Kent Hovind in Maryland 2005-11-12
Cyde Weys
Maryland to a Baptist Church in northern Maryland (past Baltimore, near
Havre de Grace) where Kent Hovind was "performing". Right before we
got there we accidentally turned into a street that led to this little
housing development consisting of what was either a bunch of identical
double-wide trailers on foundations or prefab houses. It was a tightly
packed street in the middle of nowhere. It was depressing in that it
seemed to be the living embodiment of a bunch of stereotypes people
have about that weird mix of suburban/rural living.
The church was the next street over. The church itself was nice. It
seemed pretty new, it had a big parking lot, it had a big main room,
and it had a wing with classrooms and stuff in it. It even had a state
of the art projection and audiovisual system. The niceness and
material wealthiness of this church was in sharp contrast to the mini
housing development we had accidentally turned into.
As we were standing around in the lobby of the church a bunch of
pastors came up to us, introduced themselves, asked us our names, shook
hands, etc. They seemed very friendly. By this point a lot of people
were coming so we headed into the lobby, where by the front we saw the
man of the hour himself, Kent Hovind.
Two girls in what appeared to be Amish get-ups were setting up plastic
dinosaurs and pages upon pages of material along the steps to either
side of the main stage and podium (I'm not up on church lingo). The
dinosaurs were really attracting the kids, but the one page that was
equating the Holocaust with evolution was really pissing me the hell
off. I think the two girls (they were as least younger than teenagers)
must've been relatives of Kent Hovind or something. They were probably
in his evangelism group. They were wearing these really bizarre
Amish-style clothings, as were some other people in the audience.
Maybe this is just traditional get-up for some people who go to church,
but it was new to me. (Later on during Kent's performance he was
basically saying any girl who dressed up "like a whore" was a whore, so
I kind of understand if he suppresses the women in his family from
wearing anything remotely interesting).
Anyway, and this is just the college male in me speaking, one thing
that struck me was the make up of the audience. There were no black
people anywhere, out of several hundred people. I saw maybe two
Asians. And most of the other people were decidedly WASP-ish looking.
Some had brown hair but they still had the WASP features. Normally I
feel pretty comfortable anywhere, but what with my half-Jewish ancestry
I really felt like I was standing out. Andrew was standing out too --
if you've seen a picture of him, you'd understand. He'll be posting
his own write-up which includes a picture of him, me, and the man of
the hour. Another thing about the audience - there were a lot of
attractive young women. This is just something I've noticed about
typically rural/southern people. You've all heard the stories about
the farmer's daughter ... well, at least the physical description is
accurate. My heart wept for these attractive young women/girls who
were about to be brainwashed (or already were brainwashed) by this
decidedly anti-scientific rhetoric.
Also, out in the lobby they had a couple tables setup with all sorts of
books and DVDs for sale. There was no charge for admission, and Kent
never asked for donations, but he sure as hell sold the hell out of his
books. At least ten times during the speech he mentioned, "And you can
find out more about this on Vol. 4 of my Creation Evangelism [or
whatever] series." He had two women (he called them secretaries) that
he brought with him from Pensacola, FL to sell the stuff for him.
Before I tell you anything about the performance I want to tell you
about the audience, so you are in the same state of mind I was during
the performance (this will help to understand the atmosphere).
Throughout the performance there were people saying "Amen!" to whatever
blatant anti-evolution lie Kent Hovind was throwing out there. To the
front and right of me was this rabid anti-evolutionist who kept on
muttering, "That's right!" at the appropriate times and "That's
absurd!" whenever Hovind was throwing out another argument from
incredulity. There was a woman behind and to the left of us who was
laughing hysterically at Hovind's jokes, especially the ones with the
anti-evolution cruel intent. To the right of me was this young couple
(the woman was "young" (<25) and attractive, natch) and the woman was
laughing periodically at Hovind's arguments from incredulity. During
the intermission I asked her if she was having a good time. She said,
"Yes." I said, "Yeah, this is hysterical." Predictably, she didn't
understand where I was coming from, so she said, "Yeah, he's a great
speaker," to which I replied, "Yes, he is." And to be fair, Hovind is
a good speaker. He's interesting and funny -- it's too bad everytime
he opens his mouth he lies. He's a charismatic carnival huckster.
