• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Creationist Kent Hovind Sentenced To 30 Days In Jail For Domestic Violence

He's an ex-con. He did prison time for tax evasion. He got out and was later indicted for mail fraud, although that trial ended in a hung jury on two counts, but conviction on a contempt charge. And he's 68, not that us oldsters don't have temper issues. My suggestion: he should enter the world of Christian rap and do some catchy rhymes for the home schoolers on how T.Rex rocked the ark.
 
At least he hasn’t had to pay out on his evolution challenge which included explaining the origin of the universe. So he’ll always have that.
 
This idiot lied in tax court that he owned no property, went to an apartment he owns and told the renters to get out. No warning, no time to find a new place, arrange movers, just get out NOW. When they did not immediately decamp, he assaulted them.
Told the cops he was allowed to do that because he owned the property.
And was surprised the tax judge heard about this....
 
That's what I like about Christians, their consistently good behavior worldwide. It's almost like they know something the rest of us don't about morality, eh?
 
That reminds me of Hovind's many dozens of Youtube videos entitled "Whack an atheist".... this involves him hitting a Spongebob toy with a hammer....
e.g.
 
braces_for_impact said:
That's what I like about Christians, their consistently good behavior worldwide. It's almost like they know something the rest of us don't about morality, eh?
Click to expand...

I can say, along with the apostle Paul, that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing. I would not claim to be a more moral person because I am a Christian. Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Only God is good.
 
I just listened to the disturbing audio, but it does have me confused as well. Cindi is doing a lot of screaming and shouting. Kent though does not sound like he is exerting much energy himself verbally or physically. He is not raising his voice at least. At 2:28 he also says "There is no reason to get violent". That makes more sense if it is Cindi who was the one being violent, not Kent. But apparently it is Kent who is being accused of violence? Is he disputing that or admitting that he was violent?
 
ideologyhunter said:
Aesthete said:
Only God is good.
Click to expand...

Since you're quoting Mark 10:18, I've got to ask. When Jesus allegedly says, 'Why do you call me good? Only God is good,' isn't he excluding himself from the Trinity and speaking as a created being -- just a man?
Click to expand...

No. Jesus answers this way because the rich young ruler addressed Him as "good teacher" (didaskalos). In other words, he fails to call Him "Lord" (or kurios - i.e., Master). It's also significant that Judas never called Jesus Lord.
 
Aesthete said:
ideologyhunter said:
Aesthete said:
Only God is good.
Click to expand...

Since you're quoting Mark 10:18, I've got to ask. When Jesus allegedly says, 'Why do you call me good? Only God is good,' isn't he excluding himself from the Trinity and speaking as a created being -- just a man?
Click to expand...

No. Jesus answers this way because the rich young ruler addressed Him as "good teacher" (didaskalos). In other words, he fails to call Him "Lord" (or kurios - i.e., Master). It's also significant that Judas never called Jesus Lord.
Click to expand...

Literal translations of anceint speech washout a contemporaneous understanding of cultural usage and mining is futile.

A Jew on the forum said '40' traditionally meant a while. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days, a while. It rained for 40 days and nights, a while. Moses wandered the desert for 40 years, a while.

Today there is a 'New York Minute'.

Gandhi was called mohatma. Europeans and Indians wgho were with him from the beginning knew him as a regular guy, they all socialized together. Young Europeans who came later were perplexed how people around him treated the 'great one' so casually.



If there was a real character called Jesus take away the supernatural fable aspects and you have, like Gandhi, a man speaking to his countrymen about geopolitics. The pending destruction by Rome if they did not get it together.

Like Jesus may have been Gandhi was deeply religious, a Hindu. As he fell after being shot he uttered a prayer.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (/ˈɡɑːndi, ˈɡændi/;[2] 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer,[3] anti-colonial nationalist[4] and political ethicist[5] who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule[6] and in turn inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "great-souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.[7][8]
Click to expand...

Do you know the roots of the words Jesus Christ and who probably coined them? Or do you think his Mather was literally Missus Mary Chris married to Mr. Joseph Christ?
 
