Truth Radio 11 July 2006 @ 14:40 (Tape 1)''
Where do you start with this one? The man is clearly delusional, paranoid and attention-seeking. He needs professional help.
His university 'degree' (why he calls himself Dr.) is a degree in Christian studies -- he has no scientific qualifications. He refuses to pay income tax because he is 'working for God' -- he does not however live in a tent on bread & water.
He advocates gun law (plenty of crazy quotes available), not to mention killing abortionist doctors and doing away with democracy.
If this man told me that it was raining I would have my doubts.
He is adept at trying to make sense from nonsense -- his idea for instance that Noah took two of every TYPE of animal rather than variety of animal into the ark is laughable -- but let's just say that we accept it for a moment. Noah was living in the middle east -- how did he manage to get penguins and sealions? How did he catch all those types of birds? How many cages did he have to build to seperate all the various species that would eat each other? How did he prevent disease? Where did all the excrement go? And where did all the flood-water go afterwards? That amount of evaporation needed would require a heatwave lasting years.
And if God was able to create all the hundreds of species of dogs (dingoes, wolves, Irish wolfhounds, corgis etc) from just two animals in only a few thousand years, this could only be described as evolution. Not that that actually happened of course.
Mr.Hovind's claim that there are dozens of 'flood myths' all over the world conveniently ignores the fact that most of them are completely different in content and were written / originated at wildly different times. There are also dozens of vampire and werewolf myths but he doesn't mention those conveniently.
Surely it's better to accept the flood myth as a biblical allegory, rather than insult everyone's intelligence by dressing it up as literal truth?
A fairly recent idea is that the bible is literally true. Even the Roman Catholic Church have never claimed this, as indeed have many branches of the Protestant church. And that's not surprising because it isn't literally true, and to try to prove that it is means tying yourself up in the sort of knots that Mr.Hovind finds himself in.
The bible quite simply can't be literally true for several reasons.
Firstly it was translated from Greek and Arabic. No translation is ever perfect and 10 translators, no matter how skilled, will always come up with 10 slightly different translations.
Secondly, many of the books included in the bible are of dubious date and origin. Many others were left out of the original 4th Century bible, as they were considered 'heretical' by early Christian scholars. Amongst these scholars was St.Eusebius, who had a less than glowing reputation for honesty. Some books were included in the Roman Catholic bible, but omitted from the Protestant one. Why should we suppose that the Protestant bible, after translations, interpretations, early church subterfuge & error & middle ages 'reformation' is the perfect article?
It simply isn't and never claimed to be. It was clearly written by ordinary men and is a mixture of ancient myths, lineages, archaic laws, conflicting accounts of the life of Jesus and various pronouncements and letters from Paul, topped off with a delusional almost psychedelic rant called Revelation.
As a snapshot of the life and beliefs of those writing it, it is a fascinating document. As a historical volume of the time, it leaves much to be desired. As an infallible book supposedly chronicling the word of God, it simply doesn't work. The very fact that there are so many branches of the Christian church, all differing on some point or other of doctrine, indicates that this could not be the pure word of God. If it were, it wouldn't be as vague or open to interpretation as it clearly is. Unfortunately for Christianity, it's all there is.
I suspect that Mr.Hovind will be consigned to the dustbin of history in a short time, dismissed as just another attention-seeking crackpot with wacky ideas.
2 comments:
This guy certainly is a bit of a head case, and the Bible is very clear that we should not follow after mans ways and ideas. At the same time I found some of his DVDs very interesting especially where he went through all the lies in today’s science text books. Some things have been proved wrong by almost everyone including evolutionists but still turn up in 2006 text books. But as for his other ideas, some are a little strange. To quote his own words
“ eat the meat and spit out the bones". KH is like a chicken, lovely meat but loads of bones.
Perhaps people like Kent Hovind should worry a little less about what is in science text books (his 'doctorate' is in Christian studies) and more about his own sanity.
His pronouncements often border on the mentally unhinged and certainly the grossly paranoid, his notion that he doesn't have to pay taxes isn't even biblical (what doesn't he understand about 'render unto Caesar'?) and his constant attacks on the scientific community are entirely pointless and have virtually all been shot down in flames.
Left to his own devices, Mr.Hovind would happily transport us back to the dark ages, complete with a right-wing Christian theocracy every bit as unpleasant as anything the Taliban could envisage.
Perhaps he could bend his efforts to finding any scientific evidence for the many bizarre events depicted in the bible, all of which he accepts entirely at face value, rather than blabbering about how young-earth creationism is somehow more plausible than evolutionary theory.
After all, why demand proof for other's viewpoints when you can't prove any of your own?
If you ask me, evolution should stay in science class, as it's accepted by virtually all scientists. Creationism should stay in religious studies class as virtually all Christians accept it. Then everyone's happy.
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