Coulter: We want 'Jews to be perfected'
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter.
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Conservative commentator and best-selling author Ann Coulter may find herself in the midst of a controversy for comments Monday suggesting America would be better if everyone was Christian.
Asked by CNBC host Donny Deutsch what the U.S. looks like in her dreams, Coulter said it would look like the Republican National Convention in 2004
"People were happy,” she said, according to a transcript provided to CNN by CNBC. “They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America." (Video: Watch Coulter's comments on CNBC)
When Deutsch responded, "It would be better if we were all Christian?" Coulter said "Yeah."
Deutsch, himself Jewish, continued to press Coulter on her remarks, asking, "We should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians then?"
"Yeah," Coulter responded, adding "Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track."
"You can't possibly believe that," Deutsch responded. “You can’t possibly. You’re too educated.”
"Do you know what Christianity is?" Coulter replied. "See, we believe your religion, but you have to obey. We have the fast track program."
Later in the interview Deutsch asked Coulter if she doesn't want any Jews in the world, Coulter responded, "No, we think - we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say."
"Wow, you didn't really say that, did you," Deutsch said.
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"Yeah, no,” Coulter replied. “That’s what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners."
Deutsch said he was personally offended.
"No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be," she said. "I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to live up to all the laws. What Christians believe - this is just a statement of what the New Testament is - is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don't believe our testament."
Deutsch continued to call Coulter's comments anti-semetic.
"No, no, - I don't want you being offended by this," she responded. "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, [the late 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."
soundoff (2,797 Responses)
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"Only, unlike many of today's celebrities who like to shock and get attention, she leaves her panties on."
Apparently, you've never worked with her...
To: Brenda
From: Christina
Here's the bottom line: When someone asks you a fairly direct question, ("It would be better if we were all Christian?") it is hard to respond with a "careless yeah."
I will say this: High fives for Brenda and anyone else who could sift through the unintelligible muck that came from Ms. Coulter's mouth. I had to read this article twice before I realized she was "trying" to engage in some sort of dialogue about her "beliefs"
The bottom, BOTTOM line: Ann Coulter is inarticulate and arrogant .
Thank God for Ann Coulter, I wonder if her remarks were scripted by the Democratic National Comittee. Keep up the good work, Annie. The more you say the more likely we will take all three branches in the coming election. Could you go work for Giuliani, please? This red cat wants to give you all the rope you desire.
I cannot believe that such an educated woman could be so close-minded. She’s an attention-craving moron who says anything to get in the headlines.
Coulter is the perfect example of a fundamentalist Christian (and far right-winger) who believes that her ideology is supreme. I’m not calling her a terrorist, but Islamic fundamentalists have the same idea of religious superiority. Muslims believe that Islam is a continuation of the Jewish and Christian religions (just as Coulter stated that Christianity is a continuation of Judaism). So the question I pose to Coulter is this: If Christians have the right to call themselves “perfected Jews,” should Muslims have the right to call Islam the world’s supreme religion, in essence, “perfected Christians?”
That being said, Coulter will never stop saying things that offend people. This is her nature. Her cruel personality and her career thrive from it. She will always be around to say something shocking and controversial – we’re just going to have to deal with it.
Let me see ... Don Imus got fired for his racial comments but Ann Coulter walks off without consequences because she said "No offense." What is wrong with this picture?
Ann Coulter is a bigoted, close minded dangerous person. While she is certainly entitled to her political and religous beliefs (as archaic and unintelligent as they may be) but I can't believe a national television network would continue to permit her to spew her venom and ignorance on a public forum without any repercussions.
If and when Ann Coulter becomes pregnant, we will know that the anti-christ has arrived. Her party is anything but tolerant.
Coulter is playing the conservatives like the trolls they are. She has a new book out and needs some publicity. Any marketing schmuck knows that it doesn't matter if it is good or bad publicity.
Conservatives will flock to stores to buy her book and will agree with her venom.
Coulter will laugh her way to the bank.
This scenario will be repeated in six month or so ... and six month after that. When will the news outlets realize that Ann Coulter is just not relevant, except to lazy reporters?
As for Jesus, here is what some eminent scholars tell us.:
Rudolf Bultmann: "The character of Jesus, the clear picture of his personality and life, has faded beyond recognition. I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing concerning his life and personality, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary..."