The thing about conservative protestant versions of Christianity is that you can be a bad ass all you want because all you have to do is ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins and magically they go away. You don't even need to confess to a priest. How cool is that! :goodevil: Plus, you can even do it on your deathbed and your murdurous, thieving, lying life is all ready for the pearly gates. You can't make this shit up! Oh wait. I guess you can make this shit up.
 
Lots of cognitive dissonance.

Christians will tell you that they are supernatural creatures, souls, immortal, just like their gods, while simultaneously asserting their human fallibility. It's very weird shit, rationally speaking, and accounts for all manner of strange behavior.
 
Brian63 said:
I just listened to the disturbing audio, but it does have me confused as well. Cindi is doing a lot of screaming and shouting. Kent though does not sound like he is exerting much energy himself verbally or physically. He is not raising his voice at least. At 2:28 he also says "There is no reason to get violent". That makes more sense if it is Cindi who was the one being violent, not Kent. But apparently it is Kent who is being accused of violence? Is he disputing that or admitting that he was violent?
Click to expand...

I listened as well. Not sure I understand the “disturbing.” It’s not clear to me when the shove happens.

But just because Hovind sounds calm, when he knows he is recording, does not mean he is not doing violence, or that she is. He could absolutely be doing violence, with a calm voice, while make a recording accusing her of doing wrong. That is exactly what an abuser would do with a recorder. It’s how those Russian bride-for-citizenship cases go. They marry, get their citizenship, then set up the American man to be accused of abuse.

His “calm” (calculated) voice is the suspect part to me. It is clearly acting.
 
T.G.G. Moogly said:
Lots of cognitive dissonance.

Christians will tell you that they are supernatural creatures, souls, immortal, just like their gods, while simultaneously asserting their human fallibility. It's very weird shit, rationally speaking, and accounts for all manner of strange behavior.
Click to expand...

People of all faiths do the same (as you know); not to mention that there are "Christians", or at the very least people that call themselves Christians, who take a very liberal view of scripture (and will even admit to cherry-picking). I was at a Catholic church recently for an occasion involving a relative. The priest's homily never mentioned hell, damnation, or touched on anything that I would consider offensive. It could have been a universalist church, or some new-age institution, for all I knew. There was all the kneeling and mumbling, which I finally stopped doing out of fatigue.

I do not attend church normally and I am only a "Catholic" insofar as I was baptized as a Catholic. I was not even raised a Catholic. My father is an atheist, always was, and my mother is a fallen Catholic: raised Catholic, but never really followed the doctrine. She is pro-choice, and thinks a lot of the Catholic doctrine is for the birds; but she still calls herself a Catholic and talks about angels and sends people religious cards. She even sent me a rosary one time. I was baptized when I was around five, when my father finally relented and allowed it. My mother took me and my siblings to church a few times, but it never took hold. My brother mocked everything, as he does; my sister was too little to know what the hell anything was about; and I was scared to death, as per usual for little Billy. I was scared of the wafer thing, afraid I would choke. I was afraid of the thing where you dip your hand in the water and genuflect. I was scared to DEATH of the Holy GHOST, thinking it was a real ghost who would haunt me. I hated all the kneeling and the recitations. I tried to follow along, a frightened little child. I was afraid of the priest, with his strange costume. I was afraid of the smoking censers, the scary rituals, even the silly singing, which sounded like a horror film to my five year old ears.I was scared to death when they passed the collection plate around, worried that if I didn't throw in some money I would be in serious trouble. I was scared to death about the poor skinny fellow on the cross: bleeding and obviously in great pain. I wanted so desperately to be able to help Him get down. Or at least unpin His hands so that they could come together.

Later on, in 2006, I wrote a villanelle called "Palms" which was all about this horrible feeling I had at seeing this man's hands pinned forever and apart, bleeding. I was a fire breathing atheist, like my father, when I conceived it, and it is written from an unbelieving point of view. I have not altered it one jot, since I think it's silly for a poet or any author to try and fix earlier work to fit a change of mind they had later. W.H. Auden, famously going from liberal to more conservative, and picking up religion along the way, famously revised most of his extant work, and ruined a good deal of it, trying to make all of the work he wanted to survive him conform to the person he was in later years, seemingly unaware that he was no longer the person he was when he wrote as an atheist, and a liberal, or that he had seriously defaced his own material, which was absolutely fucking brilliant. Either he was unaware or too scared of going to hell. Don't know. It's a shame either way.

