers it claims? If gods do not exist, as Cupp claims to believe, then those who believe otherwise are deluded – they hold to a false or misguided position.
It gets stranger still. Cupp’s Wikipedia bio states that “among her favorite books by other authors are What's So Great About Christianity and Life After Death: the Evidence, both by Dinesh D'Souza, as well as A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories that Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit by former pastor and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.” To say this is strange is to say the very least.
When, in another interview, she was asked to recall what she cherished about religion she predictably cants:
“I loved a lot. I loved the belonging. I’m a consummate fan; whether it’s with the Mets or with a religion, I really like to be a cheerleader, a supporter. I get really into it. I was really turned on by that sense of group identity. You’re one of us.”
Italics mine. In answering a following question, however, she immediately contradicts the affinity for group inherence just described. Warning – reading this quote may cause whiplash:
“In part, I became an atheist [because] I’m not really a big joiner. I didn’t want to leave one club for another.”
Therein lies yet more flagrant evidence of insincerity. The only intellectually honest path to atheism is through lack of belief in God/gods. Whether one is a “joiner” or an independent, lacking a desire for “club” membership is not, we hope, one’s justification for disbelief in a deity (with this quote, perhaps, she reveals a secret vice: one of being contrarian for contrarianism’s sake. A too-powerful vice, it seems, since she is so easily prompted to contradict herself).
You’ll also notice, at the end of the clip, that she has no idea what an allegory is. Those who teach creationism in opposition to evolution do so because they believe it to be the truth. An allegory is a fable, a story told through metaphor to have a symbolic message. As Wikipedia has it, “allegory is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than literal.” Creationists do exactly the opposite in being strict literalists.
I will not be surprised to see the release of her new book, “Seeing the Light: My Journey From Godlessness to God.”
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