In case you hadn’t noticed, The Daily Caller has a blogger named S. E. Cupp who is an avowed atheist and conservative. That being said, I have gone on the record and stated that she’ll probably be Roman Catholic within 10 years. Not only does she “aspire” to be religious, but, her new book defending Christianity from the liberal media makes a lot of flimsy assertions about evolutionary theory. She defends Creationism on majoritarian grounds for example, which seems more an example of opportunism than principle.
In a way I think S. E. Cupp is an example of cultural evolution. Ann Coulter’s career trajectory has taken her to a position where even conservatives don’t take her seriously. Coulter is a conservative-firebrand-as-performance-artist. There are interesting similarities between Cupp and Coulter. Both are attractive and brainy women with a penchant for right-wing punditry, raised in New England but seasoned at Cornell University. But instead of building intellectual capital, and compounding a reputation for seriousness, I suspect that Cupp is going to maximize her earning power by reinforcing conservative banalities through rhetoric rather than engaging in genuine discursive analysis. Her touch is far softer than Coulter, but she has decades ahead of her to slowly push the boundaries. To see what I’m saying about lack of challenge, I commend you to watch her being interviewed by Brian Lamb.
I made it through a bit of the interview, but then I kept skipping ahead to find some substance. She seems like a contrarian more than an intellectual conservative, but I admit that I have only read a couple of her articles, and this interview is the only time that I have seen her address several subjects.
Part of me is interested to read her new book, as I tend to be interested whenever I find an atheist who values religion. However, after reading some of the excerpts from her last book, I wonder how much of it will be formulaic cynical believer envy.
She mentioned the 80% figure of Christian believers in the country over and over again, as do many people who push the “truth by majority” style of rhetoric, but she never unpacked what exactly that number would mean in the scheme of things. My mother says she is a Christian, but she has not been to church as far back as I have memories, and her day to day beliefs do not resemble the type of person that Cupp seems to think that 80% statistic is comprised of.
Thank you for the link to the CSPAN interview with S.E. Cupp. She is brilliant and is way ahead of you intellectually. I am looking forward to reading her book.
Please understand that I do not mean this as an insult to your obvious progressive liberalism. That would make us both stereotypical sides of the same coin.
Instead, try to understand the difference between religiosity and spiritualism – the difference between a religion and a cult is as obvious as the difference between a belief system with a singular supreme deity at its center and one with a severely flawed psychopath as its base.
If anything, I predict that S.E.Cupp will achieve a spiritual awakening that will expose a third option between evolutionist and creationist extremism.
Finding the nexus between science and the Bible, between philosophy and theology – combined with old-fashioned Sherlock Holmes ‘logic and common sense’ will surely get her there. To quote an old movie: “It is very easy to be sarcastic about religion, but it is much more difficult to take a stand.”
Those who seek wisdom and truth with a humble heart will surely find it.
As for your rather eloquent but two-dimensional critique, I can only say that if I were a part of the progressive liberal collective, I would be shaking in my boots.
Individualism and American Exceptionalism are what the future is all about. It is women like S.E. Cupp that will lead future generations out of the darkness brought upon us by misguided and treasonous leaders such as Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama.
The Austrian School of Economics validates everything that S.E. Cupp holds dear about Conservatism. Maturity and perhaps motherhood will provide the rest for her in due time. (i.e. appreciation for the rights of the unborn, etc.)
We all need to wake up as Americans and recognize the inherent evil attached to the Federal Reserve System and Islamic Expansionism. Folks like Geert Wilders and Kent Ekeroth have tried to warn us about Islam, and many others are warning us, as we speak, about the linkage of Cap & Trade to the international banking monopoly and to the corruption tsunami emanating out of Chicago. Let’s stop with the left versus right rope-a-dope parade of insults and get on to what is really important to our future.
S.E. Cupp, I believe, will be an important part of this awakening. We need to start by exposing the blatant sexism that we have allowed to flourish for far too long.