Another random thing of note -- when I first got into my seat and sat
down I saw two books in a rack on the bench (pew?) in front of me,
"Baptist Hymnals" and "The Holy Bible" [KJV Edition]. The Hymnals were
interesting, as they included such American songs as "My Country Tis Of
Thee" and "The Star-Spangled Banner". It became quite obvious that
Baptist is a merger between American patriotism and Christianity. Also
I was paging through the Bible because it was interesting to me. I
rarely ever look through one on my own, so it was actually sort of
interesting to me. Did you know that the combined four Gospels of
Mark, Luke, John, and whoever are only like 50 pages out of 700?! And
that the New Testament is like a third of the size of the Old
Testament? I didn't know this stuff, so it was interesting to me.
Anyway, after I put the Bible down I noticed the woman next to me (same
young attractive woman as before) had picked hers up and was reading
through it. She had mistaken my inquisitiveness for some kind of
studiousness and I had shamed her into picking up the Bible to read it
on her own!!! After I put mine down I saw her putting hers down
shortly thereafter. I guess if you go to church every week and the
pastor is having you pick it up every week and read passages it gets
tremendously boring and you won't pick it up on your own unless you're
in an environment where you feel unstudious or un-pious for not picking
it up. I was actually sort of having a good time going through it
until I got stuck on Chronologies. Ohmygod, the pain. But I digress
from the main topic.
The pastor briefly introduced Kent Hovind, saying thank God that Kent
Hovind could be here, etc. He actually led us in a prayer where we
closed our eyes and he was saying stuff like "Thank God for Kent Hovind
who is fighting the good fight." Ugh. And then the man of the hour
sat up and started the performance. The first thing that's important
to realize (that I already touched on) is that Kent Hovind is a good
speaker. He's charismatic, he's funny, and he connects with the target
audience. Later Andrew remarked to me that a church audience is the
easiest audience in the world, which is probably true, because he had
people bawling over jokes which I had found only slightly funny. If
Kent Hovind was a college professor (and, uhhh, didn't have the totally
irrational views that he does now), I would definitely attend every one
of his lectures and I'd think him a great teacher. As it is now, I'm
just kind of sad that such public speaking talent is wasted on such
absurd material. In fact, I'm more than sad, I'm pretty angry. There
were several hundred people there and I'm sure a good number of them
who were previously fence sitters are now Young Earth Creationists,
merely because Kent Hovind is a good rhetorical speaker and they didn't
have the scientific background to be able to pick apart his claims.
Kent Hovind used a plethora of good speaking skills, including audience
participation, that made him a really effective speaker. Whereas I
previously thought of him as just a sort of loon who could be ignored,
I now have a real appreciation of how dangerous he is. He even had a
fully laid out PowerPoint presentation with lots of references and
hand-drawn cartoons. It was a full multimedia presentation.
One of Kent Hovind's first jokes was, "I've been working out how much
my wife and I spent since we got married. I finally figured it out --
we spent all of it." He was trying to paint himself as yet another
working stiff who barely scrapes together enough money to get by, thus
drawing the audience closer by familiarity, but anyone who actually
knows about Kent Hovind's "finances" knows that he's hardly merely
scraping by. This was the first lie in two and a quarter hours FULL of
lies.
What follows is a list of errors, misconceptions, strawmen, and
outright lies, in no particular order, from Kent Hovind's performance:
He said something about how the Earth's rotation is slowing down
(true), and then went on to say that leap seconds are the result of
scientists correcting for this, which is false -- leap seconds are
there to correct for the difference between sidereal years and calendar
years, not the slowing of the Earth's rotation. He then went on to
calculate, based on the rate of about one leap second every 1.5 years,
how fast the Earth would be spinning, say, hundreds of millions of
years ago, and said that it would be spinning so fast it would throw
everything off. He had a cute picture of a rapidly spinning Earth and
dinosaurs being flung off it.
