Kent Hovind

[Pete Harcoff]

Okay, I see from reading some posts that many others are familiar with the "wild, wild world of Kent Hovind".

I recently became aware of Kent Hovind after I emailed a Christian's web site to point out some scientific errors. He responded, referring me to Kent Hovind's site and told me to watch his videos. After watching the first video (and remaining stunned for two hours afterwards), I began searching the 'net for information on him. So far, all I have been able to find are a number of sites debunking pretty much everything he has said.

I have been looking for, in vain, to find any sites or anyone (including Hovind himself) who will rigorously defend him as rigorously as he has been debunked. Does anyone know if any such sites exist? Or is he as big a phony as all those debunking sites claim?

 

[LewisWildermuth]

I have yet to run across a supporting site for him either besides his own... Even AiG seems to back off from him...

Sad...

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Oh well. What truly bothers me about Hovind, though, is he's got so many wrapped around his finger, but I can't find any solid defense of him.

 

[findtbax]

 ha......"debunked"                          




say it again

 

[LouisBooth]

Yup, if a creationist or any christian for that matter says something wrong or something that might be remotely wrong there is always a feeding frenzy.

 

[Sauron]

Originally posted by LouisBooth
Yup, if a creationist or any christian for that matter says something wrong or something that might be remotely wrong there is always a feeding frenzy.

Huh? 

If it were a matter of a small mistake, or something "remotely wrong", then there wouldn't be a whole bunch of people pointing out these errors.

But with Hovind, there are great heaping mounds of nonsense that he is propagating out to people.  Indeed, there is so much factually wrong that it's hard to know where to start.

Trying to claim that Hovind is only guilty of a few things "remotely wrong" is like saying that Enron & Worldcom are only guilty of rounding errors.

I wish christians could be more impartial when judging one of their own members.  This constantly playing favorites and downplaying the sins of their fellow believers reeks of a double standard.

 

[LouisBooth]

Sau..take a look around you. When a christian messes up, or even seems to mess up, its a feeding frenzy.

"This constantly playing favorites and downplaying the sins of their fellow believers reeks of a double standard."

*sigh* in any way did I say he wasn't wrong? For that matter I didn't say he wasn't right either. Just a commentary on how quickly people are to cast "stones" at christians...

 

[seebs]

It has nothing to do with "Christians", it has a lot to do with "really shoddy and dishonest people who claim to be scientists", at least in Kent's case. I find his self-serving propagandizing and profiteering repugnant. If creationist videos didn't sell for huge profits, he would be pushing something else.

 

[LouisBooth]

"It has nothing to do with "Christians", "

*sigh* whatever you say seebs. whatever you say. It has everything to do with that he is a christian.

 

[randman]

I, for one, don't know much about Kent Hovind, but since so many evolutionists hate him, I think he might be worth listening to.

 

[Jerry Smith]

Originally posted by LouisBooth
"It has nothing to do with "Christians", "

*sigh* whatever you say seebs. whatever you say. It has everything to do with that he is a christian.

It has nothing to do with "Christians." If Hovind is judged harshly on this board, it is because of his words and deeds. Because he pretends to be an "expert" and passes off hogwash wholesale to an unsuspecting public. It is because of the paranoia he obviously wishes to spread.

If a Christian makes a mistake on this board there is usually an attempt by some of us to point it out. Only those who make a career of "mistakes" that they continue to make after their mistake has been pointed out to them, and those who are arrogant, sarcastic, and too good to back up their bogus claims get the "feeding frenzy" treatment on this board. And it has nothing to do with their faith. If there is any "bias" it is against their position on "science" (which is the position among some Christians) that it must be slandered at all cost.

 

[Peregrine_Falcon]

It seems to me that Hovind, after many years of debate, has become exhasperated for lack of a better word. It becomes very difficult to stay completely sain when people do not see the truth.

Anyway Pete wanted to know the best way to contact Hovind. He himself does not usually reply to e-mail, but if you write him a letter he usually does reply. That information is on the back of his tapes. Now it is here too.

Kent Hovind
Creation Science Evangalism
c/o 29 Cummings Road
Pensocola, Florida 32503

 

[LiveFreeOrDie]

Originally posted by Peregrine_Falcon
It becomes very difficult to stay completely sane when people do not see the truth.

Yeah, tell me about it...

 

 

[Morat]

  If we are harsh because Hovind is Christian, why are not equally as harsh with Hugh Ross?

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by LouisBooth
"It has nothing to do with "Christians", "

*sigh* whatever you say seebs. whatever you say. It has everything to do with that he is a christian.

I guess that would be why, when I claim to have a college degree, and talk about what I believe about the age of the earth, all the atheists and evolutionists deride me, and refer to St. Olaf as a "diploma mill", and laugh at my obvious dishonesty. And why everyone is constantly harassing TheBear until he runs away from the forum, because he's pushing Christian beliefs, and we know all evolutionists hate Christian beliefs. Oh, and Annabel, too.

Hmm.

Seriously, if it's all about him being Christian, why is it that, when a creationist gets a degree from an accredited university, the degree is not mocked, but when someone comes up with a degree from a mail-order place that isn't accredited, and which (according to people who have gone to the street address) is run out of some guy's house, it gets mocked? If it's all about Kent's religion, why are these people attacking only cases where he can be shown to be lying about matters of verifiable fact, but not attacking, say, his belief that Christ redeems us?

