Why does Ann Coulter think that Jesus Christ smelled bad?

I wrote this several months ago in response to Ann Coulter's column entitled The passion of the liberal:

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I think the most ironic thing about Ann Coulter's implication that Muslims "smell bad" (i.e. "...kill everyone who doesn't smell bad...") is that it was made in regards to a movie which contained quite a number of sweaty, dirty, olive-skinned Middle Easterners wearing robes and head scarves—one of whom was playing the role of Ann's own "Lord and Savior Jesus Christ". An obvious conclusion that can be drawn from this is that if Ann Coulter could ever be submitted to a double-blind smell test, which contained her stereotypical Muslim and Jesus Christ, she would conclude that Jesus Christ smells bad, since he too was an olive-skinned, dark-haired Middle Easterner speaking a guttural Semitic language.

Well I guess it's pretty clear that Ann didn't realize the implications of her racist diatribe. It seems that columnists who gained their fame by spewing hate and ideological bias rather than insightful thought tend to get in a lot of trouble—and Ann certainly has a knack for doing that. I'd just love to know which Muslims Ann thinks "smell bad". Is it the white Muslims, the black Muslims, the Asian Muslims or only the Arab Muslims—which make up only about 15% of the world's Muslim population? If she picks one or more of these ethnic groups, then is she willing to explain why she should not be labeled a racist? If she picks all of them, well then, I guess she must "smell bad" along with all of the Caucasians that happen to be Muslim (and there are quite a number of them). The fact that Ann's logic stinks doesn't count in this regard. Anyway, Ann's hateful statement, along with other hateful statements that she's made, only make it obvious that she still perceives adherence to the religion of Islam in racist terms. She obviously doesn't get the idea that Islam is a world religion which, like Christianity, embraces peoples of all ethnic groups and races. I'd be willing to guess that Ann might be surprised to know that in spite of the blonde-haired and blue-eyed Jesus that is shown in some Hollywood movies, and some Bibles as well, Christianity is not just a white man's religion—even though some who aren't much further right than Ann would seemingly like to have it that way.

In her The passion of the liberal column, Ann remains true to form in exposing both her ignorance of history and of religion. Her knowledge, if you can call it that, seems to be based on popular myths and media propaganda rather than any respectable scholarly sources. For example, the idea to "kill everyone" was an idea that the Old Testament brought to the Middle East long before Muslims showed up. I wonder if Ann has ever read the Old Testament? Hasn't Ann Coulter ever heard of the Crusades? As far as I know, the only religious text which contains a story of a God-approved murder-suicide of civilians is the story of Samson in the Bible (Judges 16:23-30). Even in recent times, the largest massacre of civilians in the Middle East was carried out by Philangist Meronite Christians in Lebanon (with Israeli assistance, of course). This more than proves my case, since Ann didn't present any evidence to support hers. In regards to religions who like to "kill everyone", dare I mention the fact that the Hutus and Tutsis, who savagely massacred each other several years ago, were overwhelmingly Christians who lived in a country which contained Africa's highest percentage of Christians? Need I mention the blood thirsty Serbs who used a three-fingered Trinitarian salute when massacring tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims?

Needless to say, and this might stretch Ann's ability to reason to the limit, if the Muslims had "killed everyone" when they conquered the Middle East, the Lebanese Christians who massacred about 1,800 Palestinians back in 1982 would not even have existed. Perhaps Ann would enjoy reading what happened to non-Christians and non-Christian religions that refused to accept Christianity back during the Dark Ages. It might ease her conscious to know that these forced conversions and massacres were sometimes based on St. Augustine's understanding of Luke 14:23 "...compel them to come in, that my house may be filled". Ultimately, however, I don't base my conclusions on Jesus, his teachings or the beliefs of the majority of Christians on the actions of a few seemingly misguided and fanatical Christians. Conservatives please take note that if Ann was honest enough to adhere to the same approach in regards to Islam, this wouldn't make her a liberal. Rather it would simply make her intellectually honest. Don't hold your breath…