He used this truly bizarre angular momentum example of little kids on a
merry-go-round being pushed by high school football players, complete
with four-step humorous illustrations. He said something very bizarre
about angular momentum being conserved by the kids spinning after they
were flung off the merry-go-round. Then he went into even more bizarre
realms when he talked about the Earth, Venus, and Neptune, as well as a
dozen out of the 90 moons in the solar system, all spinning
"backwards", which is clearly impossible if the original angular
momentum of the pre-Big Bang "dot" is to be preserved (he used one
reference where some scientist was talking about how the primordial
matter was spinning very quickly). He even talked about entire
galaxies spinning "backwards", complete with a screenshot of a CNN
online article. I was at a loss for words at this point. I've taken
several classes in astronomy and the ignorance he was showing about
these issues was so great that I don't feel it is necessary to respond.
He talked about limestone or mineral deposit mounds that formed on
pipes, parking garages, or whatever, and how quickly they formed, and
went on to say that stalactites in caves don't have to nearly as old as
scientists claim.
He emphasized (for whatever reason) that the Earth is NOT overpopulated
and that, in fact, it is barely inhabited at all. He had a bunch of
slides to "prove" this. He showed pictures of meadows and the Great
Plains and said, "See all of this empty land out there?" But the
hysterical part was that one of his photos was an aerial or satellite
photo of checkered FARM LAND. Yes, FARM LAND. Apparently Kent Hovind
thinks farm land is unnecessary and society would totally work if all
farm land was converted into living space for people. He went on to
say that all people on Earth could fit TWICE over into only
Jacksonville, FL, nevermind how absurd it is to imagine everyone
standing together all packed in. And of course he doesn't mention that
just to feed those people you need to reserve at least all of the rest
of the United States for farm land. He then goes on to use an
exponential equation to show that the 6 billion people of today traces
back logically to around 8 people at ... surprise surprise ... 4,400
years ago. Obviously evolution is impossible, he says, because if
humanity started three million years ago then population growth would
be so great that there would be tens of thousands of people living per
square INCH on the Earth's surface. Yes, he said that. Go back and
read it again. He had people guffawing over this one, laughing at
those silly evolutionists who posit that people were around for that
long because, you know, they could totally reproduce until they covered
every square inch of land with tens of thousands of people. This was
the worst example of a strawman argument I saw all night.
One of his recurring themes was his "theory" of Young Earth
Creationism, where he'd repeatedly bring up a scientific strawman or
deliberate misinterpretation, say why it means that the Earth couldn't
possibly be older than around 6,000 years (or 4,400 years for things
affected by the Flood), and then he'd say, "Scientists want you to
believe this." (Laughter from the audience.) "I, on the other hand,
have an alternate theory ..." and then he'd bring up the slide with his
creation timeline again. He drilled it into people's heads at least
half a dozen times, using the very popular rhetorical technique of
repetition, and by the end of it I daresay he had people chanting along
with him over the creation timeline.
He said something about Niagara Falls moving a certain number of feet
per years, and that the Earth couldn't possibly be older than a certain
number of years or else the Niagara Falls should've eroded its way all
the way back to Lake Erie. This lack of logic was astounding. There's
no law that says that the Niagara Falls have been around for the
history of the Earth; in fact, at the rate they are eroding, they are
an almost ephemeral phenomenon and we are lucky just to be around at
the same time as them. But in his distorted perception of reality,
were the pre-flood time any longer than 4,400 years ago the rate of
erosion would have cut the Niagara Falls all the way to Lake Erie and
this would be impossible because the Niagara Falls is, in fact, halfway
along the lake between Lake Erie and the river's source. It's hard to
explain (or understand) this argument because it's so absurd, but just
think about circular logic and you get the drift.
He liked to bring up the statistic that 75% of public-schooled
Christians lose their faith after just one year at college. First of
all, I highly doubt the accuracy of that statistic, but even assuming
that it was true, why is he bringing it up? Is he really suggesting
that people should just not go to college and remain ignorant?
