Regent University

Here’s a story that gives good background on Pat Robertson’s Regent University law school. It’s from Bill Moyer’s special called “Keeping the Faith.”

You can download the video here (WMV).

If the name of Regent isn’t familiar, it had been said on their website that since 2001, over 150 graduates of the law school had gone on to work for the Bush administration. And former Attorney General John Ashcroft is now a professor there.

As Crooks and Liars points out:

Moyers paints a stark picture of a law school and a religious leader that are having a profound effect on the American system of law and government. Seeing Regent’s newly graduated students talk about the philosophy they intend to bring to the practice of law (and most likely to the federal government) is frightening to anyone who appreciates the traditional notion of the separation between church and state.

More information on the Moyers’ segment is on the Crooks and Liars website.

[tags]atheist, atheism, Pat Robertson, Regent University, Bill Moyer, Keeping the Faith, George Bush, John Ashcroft, Crooks and Liars[/tags]

EnoNomi

frightening to anyone who appreciates the traditional notion of the sepration between church and state

Frightening is right. I feel a knot of horror growing in my stomach as I watch this video.
Varados

If we are prescient, we will buy weapons, learn to use them, and not flinch from pulling the triggers when the jackbooted christians come for us because we refuse to bend to their dictates. It is not hard to imagine another holocaust that is born in churches across the land and carried out in the name of god by the anthropoid followers of the cockroaches profiled in the documentary.
Darryl

I know nothing of how Washington works. I can only hope that whoever becomes the next President has the largest and most effective transition team in U.S. history, because they’re going to have to systematically go through the entire Federal Bureaucracy and find every ideologue and true-believer that this Administration has hired and fire them–beginning with the Department of Justice. The damage done to the judiciary may be irreversible, but all the former-industry lobbyists that were given posts in all the Departments Moyers listed on his program will have to be booted.

I think this Administration may hold the record for the most corrupt and incompetent in our history–quite an accomplishment.
Mike C

If we are prescient, we will buy weapons, learn to use them, and not flinch from pulling the triggers when the jackbooted christians come for us because we refuse to bend to their dictates. It is not hard to imagine another holocaust that is born in churches across the land and carried out in the name of god by the anthropoid followers of the cockroaches profiled in the documentary.

Dude, what you just said scares me just as much as anything those Regent folks said.
Ryan S

As Bill Maher aptly pointed out, going to Regent University Law School is quite easy – there is only one book to study from. 🙂
Kim G

That’s some scary stuff. I fear for the future of this country. What can we do to help it? Where to start?
FriendlyAtheist

Kim– I think the first thing we can do is bring these types of things out into the open so everyone knows about it. Then, we have to be unafraid to come out and say that it’s wrong for religion and state to be intermingling like this.
Tina

We should be proud of the fact that there is a University built on the same precepts that this country was originally founded on. Even a person of limited understanding of the Bible, but yet has an understanding of American History should realize that it was courageous Christians who sat in the cold and watched thier children die from illnesses just so they could build this country and create a Democratic County for all of us to enjoy. Why don’t some of you ask your relatives from other countries how many freedoms they enjoyed from thier home countries and see how they respond? Yet some of you are traitors to this country, it isn’t intentional but there is an underlying sensibility that shows disregard and unappreciation for the beliefs of those who handed you democracy. You return the favor with a slap in the face and a demand for more.
Kim G

Unintentional traitors huh? Did you borrow that from Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends & Influence People”? I thought that religion encouraged tolerance and loving of your neighbor and etc…?

Our Founding Fathers worked hard to keep church and state separate, so that no one world view would dominate government. Having a nation run only by Christians would in effect give us another monarchy and be exactly the opposite of what the Founding Fathers intended. You speak of a “Democratic County for all of us to enjoy”. I ask you, who is “us”? Do you mean Christians? Or do you mean the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, etc… that populate this Democratic Country?
Darryl

Tina said,

We should be proud of the fact that there is a University built on the same precepts that this country was originally founded on.

You fundamentalists should feel free to interpret the Bible in any way that suits your fancy–or should I say fantasy? But, please refrain from revising U.S. history. Unlike the long-gone origins of your religion, the founding of our government is just a bit too recent for you to attempt this revision. Unfortunately for you there are just not enough ignorant people in the country to permit that.
Siamang

Even a person of limited understanding of the Bible, but yet has an understanding of American History should realize that it was courageous Christians who sat in the cold and watched thier children die from illnesses just so they could build this country and create a Democratic County for all of us to enjoy.
Why don’t some of you ask your relatives from other countries how many freedoms they enjoyed from thier home countries and see how they respond?

Given that members of my family are decended from slaves owned by those “courageous Christians,” I think you’ve got too narrow a view of the past. And a self-serving one as well.

You call me a traitor because I don’t agree with you?

No social skills at all.