Even Ann's crassly worded summary of Jesus' message is off the mark—and off of Matthew too. When asked directly how to achieve eternal life, Jesus—being the great teacher that he was—gave a rather clear and unambiguous answer: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matthew 19:16). No need for bloody atoning deaths and triune Godheads, but rather the simple Semitic monotheism of Abraham. Likewise, those lofty and wise words of Jesus are a pretty good summary of the teachings of Islam. Ann might be able to see this if she could just stop being so hateful and bigoted for just a second or two. She seems as full of bigotry, rage and distorted thinking as the fanatical militants that she seemingly loves to hate. It's disturbing to know that Ann resorts to four letter words even when it comes to explaining the message of Jesus. Is nothing sacred anymore? Seemingly not to Ann.

In spite of all of these shortcomings, I think the most noteworthy part of Ann's recent column is her selective use of verses from the Bible and Qur'an. Nothing shows her intellectual dishonestly, double standards and shallow intellect more than this. Is Ann completely unaware of some of the verses of the Bible, including the New Testament, that have been used to inspire violence? Does she think that it's intellectually honest to take a portion of a verse, such as "slay the enemy where you find him", without knowing at least a little something about it's context, meaning and understanding amongst mainstream Muslims? Since this would involve Ann Coulter reading a book or article about Islam that wasn't written by a hate-filled ideologue bigot, I guess we can discount that as an option. The fact that Ann doesn't seem to realize that verses from the Bible can be, and have been, used and abused as well just begs the question: is she just pathetically ignorant or a complete hypocrite?

By the way, Ann's one attempt in her column to actually provide a reference for one of her assertions was, unsurprisingly, incorrect. Indeed, the chapter and verse numerical reference that she gave for the Qur'anic verse was off by quite a few numbers. See cited "Surah 9:92" even though that's not the verse she quoted. So not only did Ann mess up the major theme of her column, it seems that she dorked up the one reference as well! It seems rather ironic that such a person would have the nerve to accuse Liberals of sloppy thinking and intellectual dishonestly.

Be careful Ann, you might learn something. When I first heard that Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ was going to be in Latin and Aramaic, I was optimistic. I was hoping that it might make it clear that the Aramaic word (Alaha) that Jesus Christ used for "God" is quite similar to the Arabic word (Allah) for "God" that Muslims often use, since they both have Semitic origins. I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how clearly the Aramaic word "Alaha" (God) is spoken. However, if this linguistic detail was in any way made clear, Ann Coulter, who has seemingly seen the film, completely missed it. Based on what I've read, Ann Coulter remains painfully misinformed about both Jesus, Islam and the Middle East—and she seemingly wants to stay that way. Dealing with the fact that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not King James English, and the word he used for God was "Alaha" just might be too much for Ann. Indeed, this Aramaic word obviously sounds more similar to that word that Muslims use for God than the word in the English language. I mention this lest some forget that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all came from the "smell bad" Middle East, not from Western Europe.

Using Ann's logic, and I use the term loosely, I should conclude that all conservatives are uneducated, bigots with poor reasoning skills just because a few of them display these qualities. Since Ann loves to paint with a broad brush and taint all Muslims due to the actions of a few, she shouldn't be offended when the same broad brush is applied due to the rantings of a single conservative columnist. The simple fact that seemingly respectable publications carry Ann Coulter's child-like and intellectually insulting column is a sad statement on the intellectual state of American conservatives. Even if they're all too dense to pick up on all of Ann's intellectual goofs, they should be sensitive enough to know hate when they read it. Her column in defense of Gibson's film was about as un-Christian in tone as anything any decent person would want to read. This should come as no surprise, however, since the xenophobic neo-Imperialist right that Ann Coulter supports has more in common with the arrogant self-righteousness of Pontius Pilate and Imperial Rome than the humble, austere and compassionate Middle Eastern Semitic monotheism of Jesus Christ. That's obvious to any fair-minded person...