He brought up about ten different graphs of various negative indicators
of society (murder rates, illegitimate children, couples living out of
wedlock, divorces, etc.) and showed that they all exhibited sharp
increases immediately after 1963 when, spurred by the USSR's Sputnik,
we had a renewed emphasis on science education (and thus evolution) in
this country. According to Kent Hovind murder rates went up over 1000%
between 1960 and 1990 and this is solely the fault of evolution.
Kent Hovind's main argument style seems to be argumentation from
incredulity, though I'm sure you all knew that already.
Kent Hovind was talking about "real science" and how he was in favor of
it, then went on to show two examples of his real science - how to make
a paper airplane that will go really far and how to shoot a rubberband
that will go really far. Yes, that is the extent of real science to
Kent Hovind. To be fair, the rubberband and paper airplanes were
really neat and they a good crowd pleaser, much like a magic trick. To
shoot the rubberband he pulled one side of the band tighter than the
other before firing. This is the only thing I learned from the whole
performance :-) He then mixed it in with some weird metaphor about how
the sides of the rubberband represent the soul and the body and that
too many people emphasize them equally and that the soul must be
emphasized more. As for the airplane, he took a half sheet of paper,
folded it up multiple times, taped it into a circle, and as he threw it
he gave it spin. It was really impressive - it flew really far. I'm
going to have to try that. But if that's all creationism can do -
shoot rubberbands far and fly airplanes far - then count me against
including it in public schools.
He seems to be paranoid. He believes that evolution is a plot by
atheists and humanists to train people to not think they are created in
the image of God, and thus, they can easily be enslaved and used in The
New World Order. What exactly this NWO is, he wouldn't say. I'm not
making this up.
He said creation can legally be taught in schools, it's just that it
can't be mandated. He said most people don't know this because the
American Communist Lawyers Union [sic] threatens principals with the
threat of lawsuits for even the hint of creation being taught.
According to him the godless atheist humanists are winning by default
because the good Christians aren't even stepping up to the plate to
fight it and just giving up every time. Nevermind that teaching
creation actually is illegal, whether or not it is mandatory.
He had some very immature attacks (ad hominem) against various
individuals or groups. I already mentioned what he called the ACLU.
He also said stuff like, "National Pornographic, errr, I mean
Geographic" (light laughter) and he referred to one "Carl Pagan".
He attacked Lyell on uniformitarianism, nevermind that he uses
uniformitarianism in the majority of his arguments explaining why the
Earth has to be young, by extrapolating current rates of XXXX back to
millions or billions of years ago.
Of course, he had an inerrant a priori belief that The Bible is
absolute and 100% correct, and whenever it conflicted with what science
has shown OF COURSE The Bible is correct. The crowd just ate this up
and it never even crossed anyone's mind to question this.
He said that the result of evolution was all number of teens and young
adults doing Really Stupid things, like using drugs, getting piercings
or tattoos, or even, *gasp*, wearing spiky, Goth-style hair. He had
pictures of the extreme ends of these spectrums to which the crowd, of
course, responded to with horrified gasps. Some of the pictures were
gruesome (like one guy who had hundreds of piercings on his face) --
but then again, they weren't relevant to anything either.
He rehashed the creationist argument that there is too much salt in the
ocean and that at current rates of ocean salinization the ocean would
be entirely freshwater at 4,400 years ago, to coincide exactly with the
Flood, which he says was fresh water. He also rehashed the argument
that the Gulf of Mexico should be full of sediment run-off from the
Mississippi River if the Earth actually was millions of years ago,
nevermind that in the past sedimentation rates were different, and in
the extreme past, the river didn't exist and the continents looked
totally different.
He made a claim that I've never heard before when he took on Pangaea.
He showed a picture of modern day continents aligned "perfectly" in the
usual Pangaea arrangement, then went on to say that Africa was resized
by 65% in the picture just to get it to fit. Does anyone know of the
truth of this? I'm thinking he probably got confused by various map
projections, which do distort the shapes of the continents. One of his
arguments was, "Africa has twice the land area of S. America, yet in
this image of Pangaea you can see that they look roughly the same
size." Nevermind that on a "normal" Mercator [sp?] projection map
Greenland looks the same size of all of S. America yet in reality is
only about the size of Texas. And don't even get me started on the
apparent size of Antarctica.
