S. E. Cupp

Sarah Elizabeth "S. E." Cupp (1979–) is an American conservative writer and Fox Noise's token "atheist" who regularly concern trolls for religion.

Parroting squawkbox
Pundits
And a dirty dozen more
v - t - e
“”Why would she welcome the inclusion of religion in politics, or be so blind as to think belief somehow makes politicians more trustworthy? She is either deliberately lying to placate her base, or she’s woefully misinformed about the dangers of mixing politics and religion. In any case, she’s not too impressive, and it’s my hope that she’ll quietly fade into obscurity as her ignorance and incompetence is slowly revealed to the general public.
—Jacob Fortin, The Good Atheist podcast[1]

Left hand ignoring the right hand

Cupp says she's an atheist,[2] but, strangely, her views on religion (and, more specifically, Christianity) and its place in American society are in line with those of the religious wrong. But, hey, someone's got to be around to hold the fort when the faithful start mysteriously disappearing, right?

Cupp has written a book called Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity. She has appeared on the Fox News programs Hannity and Red Eye and was interviewed on the Internet radio show The Young Turks.[3]

Cupp tends to not reply to polite emails that counter her points.[4]

Religiously atheistic?

Cupp insists she doesn’t believe but isn't mad at God either.

When asked what she used to value about religion she said she valued being part of the Christian community:

“”I loved a lot. I loved the belonging... I was really turned on by that sense of group identity. You’re one of us.[5]

She later contradicted herself and gave curiously irrational reasons for giving up her belief in God:

“”In part, I became an atheist [because] I’m not really a big joiner. I didn’t want to leave one club for another.[5]

In the end, her views generally revolve around the stockiest of stock quotations from the philosophers she supposedly studied.[2] She is likely so "successful" because she appeals to what most people perceive or want atheists to be: earnest doubters who, deep in their heart, want to be Christians. She has stated that she admires Christians (particularly American Evangelicals) and:

“”...really aspires to be a person of faith some day.[6]

This means she is either an intellectual charlatan, or she believes every cliché and caricature presented to her. Atheist or not, her reasoning doesn't impress with its (complete lack of) rationality.

Other stuff

S. E. stands for Sarah Elizabeth. One only needs to look at the picture on the cover of her book to understand why she chose to be known by her initials rather than her full first name. (She even sounds a little bit like You-Know-Who.)

While she doesn't hunt moose, she does like fishing, target shooting, and NASCAR.[7] Although Cupp panders to "Middle America" and rails against "liberal and coastal elites," she herself is one of the latter. She was born in California, raised in Massachusetts, graduated from Cornell, and lives in New York City. Cupp also seems to think that creationism should be taught in schools because not doing so would be "insulting" to Christians.[8] Because of this, in combination with her atheist concern trolling, many believe that she is in fact a deep cover liberal and may possibly be the first IRL sock puppet to ever be discovered.

Perplexingly, S. E. Cupp thinks Chris Christie should resign over the Bridgegate affair... and then run for President.[9] How she thinks he'd be able to recover after resigning from such an affair and still have a clean enough nose to run for President is anybody's guess.

In 2014, Cupp accused Bill Nye of bullying people on global warming.[10]

On the MSNBC show, which she was briefly a co-host on, S. E. Cupp declared she was an atheist and added, "but I would never vote for an atheist for president. I wouldn't vote for a person who believes in nothing". It was an unusual comment for an atheist to make as people who characterize atheism as a belief in nothing are almost without exception (and almost by definition) theists. It makes one question whether she is conflating her missing thoughts for atheism and appropriating the title, or if like many "former atheists", she's simply mistaken "not going to church" for atheism. The above statement also undermines her position: it implies that she, as an atheist herself, must also believe in nothing—yet she just stated a belief, or at least an opinion.

gollark: I'll piratically send you (the SHA256 hash of) Factorio.
gollark: ... yes?
gollark: Mine is square and thus superior.
gollark: No, lots of opinions are correlated.
gollark: I *do* have an unreasonable amount of copies of some things.

See also
  • Lying for Jesus

References
  1. Is S.E. Cupp an atheist?
  2. "Belief and nonbelief are not equal", New York Daily News
  3. "S.E. Cupp Vs. TYT: Anti-Christian Liberal Media Bias?"
  4. Letter to S.E. Cupp, Andrew Ray Gorman
  5. O, I Think I Smell a Rat, The Rational Ape
  6. Aha.
  7. Author biography
  8. Cupp Skips the Facts, Washington Post
  9. Is S.E. Cupp The Dumbest Pundit Working? An Examination, The Raw Story
  10. Conservative CNN Host Tells Bill Nye That 'Science Guys' Are Bullies, TPM
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