Thanks again for the link to a great interview.
sunnstarr, just to correct you, i’m not a progressive liberal. just happen to be a right-leaning person who doesn’t think that arguments like “the president should be a christian because 80% of the people in the country are christian” are very persuasive, and in fact, kind of retarded. most of the country, being humans, are rather stupid. i’d rather have the present be at least modestly smarter than average (or example). 70% of the country is non-evangelical, therefore evangelicals should be excluded from being presidents? the logic of retards (which i doubt s.e. cupp is, she just knows what will sell).
as I tend to be interested whenever I find an atheist who values religion.
there are plenty of people who see instrumental value in religion. voltaire and spinoza for example both did! but cupp’s assertions that the judeo-christian tradition is the source of western morality is at a very low level of intellectual integrity. there’s something to what she’s saying about the importance of christianity (i think the judeo part is political correct addition after 1950 to include jews) in shaping and channeling moral presuppositions in the west, as islam is in the islamic world, or confucianism in east asia. but it’s a big complex and subtle topic, not one addressed by banal platitudes which one can find in evangelical christian literature, which is what i see cupp doing in her rhetoric.
she gives small market-tested answers to big messy questions.
“reinforcing conservative banalities through rhetoric rather than engaging in genuine discursive analysis”
So basically… the Daily Caller.
rich, tucker carlson isn’t actually that much of a water carrier. but the DC hasn’t really made a big splash yet, so i’m still agnostic where it’ll go. there’s already plenty of echo-chamber sites/journals.
She says being conservative to her is “guttural, I mean, visceral.” No, I do not think a discursive definition 2 is in her future, but discursive definition 1 very likely is within her reach. Anyone who takes such a long time, as she does, in saying simple things is just trying to be important without having a decent reason to be.
She brings a conservatism that is from the gut, and sometimes the throat apparently. Maybe she’ll start a somatic-spiritual conservative movement. Because there are never enough of those.
I agree. She’s basically begging, trying, to be indoctrinated… as well as chewing her syllables very slowly and sometimes allowing herself to appear shocked (shocked!) by how edgy what she herself has just said. Why don’t I feel bad now for saying that? Because she’s as transparently empty as an upended fish bowl.
(sigh) Thanks for the fun. At least she’s sexy. That’s what she wants to hear anyway…
I really can’t make up my mind about this broad, but hopefully we can prevent her from going down the Ann Coulter road…although in a way I certainly appreciate Ann Coulter. I get a kick out of seeing her freak out people like Katie Couric when she goes on those types of shows and causes a ruckus.
Regarding S.E. Cupp, and the usefulness of religion…I tend to agree that Christian values are superior to those of many other religions(though personally I would prefer Greek or Roman Mythology,) which I think has played a major part in the successful development of western civilizations. It’s the “hocus pocus” elements of the bible that I can’t ever take seriously as they don’t withstand the scrutiny of even the most basic science…which of course leads to not taking all the arbitrary and bizarro religious rules and customs seriously.
I too find myself often puzzlingly defending religion from liberals(often within the context of “separation of church and state” debates over whether things like “In God We Trust” or nativity scenes constitute a government endorsement of religion.)
I think at a certain point though, as atheist conservatives, we have to just recognize that what religion offers is just not the truth, and in the long run it’s always better to be on the side of reality. I’d much rather S.E. Cupp would quit wasting time defending religion and concentrate more on setting conservative christians onto the path to reality… or at the very least convincing atheist liberals that it’s okay to embrace conservative ideas without being a puritanic biblethumper or grand poobah of some wacky ministy.
I tend to agree that Christian values are superior to those of many other religions(though personally I would prefer Greek or Roman Mythology,) which I think has played a major part in the successful development of western civilizations.
the main issue that i have with this is that i don’t think “christian values” are christian as such, but that the relationship between western culture, and western christianity, are intimate and difficult to detach. eastern christianity, and to a lesser extent roman catholic christianity, do not correlate well with the “western values” which i identify with. rather, in the united states it is a particular strand of dissenting protestantism which is the historic religion at the heart of the constitutional republic. does that mean that i think that the american republic necessary is conditional upon a rejection of transubstantiation and monasticism? no. the particular details of protestantism, and apologia of those details, are less important than the fact that protestantism is the religion of the english speaking west, and that dissenting protestantism is the religion of the american republic (i have stated in this space that catholics and jews in the USA are protestantized, and even irreligious people have presuppositions of what religion is based on protestant preconceptions).
from what i can tell s. e. cupp is repeating extremely simple narratives that you get from evangelicals. which is fine from evangelicals because they’re in the business of apologia as believers in their religion. but cupp is not, so she can take a deeper more objective view. perhaps she came to the exact same perspectives that you’d find in a typical christian conservative book through hard reasoning, but that begs the question to me why she isn’t persuaded of the probable likelihood that such a glorious religion is not in fact rooted in truth. or, she hasn’t done a thorough job, despite being a religious studies graduate student.
or at the very least convincing atheist liberals that it’s okay to embrace conservative ideas without being a puritanic biblethumper or grand poobah of some wacky ministy.
right. my own personal social circle is atheist & liberal, so my i generally have to “represent” for a non-liberal perspective.