On some of his slides he used quotes from AiG. I found that funny,
seeing as how AiG has specifically attacked a lot of the things he says
as "arguments that creationists shouldn't use". He also predictably
took people like Stephen Jay Gould out of context. It's easy to take a
man out of context when he can no longer speak up for himself when he
is quotemined :-(
At various points in the presentation he attacked Mormons, Jehovah's
Witnesses, and Catholics, going so far as to pimp (show ads) for books
that consist of Baptist outreach arguments to these groups.
He also attacked cigarettes, alcohol, and (obviously) drugs. He
admitted that he's never tasted a drop of alcohol in his life, and
says, "Why should I try it to know if I like it? I don't have to put
my head underneath the wheels of a semi-trailer to know I wouldn't like
that." It was complete with a funny cartoon illustration that the kids
in the audience found hysterical. It made a lot of the grown-ups kind
of uneasy though - out in rural Maryland you have a lot of smokers and
a lot of drinkers, and the people didn't like essentially being looked
down upon. Hovind was showing the same disdain for smokers and
drinkers as he was showing for the "evolutionists" in the rest of his
presentation.
A lot of his stuff was religious in nature. He had some moral lessons
about following Christ and doing good in your life that was typical
pastor/sermon stuff and really had nothing to do with evolution.
He confused evolution with 6 different things - microevolution,
macroevolution, chemical evolution, abiogenesis, galactic evolution,
and something else, saying that only the former has been observed. He
had a lot of ludicrous arguments on why "chemical evolution" (elements
larger than iron being formed) was impossible, and he also tried to say
that elements and stars was a chicken and the egg problem. He went on
to talk about kinds and had a young kid in the argument pick out which
"didn't belong": dog, wolf, coyote, or banana. Obviously the former
three are one kind and a banana is something entirely different. It's
something so simple a 5-year-old can understand but those atheistic
scientists constantly struggle with.
He did a weird example on brainwashing which was essentially a logic
puzzle with "leave home, turn left, left, and left, and there's two
masked men waiting for you at home" - which is apparently referring to
baseball. But according to him he just brainwashed us all into
thinking of "home" as an actual house and thus not getting the
"puzzle". He goes on to draw parallels with kids as young as
kindergarteners being brainwashed to believe in evolution with the
simple starting sentence in many books, "Millions of years ago..." or
"Billions of years ago..." His solution? Ask "Were you there?"
He bragged the hell out of defeating dozens of "evolutionists" in
debates, and went on to pimp his series of videos showcasing these
debates. You can get all of his videos for a low, low $350!! Where do
I sign up?! He made a big deal of saying that they weren't copyrighted
and that you could copy them for your atheist friends to try to convert
them, you just couldn't sell them. Andrew thought this meant that he
was a "true believer" in the views he was selling, because a true
huckster could run the business, not allow copying, and make more
money. I pointed out that the kind of people buying these videos are
not the kind of people who are going to go online and download the
videos or copy them off friends rather than simply buy them. If you're
making blockbuster movies, then yes, online piracy is a big deal. But
if you're making creationism videos, you're already selling to the
converted, the online trading of them is nonexistent (go try to find a
.torrent of these vids), and by saying you are releasing them into the
public domain you can put on a fake air of altruism: "I'm not into this
for the money at all, you can copy them for free." (But of course I
know you're going to buy them and give me lots of money.)
At one point in the debate he played off of greed. "If you have a big
house, what do you want? A bigger house!" The audience practically
yelled in agreement. Same for having money, you want more money, you
have 80 shoes, you still want more shoes, etc. The audience seemed to
be confirming this greedy stereotype, as if they'd all be material
whores if NOT for Christ "keeping them in check". Meanwhile I'm
thinking to myself, if I had a big house, I REALLY wouldn't want a
larger one, if I had a million bucks I really wouldn't want any more,
and if I had 80 shoes I sure as hell wouldn't want anymore. I'm not
really a materialist whore - I make do with what I have and I really
don't want for me. This seemed to be in sharp contrast to the people
in attendance.
