Useful idiots and willing dupes

 Arun Arora, the bishop of Kirkstall, has been outspoken about the threat of Christian nationalists appropriating Christian symbolism to further nativist authoritarianism.

But he warns against “making a window into men’s souls”, adding that he rejoices when people come to faith, “whoever they are”.

“It’s not unusual for people to discover faith during times of personal crisis,” he said. “In that way, celebrities are no different from the rest of us. None of us are beyond redemption.

“I appreciate people will view the outward religiosity of those such as Russell Brand or Stephen Yaxley-Lennon [the real name of Tommy Robinson] with a degree of cynicism, but there is always a possibility for faith to be discovered at times of testing.”

The Rev Holy hopes that if Brand’s conversion is genuine, it makes him “face up to what he put those women through”, publicly apologise and confess.

He added: “I believe in redemption – assuming there’s genuine repentance

JESUS NEVER WAS  -  No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus came well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings. Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, I will use the information and dates to show that even if these sources did not come from interpolations, they could still not serve as reliable evidence for a historical Jesus, simply because all sources about Jesus derive from hearsay accounts.

Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness’ own knowledge.

Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay does not provide good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it.