I stand by my claim: Kent Hovind is not attacked because of his religion, he's attacked because there is very good evidence that he is a dishonest man, and that his claims about many things are false and/or knowingly fabricated, and because the best explanation for his behavior is that he's found that there's a lot of money in the creationism lecture circuit - buy a set of his tapes for only $99.99!

There are plenty of Christians who accept evolution as a workable theory, and there are a fair number of creationists who are not subject to the same attacks Kent Hovind is, *BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOT DONE THE SAME DISHONEST THINGS*.

If someone says that he believes the earth is 6,000 or so years old, because that's how he understands the Bible, and he has faith, and he doesn't really care about the science, a majority of people who accept evolution will be quite happy to allow him to say this as often as he wants without fear of contradiction. They may assert that they believe other things, but they won't say he's being dishonest.

When someone makes statements that we can show he knew to be false, repeatedly, to try to push something as "scientific" when it isn't... then we suddenly see complaints.

This has nothing to do with religion; it has a lot to do with honesty.

How much do you wanna bet that you could present Kent Hovind with a detailed refutation of the "Chinese characters" claim about Genesis, and he'd still be using it a year later? I have seen no evidence that he'd stop using it just because he knew it to be false.

 

[Sauron]

Originally posted by LouisBooth
Sau..take a look around you. When a christian messes up, or even seems to mess up, its a feeding frenzy.

I don't find that to be true.

What I find is that people who preach virtue and high standards are judged by those same measurements - whether they are christian, jewish, or whatever.  It is *especially* harsh when they proscribe virtue to other people, and then get caught in a failure.

In other words, it's not because they're christian.  It's because they were presumptuous enough to do the above.

"This constantly playing favorites and downplaying the sins of their fellow believers reeks of a double standard."

*sigh* in any way did I say he wasn't wrong? For that matter I didn't say he wasn't right either.

He's a total fraud, Louis.  Period.

The fact that you still equivocate, the fact that you cannot even bring yourself to admit Hovind's total dishonesty - that is PRECISELY the double standard that I was talking about.

Just a commentary on how quickly people are to cast "stones" at christians...

Perhaps if christians were better at policing their own members and living up to their own standards, then there wouldn't be so many stones cast at them. 

Hmmm? 

 

[LouisBooth]

"It has nothing to do with "Christians." "

So how much press do you think bad "evoultionists" get?

I'm willing to bet money that if a christian says something unscientic and a nonchristian says the same thing. The christian will get "beat up on" much much more.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by LouisBooth
"It has nothing to do with "Christians." "

So how much press do you think bad "evoultionists" get?

I'm willing to bet money that if a christian says something unscientic and a nonchristian says the same thing. The christian will get "beat up on" much much more.

That's actually a very interesting question. Conveniently, the materials to study it are at hand; there's lots of crackpot theories in science. Generally, they're politely ignored unless someone tries to testify to a school board that they should be teaching this stuff along with the theories that have stood the test of time.

One problem we'll run into is that, with respect to evolution, there are VERY few non-christians who have any particularly strongly-held beliefs which are not scientific in nature. Pagans don't generally waste time on a "creation myth", nor do buddhists.

So... could you identify a suitable nonscientific claim about evolution that we could make, that would make *ANY* sense at all not coming from someone who interprets Genesis literally? If we can't, then we have the problem that all the people with the wacky theories are going to be one particular branch of Christians, which biases the sample space.

Hmm.

How about Lamarck? Lamarckian evolution should be a nice ludicrous claim. All we need to do is pick a non-Christian volunteer (come on guys, you can volunteer) and a Christian volunteer to argue the same point at the same time in some forum (say, talk.origins) and see what the difference is.

I will point out that, to a certain extent, people like Hovind have "poisoned the well" for other creationists. After a certain number of experiences with carefully researching a claim, only to find out that, not only is it known to be false, but it was known to be false *by the person making it*, one gets sick of the exercise.

 

[Jerry Smith]

"It has nothing to do with "Christians." "

So how much press do you think bad "evoultionists" get?

I'm willing to bet money that if a christian says something unscientic and a nonchristian says the same thing. The christian will get "beat up on" much much more.

a) Creationist does not mean Christian
b) 'Evolutionist' does not mean non-Christian
c) It is creationists who have a bad rep, not Christians
d) There are two classes of creationists:
-1) Those who spread the idea
-2) Those who believe the idea and come here confused by it
e) I personally tend to try to be much more civil and polite to class 2).

Class 1) has a responsibility to educate themselves thoroughly before professing wisdom of the subject and making statements that are supposed to be "factual" about it. They should not come out on the web or in the forums trading in defunct and debunked criticisms of evolution. To the extent that they fail to educate themselves first, they are dishonest in my book.

f) sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between class 2) and class 1). Sometimes we make mistakes. Some creationists will attempt to position themselves within one of the classes depending entirely on how much they think they can get by with and not be called to account on it.

So how much press do you think bad "evoultionists" get?

It trends by proportion of self-promotion.

 

[Not_a_fundie]

If I'm not mistaken, Kent Hovind was the one who said that "God made the speed of light faster"(for a short period of time) so we could see the stars on a young Earth. Do you REALLY want to defend this man?