And finally, at the end of the performance Hovind was selling the HELL
out of his DVDs and books (which were, of course, available for
purchase in the lobby). He must've had five slides of just ads for his
books. And I saw a lot of people handing over lots of money for his
schlock. This is how he makes his money ... admission is free but he
spends a good ten minutes selling the hell out of his goods, and if you
don't have the money with you you can of course buy from his catalog!
He ended the performance with a prayer where we stood up, bowed our
heads, closed our eyes, he said something, and then ended with an
"Amen". I forget what the prayer was about, which means that it was
vacuous. After it was over Andrew and I went up to him, said hi, and
got our picture taken with him. Beforehand we were thinking about
maybe saying something to him or the pastor, but by the end of the
performance we realized there was really nothing we could do. We were
in his world, where the truth is irrelevant, and even bringing up
anything that seemed contrary to him was liable to end up getting real
ugly real quick. So we just said hi and left. We got back in Andrew's
car (luckily the Darwin fish wasn't vandalized) and headed home.
And that ends my discussion of Kent Hovind in Maryland. It took me
longer to type this up than it took him to give the whole performance.
Ugh :-( Andrew will be coming along at some point with the picture and
his own write-up. He actually took five pages of notes during the
presentation. I'm just running off of memory.
And I'm sorry if this wasn't as objective as it could be. My intent
was to give you an exact feeling of how I felt about and responded to
this performance, with no feelings censored. Hell, a bit of the
college-age male "rowdiness" should even be showing through (*pokes fun
at Ferrous Patella*).
Matthew Isleb
> Also, out in the lobby they had a couple tables setup with all sorts of
> books and DVDs for sale. There was no charge for admission, and Kent
> never asked for donations, but he sure as hell sold the hell out of his
> books. At least ten times during the speech he mentioned, "And you can
> find out more about this on Vol. 4 of my Creation Evangelism [or
> whatever] series." He had two women (he called them secretaries) that
> he brought with him from Pensacola, FL to sell the stuff for him.
Off topic, but what is it about Florida and slimey people, anyway? Florida
seems to be the home of so many con artists, spammers, and just generally
shady people. Do they have loose laws regarding fraud or something? Has
anyone else noticed this?
-matthew
Grace Haliburton
In defense of the lovely state of Florida (which admittedly may, or may
not, generate a lot of shady people), Pensacola is better understood as
part of Alabama.
--
-Grace
"Never trust anything that thinks for itself if you can't see where it
keeps its brain." - J.K. Rowling
Andrew Arensburger
> Off topic, but what is it about Florida and slimey people, anyway?
That certainly seems to be the case, at least from up here.
Maybe the heat and humidity melt their brains or something.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
are...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
No matter where you go, &this.
Andrew Arensburger
Someone recently (I don't remember where; could've been here)
described Pennsylvania as "Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the
west, and Alabama in between."
Port Deposit is just south of the Pennsylvania border, so
maybe some of the Alabama leaked out.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
are...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Polls show that 9 out of 6 schizophrenics agree.
thissteve
Cyde Weys wrote:
> He brought up about ten different graphs of various negative indicators
> of society (murder rates, illegitimate children, couples living out of
> wedlock, divorces, etc.) and showed that they all exhibited sharp
> increases immediately after 1963 when, spurred by the USSR's Sputnik,
> we had a renewed emphasis on science education (and thus evolution) in
> this country. According to Kent Hovind murder rates went up over 1000%
> between 1960 and 1990 and this is solely the fault of evolution.
I thought 1859 was the year that triggered all this.
> He said creation can legally be taught in schools, it's just that it
> can't be mandated.
I'm not a lawyer. Any chance he's right on this? Isn't it just the
establishment clause you have to uphold? Couldn't you have an elective
course on creationism as long as you had elective courses for other
people's "religious science?" And since creationism couldn't last a
whole term, you could have one course lumping them all together.
