How do you live without a god?

[newsnight]

It's easy to think when you see the "happy clappy" representatives turning up at schools with their bibles and smiling faces that they are just harmless if slightly delusional representatives of a benign religious movement, easy to think, but in fact very misjudged.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-legal-team-features-some-unexpected-members?cid=sm_fb_maddow

'Let’s take a brief stroll down memory lane. After his failed Republican presidential bid in 1988, radical TV preacher Pat Robertson parlayed his donor list into a potent political force. The religious right movement was growing into one of the dominant factions in GOP politics, and Robertson took full advantage of his notoriety – cultivating a mini-empire featuring an activist organization (the Christian Coalition), a college (Regent University), an annual political gathering (the Christian Coalition’s “Road to Victory” conference), and a broadcast presence (the Christian Broadcasting Network).

But Robertson also wanted a legal group intended to serve as a right-wing rival to the ACLU, so he created the ACLJ – the American Center for Law and Justice – to advance the religious right’s agenda in the courts.

Jay Sekulow was the chief counsel for the radical televangelist’s legal group. Now he has a leadership role on Donald Trump’s legal team'

.'The point here is not that he’s some kind of fringe crackpot. Even his critics will concede that Sekulow, who’s argued multiple cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, is an effective lawyer for his cause.

Rather, the point is there’s a sizable gap between Sekulow’s decades of work on religious and social issues – he’s devoted his career to undermining the wall of separation between church and state – and the task of defending a sitting president facing a growing scandal. When thinking of the kind of lawyers Trump should seek for this crisis, Sekulow’s name wouldn’t come to mind – not because he’s ridiculous, because he’s not that kind of attorney.

For more on Sekulow’s background, I’d recommend some pieces from my friends at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Right Wing Watch’s collection of recent Sekulow-related stories'.

[Jam_Sandwich]

Easily

If there is one

He's a bit of a sadistic sod really

So I could do without him

[newsnight]

"DUP could foster Manx links – Bell"

http://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/former-cm-says-dup-could-foster-manx-links/   

The Elim Church has beaten them to it.

http://onchanelim.org/

Caleb Foundation: The Creationist Bible group and its web of influence at Stormont

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caleb_Foundation

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/caleb-foundation-the-creationist-bible-group-and-its-web-of-influence-at-stormont-28787760.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Centre_for_Science_Education

The Caleb fundamentals to be the following:

1) That the Bible is the inspired, infallible and inerrant word of God. It is final in its authority. None may add thereto or take away therefrom except at their own peril.

2) That the Godhead eternally Foundation seeks to promote the Fundamentals of the Historic Evangelical Protestant Faith. We believe those co-exists in three persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. These three are one God. This doctrine is commonly referred to as the Trinity.

3) That the Sacred Scriptures teach the full deity and true humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, sinless life, atoning death, bodily resurrection, ascension into heaven and His future personal, visible, triumphant return.

4) That salvation is of the Lord; that it is received by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. We identify this as the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone.

5) There can be no salvation for fallen mankind apart from the penal sacrifice of the shed blood of Christ Jesus on the cross, the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and the personal appropriation of God’s grace in faith and repentance.

6) All persons who have repented of their sins, trusting in Christ as Lord and Saviour, are born again and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who also works in the lives of believers exercising a sanctifying ministry.

7) That the Sacred Scriptures teach the eternal conscious bliss of all true Christians in Heaven and also the eternal conscious punishment of the unregenerate in Hell.

NOTE

1) Continuing membership of The Caleb Foundation is conditional upon full adherence to the historic subordinate standards of the Church of which the individual is a member.

2) In the interests of uniformity all spokesmen, public statements, publications and meetings of The Caleb Foundation shall use and quote from the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures.

[Chinahand]

Bit of a thread resurrection as this probably doesn't deserve a thread of its own.

Gresham College has a series of lectures up on the origins of atheism.

They're by Professor Alec Ryrie and based on the first three they are going to be excellent.

The first one gives a curmudgeonly nod to Flat Earth-ism in explaining how anti-clericalism  existed in Medieval Europe. 

Enjoy.