(sigh) Thanks for the fun. At least she’s sexy. That’s what she wants to hear anyway…
yeah, check her youtube site. she pulls off the glamor with more aplomb than coulter every did.
I’m frankly suspicious of her credentials. She grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, yet purports to be a Mets fan.
instead of building intellectual capital, and compounding a reputation for seriousness, I suspect that Cupp is going to maximize her earning power by reinforcing conservative banalities through rhetoric rather than engaging in genuine discursive analysis
The Coulter tradition–. I’m not a big fan of Ann Coulter, but she would not likely resort to the gangsta slang as does Miss Cupp (“”promote the sh*t out of this book””)–she seems Vull-garr with a capital V, even slightly Aynnie Randish. Certainly the shade of David Hume (the real one, not the SR one) would agree–.
Sarah Elizabeth abbreviated her given names to S.E. Maybe she’s setting us up for the moment when she announces her religious awakening. After all, she claims to have religious aspirations, despite her professed atheism.
Maybe she thinks of herself as Spiritually Empty Cupp.
A Seriously Empty Cupp, for sure.
She is a fraud, an obvious product of a marketing campaign. She is marketing herself, or someone is marketing her, to be the conservative pundit for a growing audience. Atheists are speaking out in droves, and this woman is simply there to capitalize on the trend. It will not last. The conservative/republican machine is all about dogma and fitting people into molds they create. It will not work, because atheists are inherently skeptical about everything. It is hard to believe anyone can take her seriously.
David, you sound like a good man. I particularly like your point about evangelicals.
S.E. Cupp talks about her preference for scholarly research and fact-based opinion, in contrast to deep thought and philosophical or faith-based analysis for instance.
Perhaps you have heard of Ellis Skolfield and his book “The False Prophet”. This very scholarly analysis of biblical ‘revelation’ prompted me to read Skolfield’s excellent paper on debunking the popular evangelical concept of ‘the chosen few vs. those left behind’. This paper can be found on the Internet by searching ‘An-End-Time-Myth’.
Why do I bring this up? I bring this up to point out how all of the comments above are devoid of scholarly content and full of shallow and subtle ‘sexism’.
We should not care where insight and wisdom come from (or how different people choose to share it with us) and we certainly should not just be argumentative for argument’s sake. Instead we should seek new knowledge and concentrate on what the actual message is.
S.E. Cupp, the subject of your initial article, seems more interested in opening up a discussion with people who can think for themselves than in creating a loyal following.
She clearly understands the concept of marketing herself on television, but she also states quite clearly that using the initials of her name as author was motivated by the idea of gender-neutral writing – probably to avoid the sexism from insecure men AND women that often keeps them from thinking clearly about the issues at hand.
How many of the people commenting on this website can compare Mohammed to Jesus, or to Buddha, or to Charlie Manson? (In an intelligent and scholarly fashion that is.)
Both the Bible and the U.S. Constitution have simple rules for simple people; as well as complex, insightful and inspired guidelines for deep and independent thinkers.
Good people do not have to believe in God to be good. Immoral and/or evil people however DO need to disbelieve in God to justify their lack of conscience and to bend the rules for selfish reasons, or to victimize others for material or financial advantage. This does not mean that all people who choose to not believe in God are evil or misguided.
Individual freedoms guaranteed to each and every one of us as American Citizens have nothing to do with control and power over others, and everything to do with the courage to stand up against those that seek to control us – alone if necessary. We do not need to convert each other about anything. But it is our sacred duty to share knowledge and insight with others – especially if we can help each other survive to build a better world.
Hopefully some of your readers will share some new and exciting insights with the rest of us. Give us something new! Expose deception and give us some truth!!
Thanks for the thread guys, this was fun 🙂 and thanks to being on my phone I didn’t even have to watch what would undoubtedly be a terrible video. Oh, and also I’d like to crown “blatantly” as offering the best comment so far.
As for seeing value in religion despite not being religious, count me in. Mormons are happier than you are.