> He attacked Lyell on uniformitarianism, nevermind that he uses
> uniformitarianism in the majority of his arguments explaining why the
> Earth has to be young, by extrapolating current rates of XXXX back to
> millions or billions of years ago.
Good catch; very few people in my experience notice this.
> He also attacked cigarettes, alcohol, and (obviously) drugs. He
> admitted that he's never tasted a drop of alcohol in his life, and
> says, "Why should I try it to know if I like it? I don't have to put
> my head underneath the wheels of a semi-trailer to know I wouldn't like
> that."
I've tasted alcohol only once. It's awful--you can feel your body
fighting it all the way down. You have to suffer through it several
times before "acquiring" a taste for it. You can save a whole lot of
money by trusting your body the first time.
> His solution? Ask "Were you there?"
Ugh, I hate that one. Tell all archaeologists to go home.
> And that ends my discussion of Kent Hovind in Maryland. It took me
> longer to type this up than it took him to give the whole performance.
Thanks for taking the time to do that.
Cheezits
[etc.]
> Anyway, and this is just the college male in me speaking, one thing
> that struck me was the make up of the audience. There were no black
> people anywhere, out of several hundred people.
It just occurs to me that I have encountered very few non-white people on
the Usenet newsgroups I read.
[etc.]
> The first thing that's important
> to realize (that I already touched on) is that Kent Hovind is a good
> speaker. He's charismatic, he's funny, and he connects with the target
> audience.
[etc.]
What did I tell you? The guy I know who went to see Hovind is a big fan of
his. And he know creationism is rubbish. If only there were more people
with similar speaking skills who could give talks to the general public on
scientific subjects.
Sue
--
"It's not smart or correct, but it's one of the things that
make us what we are." - Red Green
Kevin Wayne Williams
> "Cyde Weys" <cyde...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [etc.]
>
>>Anyway, and this is just the college male in me speaking, one thing
>>that struck me was the make up of the audience. There were no black
>>people anywhere, out of several hundred people.
>
>
> It just occurs to me that I have encountered very few non-white people on
> the Usenet newsgroups I read.
How on earth could you tell?
KWW
Cheezits
> Cheezits wrote:
>> It just occurs to me that I have encountered very few non-white
>> people on the Usenet newsgroups I read.
> How on earth could you tell?
I'm referring to the ones I have met in person. They may or may not be
representative of the norm.
frogm...@yahoo.com
It's easy to tell, all posts from non-white people are displayed as
white text on a black background, instead of the reverse.
A couple of other things I've noticed, almost everyone who posts on the
newsgroups I follow have broader shoulders, are lower body density then
the average and are all blood type A.
---Jay
Cheezits
> Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:
>> Cheezits wrote:
>> > It just occurs to me that I have encountered very few non-white
>> > people on the Usenet newsgroups I read.
>>
>> How on earth could you tell?
>
> white text on a black background, instead of the reverse.
>
> A couple of other things I've noticed, almost everyone who posts on
> the newsgroups I follow have broader shoulders, are lower body density
> then the average and are all blood type A.
They all have American accents too. Well, except on uk.singles.
BruceW
Cyde Weys wrote:
> [snip boffo description of the whole "Hovind Experice"]
>
> And that ends my discussion of Kent Hovind in Maryland. It took me
> longer to type this up than it took him to give the whole performance.
Nevertheless, thanks for taking the time, and especially for making
an effort to capture the mood the event. I could almost hear the pages
flipping and the crowd ooh's and aah's, etc.
> ... And I'm sorry if this wasn't as objective as it could be. ...
The part you tole was jes' fine!
Well done Cyde - thanks again.
-BruceW
Ash
Snip review
Very good
In case anyone is interested,
http://pooflingers.blogspot.com/2005/08/hovind-files-lying-for-jesus.html
is a series of reviews of his videos, which the brave and noble person
at the blog subjected himself to
Basically, rather than just a couple of hours of lies, distortions and
paranoid hate filled fantasies, it is 12 videos worth
Ash
>
> He confused evolution with 6 different things - microevolution,
> macroevolution, chemical evolution, abiogenesis, galactic evolution,
> and something else, saying that only the former has been observed. He
> had a lot of ludicrous arguments on why "chemical evolution" (elements
> larger than iron being formed) was impossible, and he also tried to say
> that elements and stars was a chicken and the egg problem. He went on
> to talk about kinds and had a young kid in the argument pick out which
> "didn't belong": dog, wolf, coyote, or banana. Obviously the former
> three are one kind and a banana is something entirely different. It's
> something so simple a 5-year-old can understand but those atheistic
> scientists constantly struggle with.