I have been over this a thousand times, but people miss it, or they forget: I went from atheist to theist because of a mental breakdown, followed by a psychotic episode which wound me up in the hospital, absolutely out of my mind, followed by a precipitous decline in everything, including my sanity. I was diagnosed bi-polar in 2012 with severe depression and personality disorders, as well as chronic anxiety, and have been on meds ever since. SOME people have very religious feelings due to an area in the brain that affects such kinds of thinking and behaviors. There are all kinds of articles and videos about this phenomenon, and I continually recommend that people study up on it, so they can be disabused of their notions that any kind of god-belief has to be the result of ignorance, stupidity, lack of native intelligence, or some kind of major character flaw. I became a semi-believer, then a true believer, even a Christian. I preached here at TFT, and pissed a lot of people off. All that being said, it irritates me to no end when I see posters here claim that anyone showing up here saying that they they "used to be an atheist" must be lying. Do these posters actually not realize that conversions happen a LOT, from atheist to believer, and/or from believer to atheist. Why do some members here insist that no-one could really go from being an atheist to a true believer, but they have no difficulty understanding that many people go from being a true believer to being an atheist? The contradiction and double standard here is sometimes just plain silly.Of course: religious people DO THE SAME THING sometimes, perhaps even more: they insist that one cannot have been a true Christian and then become an atheist. By their twisted logic, no-one who is "saved" can become unsaved, SO, if a person really was a Christian, they can not lose their faith; OR, if they do lose their faith, then they were not a *True Christian*, the classic No True Scotsman dodge. Therefore, please do not assume that I do not know this, but am just picking on the atheists. I am very small "c" "catholic" with respect to whom I call out for silliness. If one is being silly, irrational, mean-spirited, or just plain stupid, I will speak up. I will also demean MYSELF when I am being a complete ass or a total douche bag. I am NOT one of those who considers apologizing a sign of weakness. It is often seen that was by my opponents, but I say fuck 'em, let them assume I'm weak. Apologizing for screwing up and making errors, either factually or in judgment of something out of prejudice or just by way of making a little mistake, is healthy. I think people who never apologize for being in error, or behaving badly, have a mental problem.

Anyway --Eventually, probably due to medication, I lost the religious mania and returned to atheism, but I never forgot how the god-feeling made me feel. I felt genuinely happy for the first time in my life. There was a distinct sense of loss, which I can only describe as grief. A sense of futility, that all meaning in life is gone. Suicidal ideation ensued, and I began to drink heavily. I swung down into full blown alcoholism. I would probably be drinking right now if it weren't for probation and random UA testing.

For me, sobriety. Fucking. Sucks. As Ozzy is famous for saying. Sobriety is for the birds. Since I was fifteen I have always needed some kind of mind enhancing chemical, be it alcohol, weed, some kind of stimulant, even diphenhyramine (Benadryl) and/or dextromethorphan, which I abused in large amounts for many years. Dextromethorphan has been used in trial studies for the treatment of depression, and has been known to work for some people. Some people have euphoric experiences in high amounts, and there is a whole subculture devoted to DXM experiences which I joined years ago.

Sorry to go on, but it bothers me to keep seeing religion and faith equated to major ignorance, lack of intelligence, or some kind of malicious character flaw. It is quite possible for intelligent, incredibly capable, and decent, moral members of a community to be people of faith. In fact, I will go on to say that people like Hovind, or any money-grubbing phony televangelist, or any kind of seriously judgmental religious radical, be they hard-right soccer moms or those major loonies, the idiots with "God hates fags" signs, or the evil morons who hassle young women at abortion clinics, represent only a segment of people who fall under the umbrella of Christians worldwide. I do not hesitate to suggest that there are probably MORE of these kind of people in the U.S. than anywhere else. And don't forget, I haven't even mentioned radical idiots in other religions, be they Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or what the fuck ever. If anyone wants to accuse me of whataboutism, go for it. I don't give a damn. Tough darts. The truth is what it is, and reality is real. Get over it.