Ernst Käsemann: "One is overwhelmed by how little [of the accounts of Jesus in the New Testament] can be called authentic...the historical figure of Jesus is traceable only in a few words of the Sermon on the Mount, the conflict with the Pharisees, a number of parables and some further narratives."
Günther Bornekamm: "The attempt to reconstruct an original draft of the Gospel according to Mark is a hopeless undertaking..."
While more recent New Testament research sounds less depressing-especially with recent developments in New Testament scholarship in the United States-modern experts in general have gradually come to believe that no more than fifteen percent of the words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament are his actual words. The rest have been attributed to him by generations of theologians and scribes.
In other words, the New Testament was not written by eyewitnesses. Rather, the four gospels gradually evolved, reflecting views of various Christian communities that existed from the time when the Gospel of Mark was written, around 70 AD.
The last gospel, the Gospel of John (125 AD), is now regarded as the least authentic because of its exaggerated Christological and Gnostic tendencies. Bultmann considers the Gospel of John a Tendenz Roman (i.e., tendentious literature).
As for the gospels of Matthew and Luke, written shortly after Mark’s (c. 80-85 AD), it is widely agreed upon that both drew on Mark for their plots.
Regarding the virtually identical instructional material in Matthew and Luke that is not in Mark, scholars have assumed that the authors of both similar gospels drew upon a common source, logia, labeled ‘Q’ (from the German word Quelle meaning "source"). Q is said to comprise written or oral sayings of Jesus that might have been in circulation around the time of the composition of the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke).
This assumption in its most basic form is called the Two Sources Theory. It has gained considerable support with the emergence of the Gospel of Thomas (Nag Hammadi Codex, discovered in Egypt, 1945), which indeed turned out to be a Gospel of Jesus' sayings-the existence of the genre of a gospel of sayings thus being demonstrated.
None of the Gospels were written in Israel. All of them reflect the understanding of the evolving Christian communities in the various geographical locations they represent.
Hence at the heart of the argument is the idea that the Gospel stories that we have all known, loved, eagerly recited and reposed our faith in- from the manger in Bethlehem to the crucifixion at Golgotha and beyond, to the resurrection and ascent to heaven- rather than representing the Jesus of history are actually proclamations of the Jesus of faith: What Christian communities outside Israel had come to believe about Jesus after 70 AD.
Along these lines, it is quite certain that neither Jesus nor his disciples had any idea of him being the awaited Messiah, the Christ, God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, or the savior bringing mankind salvation through his self-sacrifice at Calvary.
Even the Last Supper- first recorded in Paul’s letters ("For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me...’" (1 Corinthians 11:23-27)-even this might very well not be what those who actually physically associated with Jesus received (i.e., Peter, John and the rest of his disciples. John Dominic Crossan says the Didache, a second century document of the Jewish-Christian community–discovered in 1873 by Philotheos Bryennios–says nothing about such an event. In other words, the immediate followers of Jesus were not Christians. Nor was Jesus one.
With much of Christianity’s most essential theological concepts being called into question- Soteriology (Jesus as the suffering savior) as much as Christology (Jesus as the divine second person of the Trinity)- Christianity is facing a major doctrinal crisis.
And, oddly enough, an incredible opportunity for revival...
Provided it could free itself from its superficial theological constructs that since the days of Paul have been superimposed and grafted onto the simple and perfect teachings of the Jesus of history.
Christianity has yet to discover the transcendental dimensions of God consciousness (or Krishna consciousness) possessed by Jesus, its founder, who declared: "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘It is here,’ or ‘It is there.’ The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21).
yo mam pasyati sarvatra
sarvam ca mayi pasyati
tasyaham na pranasyami
sa ca me na pranasyati
"For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost, nor is he ever lost to Me" (Bhagavad-gita 6.30).
Christianity has not begun its transcendental task.
I can’t figure out how so many of the people who have responded to this article can still hold onto the fallacy that IS religion. The notion that some invisible being created the world in 6 days, including us (in his own image), is so absurd that it hardly warrants any commentary from me. Your perspective on the real world is obviously so distorted that to try and express some kind of ration reason to you is futile.
Religion gets its moral foundation, rules, and laws from the morality that we, as living beings, innately possess; it’s NOT the other way around! Religion provides a very attractive fantasy that, when we die we go to the “perfect” place if we’re obedient, but go to the “evil” place if we’re not. Personally, I choose to be obedient to the laws derived from rational human thought; not irrational dogma.
If I were to tell you, for instance, that your child stole a candy bar from the store, or that your teenage daughter was smoking pot, you would require some additional evidence before you believed me. These situations are very common and quite believable, given that they occur so often in the world, yet you would still require some additional evidence before you would believe me. However, when someone tells you that, again, an invisible god created everything and that you need to be subservient to him in order to reach utopia, you believe it with no requirement of any further evidence whatsoever! There is absolutely NO evidence that supports the existence of a god! Get out of the dark ages!
“They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America."
Ironically, I would have assumed that the essence of defending America would be to ensure that the founding principles upon which this country was established would be protected. Her comment conflicts with itself.
I'm no where near as intelligent as Ms Coulter. So, I did some research to make sure that I had my facts straight. While I honor her right to free speech,
I encourage everyone to engage in free thinking! This process seems to be have been lacking in the United States in recent times.
Draw your own conclusions:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
"Inalienable rights include freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of assembly, and the right to equal protection before the law."
(SOURCE: U.S. Department of State)
Toleration
Toleration and tolerance are terms used in social, cultural and religious contexts to describe attitudes and practices that prohibit discrimination against those whose practices or group memberships may be disapproved of by those in the majority. Though developed to refer to the religious toleration of minority religious sects following the Protestant Reformation, these terms are increasingly used to refer to a wider range of tolerated practices and groups
(SOURCE: Wikipedia encyclopedia)
Take away the blond hair, the blue eyes and the ghostly white skin and you have the hate monger President of Iran spewing his usual anti Semitic anti American nonsense. This chick is only smart enough to know that she doesn't look like her older, male political counterparts and by being politics version of a spoiled Paris Hilton she can make herself rich, polarizing and infamous, just like Paris and Ahmadinejad. She should, along with Paris, Ahmad and Britney, be blackballed from every media outlet.
Christianity is a religion. Religions are belief systems essentially based on indoctrinated opinions from our past; that is, a system of beliefs trained into our youthful minds. If Christians are perfected Jews than devoted homicide/suicide bombers are perfected Muslims.
Worst yet, Ms. Coulter's ignorance is prideful guaranteeing illogical thought processing.
Wow, she didn't really say all that, did she? This is some sort of sick joke, right?! Is there a camera hiding in my office?! You're not fooling me Candid Camera!! Noone says comments that appalling where somebody could actually hear them! Somebody, please, jump out and yell, "GOTCHA!" Please...someone...?
the best way to deal with the likes of Ann, Bill, and Rush are to just ignore them, since reacting to or drawing attention to their outrageous commentary just brings them more media, more money, more attention. It doesn't matter if they are 'wrong' or 'right' or if they really believe the garbage they are spewing from between their lips. Unfortunately they've learned that the more you offend people to get their attention, eventually that equals into money and thats all they really care about; until they push the one wrong button that gets them fired, like with Imus and his infamous quote.
She isn't anti-Semitic, she's just ignorant as hell and anti-Everything-non-Coulter.
I don't know why people cover her anymore. She's just trying to get attention by being a shock mouth. Say stuff that is alternately shocking or conservative and feel good, then soak up the attention. When did she ever say anything incisive?
Thinking that Ann Coulter is an obnoxious beeyotch doesn't make me a liberal, it makes me intelligent and rational. It's a good thing that she's becoming more and more irrelevant like the rest of her kind.
Ms. Coulter is right. Many Christians consider themselves to be on a path of righteousness and salvation from which the Jews have long since strayed. One more reason I no longer call myself a Christian.
well, she's right. That is what most evangelical christians think, although few would come out and say it like that.
It would be easier if everyone embraced Islam. After all, using Coulter's theological succession, the Koran supersedes the Old and New Testaments, and is the final word from the same God; Why waste time moving from Jewish to Christian observance? We should all submit to Allah, convert to Islam, and conquer any remnants of older antiquated religions like Christianity and Judaism, in favor of the most up-to-date version of the Truth.
When the whole world is under Sharia and the Caliphate is restored, Peace and Harmony will follow.
That is Perfection.
After reading the comments posted, it is apparent that many people would benefit from a basic education in all the vital world religions. The narrow, and one-sided views expressed by many on this board, evidencing little knowledge of the Jewish religion/race and early Christianity (not to mention the general lack of knowledge in this nation about Muslims, Buddhists, and other religions) is appalling. It is a shame that world religion is not taught in some fashion in schools, in an objective, non-religious manner; but the dogmatic and inflammatory views expressed here prove that would likely be impossible. What a shame. The views expressed by Ms. Coulter and many like her are bigoted and exclusionary; and it is also sad that some Christians interpret the New Testament as supportive of such attitudes.
As for Ms. Coulter, I find her to be offensive, attention seeking, petty, mean spirited, and reactionary. I wish her no harm, and people on this board doing so should be ashamed. However, I do wish she would not be featured by the media, as she speaks to the lowest denominator of public discourse and beliefs. But when a person, any person, says bigoted, false statements; the public should speak out against them; as silence permits such views to control and grow in power. For those who argue the First Amendment, the Constitution permits the speech but does not cloak you from criticism once you spew your opinion/belief.
I like Ann Coulter, in a perverse sort of way. She is like Rush Limbaugh, except good looking and smart. She is like Cher, except that Cher is cool. Like Cher, you can't exactly define what she does, but we can all agree that she is the only one who does it and that she does it very well.
Her specialty is outraging people, and she is so good at it. The more she says these things, the more money she makes. She will be on every talk show and news show for the next two weeks.
Besides, many Christians have contempt for non-Christians as we all know. A Pope, during the 1400's as I recall, ruled that it is not a sin to kill pagans and infidels, since they are going to hell anyway. It is also ok to enslave them, and we all know that Christianity had no criticism of the institution of slavery in the ancient world.
What this conversation proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is that these old religious texts that we have fought so many wars over, are:
(1) incomprehensible, or else any two intelligent people could agree on their meaning
(2) divisive, or else Christians, Muslims, and Jews would not have spent the last 2000 years killing one another for the greater glory of our variously named cultural deities that we all pretend is the same being, and
(3) inapplicable to the modern world or else ONE of our various contradictory religions would have actually made the world a better place, instead of a more hateful, brutal, and cruel one.
As an amateur reader of human history, I cannot see how the world would be any worse off we had inherited Roman paganism instead of the dysfunctional family Judeo-Christian-Muslim faiths.
Have fun, Ann. You're going to sell a lot of books with this one.
By the way, used copies of Ann's books are readily avilable on Amazon. No need to buy a new copy.
Christianity has a long tradition of intolerance, torture, and hatred of non-Christians. Let's not pretend otherwise.
Have fun, Ann.
The worse thing anyone can do is give this witch a forum to spew her venomous hate-filled speech and views. She should be ignored and shunned to utter obscurity.
One thing I forgot to mention...
Ann Coulter's comments are not offensive in and of themselves. Many who posted here, including me, are not offended at all. The content of her comment was stupid. Christianity certainly cannot brag about any superiority in its teachings since we can all see that Christians are just as evil, when they want to be, as are Jews and Muslims when THEY want to be. I perceived them as another amusing attempt by coulter to yank our collective beards.
Those who choose to be offended – and it is a choice though not always a conscious one – should ask themselves why Ann Coulter has so much power over your emotions.
Insinuating that all republicans are Christian and Christianity is all about perfection is a fairly transparent logical fallacy. Over-simplification is a childish method of argument and I am not impressed. Coulter is a spectacle seemingly incapable of higher-level thinking and getting by with that sort of'-pretty face. Regardless of her intention the truth is she did make anti-Semitic remarks. It seems like she made the comments, didn't fully understand the implications of her comments until she was backed into a corner. She then defended herself with a lame argument when she realized she screwed up. I don't believe that she believes her own argument here. She was just trying to smooth over her Nazi comments...I just can't take this broad seriously...
This would be very amusing (at least from an atheist's point of view) if it wasn't somewhat disappointing. If an individual like Ms. Coulter can obtain any public visibility, then such is the society. At least she seems to be well tuned with the current "governmental" mainstream.