As for knocking Ann Coulter, I think she’s a pretty rotten human being but she’s the only talking head I actually enjoy watching and the only mainstream pundit I like reading. Also, I find her personal individualism and absolute refusal to ever apologize for anything slightly admirable. I hope she either dies horrifically or humorously on camera or is around to delight us with her wit for many decades. I don’t have a particular preference.
Will someone please rip in to Sunnstreaker for his unintelligable pseudoprofundity already? He’s clearly the broad’s uncle or something and he arrived here like a present from Jesus for us to toy with. Will no one take Jesus up on His gift?
Going back to the comment I see that I messed up on the winner’s name, I meant “basically”. Sorry about that bro, nice comment.
In keeping with my last two posts (Where I requested the readers to come up with something new and interesting to spark a significant discussion), a series of three Youtube videos I just stumbled upon are offered as example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZigXjYMua18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtsAb4JLD3g&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3kcZtcLtlw&NR=1
These videos are about the evolution of another “avowed atheist and conservative”, whose original position was not very different from S.E. Cupp’s.
The Roman Catholic Church has recently opened the door to the existence of extra-terrestrials. Some believe it will become the third realm of the NWO.
Does anyone have inside information on any of that?
Logic … Source … Divinity …
Enlighten us, please!
The real problem is that most of the atheists who see “value” in religion are really just accomodationists. They want everyone to be happy so we can all sit around and sing kumbayah, they really see no value in reality, just various shades of delusion. I have no more confidence in Cupp than I do with any other accomodationist, she’s not overly rational and she’d rather be touchy-feely emotional than actually stand up for factual truth.
No real surprise there, unfortunately.
<blockquote<That being said, I have gone on the record and stated that she’ll probably be Roman Catholic within 10 years.
This happened to the Raving Atheist a number of years ago. At the time, he was probably the most popular atheist blogger and an intellectual powerhouse for atheism.
Then all of a sudden, he went silent on the religious bashing and eventually divulged his apparently genuine Christianity. Everyone presumed it derived from his ardent pro-life stance, but I was absolutley floored by his admission.
The guy was about as anti-religious and founded that position entirely on sound intellectual propositions. And he didn’t go the Antony FLew route and espouse some nebulous deism; the guy is a full on praying, believing Christian.
Anyone else remember this?
He’s now The Raving Theist. Maybe he just likes to pull people’s chains.
I don’t buy her claim that she is an atheist. She likely thinks that once she establishes a foothold as a well known atheist, she will have obtained the credibility and expertise to speak for all atheists. Secular fans will especially welcome her into their fold as an ex-atheist when she decides to see the light.
By the way, my guess is that she already “sees the light” brightly and clearly.
Oh, forgot to mention, I have read and watched several of her interviews. She somehow manages to contradict herself on every point she makes. Her conservative supporters refer to that as intellectualism. I call it rhetorical nonsense.
Any atheist who aspires to be a theist isn’t an atheist.
Any atheist who aspires to be a theist isn’t an atheist.
yeah. pre-theist?
Ann Coulter is attractive?
Well, secularists or agnostics or even atheists might agree with some theists in regard to politics to…say, calling Dick Cheney or DiDi Feinstein war criminals, and objecting to radical islamists for that matter. Belief in itself is not really damaging–it’s when the fundamentalist of whatever type acts on his beliefs…(whether via bombs, or banning evolution, etc)
Not all theists are conservatives, just as not all atheists are leftists (as this site proves). Indeed, atheists of the social darwinist sort tend to be conservative, reactionary, and/or racist (…Winston Churchill comes to mind…).
I think the Cupp/Coulter comparison is quite apt. Hard to tell which one scores higher on the Studied Mannerisms Meter: Coulter with her constant hair tossing or Cupp with her Dorothy-Parker-didn’t-mean THIS-girl-with-glasses glances at the camera.
I’ve not read Cupp’s cheap shots at evolution, but Coulter has probably outdone her there. As reviews of Coulter’s “Godless: The Church of Liberalism” noted, it is likely Behe who really wrote “her” four chapters debunking evolution.
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/coulter1.cfm
Both Cupp and Coulter appear from time to time on Fox’s Red Eye, where Gutfeld pays greater deference to Coulter as the established Conservative Glam. Cupp could catch up if she’s willing to show more thigh.
Sarah Palin has made eyeglasses glamorous. It’s the naughty librarian look. They’re not spectacles but sextacles.