Now, lest I forget to say this absolutely clearly: I am NOT suggesting that Hovind or people like him should NOT be criticized or held to account, or be submitted to public shame and ridicule. He should! He's an asshole. Anyone who would abuse their wife, or ANYONE who would abuse ANYONE, is an asshole, and ought to be publicly shamed and held accountable, free will or no, determinism or no. As another poster here has said from time to time, and I paraphrase him: Sometimes outright ridicule is the best and perhaps ONLY way to deal with such people. Even if we risk lumping others into such and such a category by inadvertent association, and though those others may be innocent, open ridicule of seemingly intractable and recalcitrant behavior is acceptable, if only because it stands a chance of causing less stubborn individuals to think more about what they think and do.

Spinoza, in his Theological-Political Treatise (Theological-politicus tractacus), says, and I am paraphrasing, but I HIGHLY recommend anyone to read this amazing work on biblical interpretation, that typically religion does not CAUSE people to become impious (Spinoza's word for immoral or unethical, basically), but rather the reverse: immoral and impious people use religion as a mask for their genuine beliefs and actions, as an excuse, or as a corroboration of moral rectitude which they in fact developed on their own, if they are liberal and essentially "good" people. And -- they all cherry pick: all of them. There is no essential difference, at least philosophically, between a fundamentalist or a true believer of any stripe, decent or indecent: all of them treat scripture the way they do any other book, which, according to Spinoza, is precisely the way it is supposed to be treated, as a book, the same as any others.
 
Responding to WAB's post....I agree with much of what you've said. Of course, some very smart, educated people are believers. While I don't understand how they can believe some of the things that they do, I don't judge them for that. In fact, all of my Black friends and one of my White friends are Christians. They don't judge me for my beliefs and I don't judge them for their beliefs. If we must judge, we do it based on character, not beliefs. Most of my friends in my current location aren't highly educated, but they are very lovely people, and some are extremely intelligent. They just never had the opportunity to further their education. Besides, I always value emotional intelligence over intellectual intelligence. It's difficult to live a happy life if you don't have emotional intelligence, or whatever you want to call it. I'm just using the current lingo.

But, I think it's okay to attack people like Hovind. He's a hypocrite who uses religion to justify his nastiness.

I also think it's okay to criticize religion, without attacking the individual, although there are times when it's frustrating not to attack both.

Although my own mother was devastated when I left Christianity behind around the age of 19 or 20, she and I remained close friends throughout our lives. In fact, she now is in a nursing home with late stage dementia and I'm doing FaceTime with her this afternoon, hoping she remembers who I am. While I never looked back and always felt like my childhood religion was a cause of cognitive dissonance, I know that once in awhile, an atheist becomes a theist. I don't think it's very common, but it does happen.

In fact, several years ago, there was an atheist here who had left a rather harsh version of evangelical Christianity. He and I met in person and we kept in touch for awhile. After his grandmother died, he saw her in a dream and believed the dream was real and her spirit was telling him something. He went back to theism, although it was a very liberal theism unattached to any particular religion. Imo, he simply couldn't accept that we only live once, so he needed to believe in something supernatural. I think that's why a lot of people cling to religion. There are other benefits, but a lot of people have difficulty accepting their own mortality, imo.

So, yeah. I get it and hopefully some of our other atheist posters do as well. We all lose our tempers at times. That's just being human. But, I think it's better to focus on what we have in common, not what keeps us apart. It's just hard to do that all the time. I reject the concept of free will and that helps me not judge others because we are all products of our genetic and environmental influences, imo. People can be influenced, but it's not usually because they've been attacked and insulted.

Hovind may be a sociopath, and sociopaths are extremely difficult to influence. On the one hand, he can't help being what he is. On the other hand, it's. natural to despise people like him.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom