Kent Hovind Is Out Of Jail ...

[Shadow Wolf]

Obviously his claim is false. No scaling or skewing of the continent is required for it to fit neatly into the North and South American continents. An easy way to see this is to look at an animation of the fragmentation of pangea and the movement of the continents to their present locations based upon paleomagnetic data:

But that doesn't mean he was necessarily lying. As for the question of his taxes, it seems he genuinely believed what he was doing and saying.

Hovind claims to possess a masters degree and a doctorate in education from Patriot University in Colorado.

Graduating from an unaccredited degree mill does not make someone a liar.

 

[outhouse]

, it seems he genuinely believed what he was doing and saying

he has been caught red handed lying.

 

[Skwim]

But that doesn't mean he was necessarily lying.

Are you saying that for some inexplicable reason he actually believed his claim that "they shrank Africa 35 to 40 percent"?

As for the question of his taxes, it seems he genuinely believed what he was doing and saying.

If the courts thought he did they wouldn't have sentenced him to prison for ten years.

Hovind was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January 2007 after he was convicted of 12 tax offenses, one count of obstructing federal agents and 45 counts of structuring cash transactions.

He and his wife, Jo Hovind, who spent one year in federal prison, paid employees in cash without filing payroll tax returns, designating them as “missionaries.” [ Yeah "missionaries" , my old lady's blister]

The new charges center on Hovind’s and Hansen’s attempts to regain Creation Science Evangelism property seized by the federal government in fulfillment of the jury’s $480,400 judgment. They are charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. and obtain money and property by false pretenses through the mail.
source​

Of course all of this was disputed by Hovind, who came up with ridiculous excuse after ridiculous excuse. What criminal doesn't.

Graduating from an unaccredited degree mill does not make someone a liar.[/QUOTE]
When they claim the title of Dr. it does.

He hasn't been living in a cave for the last 40 years---hell, he was even working in academic fields---so he new very well what it took to acquire a true PhD.

.

 

[Paranoid Android]

Can an insane man be accused of "lying" if he speaks of matters from his distorted perspective? After all, isn't it the fact that we recognize the distorted perspective that we call him "insane" in the first place?
To say that Hovind "willfully lies" is to imply that he knows, or believes, otherwise to be correct. I'm not so sure that's the case. I think he speaks of what he "knows."

You know it certainly seems strange that a person calls another insane. People have different views on things. You probably have a different view on religion than I do. Does that mean you're not "insane" ? You very well could suffer from a mental illness. I don't know.
There are many people that are disabled that won't join my religion. That's ok. We aren't frightened by people that disagree.

 

[outhouse]

You know it certainly seems strange that a person calls another insane.

There is a reason why the word has a definition bud.

factually some people fit that definition. Who cares what beliefs one holds, if one fits the bill one literally fits the bill.

To throw away academia and refuse facts certainly shows how weak and frail the human mind is when people wont answer 2 when asked what 1 + 1 is because their ancient religious mythology days 37.

Certain aspects of fanaticism and fundamentalism most certainly fit the bill. Misplaced faith is not just insane, it is flat out dangerous.


Moderation is the key to all religions.

 

[Paranoid Android]

Some insane people know more. They can see the spiritual world sometimes. Of course, some see and say nonsense. But we should listen to them, not reject what they say. There may be some truth in what they say.

 

[outhouse]

Some insane people know more

So what they are insane. Should be locked up, not investigated. Life is to short already.

They can see the spiritual world sometimes

What ever that means

Of course, some see and say nonsense

Literally yes. No such place exist scientifically.

But we should listen to them, not reject what they say.

Go ahead, nothing is stopping you. Doesn't make it right though.

There may be some truth in what they say.

Not in that context.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Are you saying that for some inexplicable reason he actually believed his claim that "they shrank Africa 35 to 40 percent"?

I'm saying we don't have evidence to suggest otherwise.

If the courts thought he did they wouldn't have sentenced him to prison for ten years.

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse/valid defense.

 

[Skwim]

Just for the fun of it, here is part of a critique of Hovind's PhD thesis.

"Two discrepancies were obvious upon inspection.

(1) The dissertation is NOT 250 pages in length. Patriot University sent Mr. Evans a dissertation that is 101 pages in length, including the dedication. The pages of Hovind's thesis are NOT numbered, so my references to page numbers start with the "Dedication" page being number one. There is no table of contents, but on pages five and six Hovind describes a thesis that has 16 chapters. The thesis that Mr. Evans received from Patriot University was a four-chapter thesis.

Recently, Hovind attempted to explain the discrepancy in an email exchange with Evans:

My dissertation was originally about 100 pages. I continued adding material and it grew to 250 pages. Over the last 10 years I have constantly been adding material. It is now many hundreds of pages and will be put into book form as time permits. (1-16-00, Skip Evans email)

This is a ridiculous statement. A dissertation does not continue to grow and (gasp) evolve beyond the completion of the degree. The thesis topic may be pursued, but the additional material is not added to the bound, completed, microfilmed, archived thesis!

(2) The dissertation DOES NOT deal with the subject of "The Effects of Teaching Evolution on the Students in our Public School System". NONE of the four chapters of the Patriot University document addresses this subject, and - IT IS NOT EVEN ONE OF THE SUBJECTS MENTIONED IN THE TWELVE "MISSING" CHAPTERS!!! I agree that this would be a legitimate subject for an advanced degree in education, and that there might be methods to pursue it. However, there is no empirical evidence that Hovind did anything of the kind.

Hovind appears sensitive to criticism of Patriot University and implies that despite its small size and the fact that it is a correspondence school his education is legitimate and so is his degree. What I will show in the rest of this review is that the quality of this thesis, which was apparently accepted by Patriot University, falls WAY below what would be accepted at ANY regular university OR legitimate distance-learning facility. Neither the content nor the writing quality is Ph.D.-calibre by any stretch of the imagination.​

and some

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

There is only one committee member, a Dr. Wayne Knight. Normally, a thesis must pass muster with 3-5 committee members, all of whom make suggestions and ultimately "sign off" on the thesis. Even the undergraduate honors theses at my institution require the signatures of two faculty members.

Misspellings are rampant. A careful, knowledgeable editor/adviser would never allow a student to get away with misspelling "Caanan", "Voltair", "Nyles Eldridge", Madelyn Murray "O'Hare" (just like the airport), "Shintu" (the Japanese religion), "peersuaded", "centrifical" (force!!!), "aught" (to!), "disippated", "immerged" (from the slime), or "epic" (as in geological!). "It's" is used as a possessive pronoun. There are several non sentences. This is especially interesting since the course catalog of PU offers courses like "Refresher English" and "Mechanics of Composition".

THE THESIS HAS NO TITLE. There are no references or footnotes. A few partial citations are included in the body of the thesis, but they are not in standard form, and are incomplete. In at least two places (pp 65-66) the citation simply notes that there is a book title to be added. This has no place in a final version.

The single illustration, the electromagnetic spectrum, is cut out of a science textbook and taped on; it does not fit the page. Additionally, there are substantial formatting errors typical of a draft, but not a final, version. The final version is printed on a dot-matrix printer, an absolute no-no, even in 1991.

The Ph.D. is in "Christian Education", not "Education" - that's what the title page says. The coursework for the two degrees is substantially different, but as late as 1-10-00, Hovind still seems loath to advertising the "Christian" aspect of his degree. Curious that a Christian would leave that part out!
source​

 

[Shad]

Just for the fun of it, here is part of a critique of Hovind's PhD thesis.

​

Patriot university is unaccredited thus he degree is worth less than the paper it is written on.

 

[Skwim]

Patriot university is unaccredited thus he degree is worth less than the paper it is written on.

Yup.

 

[Awkward Fingers]

Some insane people know more. They can see the spiritual world sometimes. Of course, some see and say nonsense. But we should listen to them, not reject what they say. There may be some truth in what they say.

If so, that should be pretty easy to verify..
Funny thing, so far, no one's shown it to be more than delusions of a improperly functioning brain.
How exactly does this spiritual world that they see manifest

 

[columbus]

Funny thing, so far, no one's shown it to be more than delusions of a improperly functioning brain.

That is the whole problem isn't it.
A human with special access to truth can't be distinguished from an unfortunate who has a malfunctioning brain. God may be speaking to us through a new prophet, but the prophet also claims to be the real Jesus. So everyone brings their preconceptions about Jesus Christ to the discussion.

OMG? Maybe God is not interested or intelligent enough to pick a prophet with credibility? Maybe God is playing us? Are humans capable of making these distinctions?
Maybe God's plan is for a truly godly race who like carbon dioxide and more background radiation than earth currently has, and we are part of His Divine Plan. Our usefulness is about over and we'll go out with a bang of nuclear war.
Tom

 

[Awkward Fingers]

That is the whole problem isn't it.
A human with special access to truth can't be distinguished from an unfortunate who has a malfunctioning brain. God may be speaking to us through a new prophet, but the prophet also claims to be the real Jesus. So everyone brings their preconceptions about Jesus Christ to the discussion.

OMG? Maybe God is not interested or intelligent enough to pick a prophet with credibility? Maybe God is playing us? Are humans capable of making these distinctions?
Maybe God's plan is for a truly godly race who like carbon dioxide and more background radiation than earth currently has, and we are part of His Divine Plan. Our usefulness is about over and we'll go out with a bang of nuclear war.
Tom

But, they should be able to, as long as the "spiritual world" they see is consistant with itself.
If two people who can see this "realm" are in the same area, would they be able to both describe it in similar details, and answer questions about it similarly without communicating with each other?
If not, then either it doesn't exist, or it is a realm that doesn't manifest, and is non-self consistant, and for all essential purposes, unreal anyway.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Some insane people know more. They can see the spiritual world sometimes. Of course, some see and say nonsense. But we should listen to them, not reject what they say. There may be some truth in what they say.

Some people simply encase themselves in a mental world that is real to them to the point that dissociation occurs even when challenged by clear facts.

 

[Skwim]

Some people simply encase themselves in a mental world that is real to them to the point that dissociation occurs even when challenged by clear facts.

Need can be a vicious master.

 

[columbus]

Some people simply encase themselves in a mental world that is real to them to the point that dissociation occurs even when challenged by clear facts.

This would make an interesting topic.
At what point does self deception change a lie into a mistake? How much evidence can a sane person ignore before confidently asserting things that are demonstrably wrong goes from mistaken to a flat out lie?
Tom

 

[Milton Platt]

It's still not evidence that Hovind deliberately spread misinformation with the intention of being deceitful. Being wrong is not telling a lie.

Well, he was convicted on several counts, so I think lying with intent happened at least in those circumstances. It could be argued that he also lies with intent to deceive in the case of his creationist videos, lectures, debates, and what have you. He has turned it into a profit center and works it for personal gain. He's basically a scam artist and sees money in the desire of creationists to hear someone say things that support what they want to believe.

 

[columbus]

He's basically a scam artist and sees money in the desire of creationists to hear someone say things that support what they want to believe.

It's different when religious people do it. Then it is strengthening Faith.
And that's a good thing according to many people.
Tom

 

[Paranoid Android]

Some people simply encase themselves in a mental world that is real to them to the point that dissociation occurs even when challenged by clear facts.

What if I told you the world as it seems too you is simply a mental picture that your mind makes up ? That what you see and perceive is not really the real world, but you're interpretation of the real world ?