>
Pity he didn't include fox or hyena
Ernest Major
Weys <cyde...@gmail.com> writes
>And most of the other people were decidedly WASP-ish looking. Some had
>brown hair but they still had the WASP features.
Speaking as a citizen of a nation with a majority of white, Anglo-Saxon
post-Christians, brown hair is the commonest colour among WASPs.
--
alias Ernest Major
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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frogm...@yahoo.com
Thanks, Cyde for a great post but I think it leads to the question of
what if anything can be done. Clearly the platform is not open for
rebuttal, but maybe a 'Hovind is an honorable man' type of speech (ala
Marc Antony's speach in Julius Caeser) is needed to dispell the aura
(ala 'But Dr. Hovind would never bear false witness' type of thing).
Can something like that be done with a few pointed questions. Is it
possible to ask anything at these types of venues? Could one point out
that he said uniforminism (sp?) is bunk but uses only uniformism type
arguements for the age of the earth, that sounds dishonest, but Dr.
Hovind would never bear false witness, would he?
Or is it better to omit the sarcasim and just ask some pointed
questions? For example, could one ask Hovind if he thinks no one can
be convicted of a crime unless there is an eyewitness or is it possible
to know things whithout an eyewitness? Do you think that they should
stop teaching comparative anatomy in medical schools, if all kinds are
unrelated, how do you pick which ones to study? Would you object to or
encourge people who heard your talk to go out and look into your claims
from a variety of sources? Simple questions that may serve to break
the spell and at least cause some of the fence sitters to at least
start thinking a liittle more about what they heard?
---Jay
Cyde Weys
BruceW wrote:
> Cyde Weys wrote:
>
> > [snip boffo description of the whole "Hovind Experice"]
> >
> > And that ends my discussion of Kent Hovind in Maryland. It took me
> > longer to type this up than it took him to give the whole performance.
>
> Nevertheless, thanks for taking the time, and especially for making
> an effort to capture the mood the event. I could almost hear the pages
> flipping and the crowd ooh's and aah's, etc.
I don't know if the page flipping was meant to be figurative, but there
was no page flipping. Hovind was speaking just off of his slides and
his memory. He was very well prepared (he had all of his jokes
memorized and knew the appropriate times to use them, etc.). But then
again, he probably does dozens of these talks a year ... he should know
the material by now! :-P
Cyde Weys
thissteve wrote:
> Cyde Weys wrote:
> > He brought up about ten different graphs of various negative indicators
> > of society (murder rates, illegitimate children, couples living out of
> > wedlock, divorces, etc.) and showed that they all exhibited sharp
> > increases immediately after 1963 when, spurred by the USSR's Sputnik,
> > we had a renewed emphasis on science education (and thus evolution) in
> > this country. According to Kent Hovind murder rates went up over 1000%
> > between 1960 and 1990 and this is solely the fault of evolution.
>
> I thought 1859 was the year that triggered all this.
Nahhh, 1963 (according to him) is when evolution finally started
getting taught in schools (remember the Scopes Monkey Trial?) and
that's when society went downhill. Before then everything was all
fine.
> > He said creation can legally be taught in schools, it's just that it
> > can't be mandated.
>
> I'm not a lawyer. Any chance he's right on this? Isn't it just the
> establishment clause you have to uphold? Couldn't you have an elective
> course on creationism as long as you had elective courses for other
> people's "religious science?" And since creationism couldn't last a
> whole term, you could have one course lumping them all together.
I suppose you could have an elective course on creationism (otherwise
known as comparative religions?) but that's not how he was phrasing it.
He was talking more about individual science teachers deciding to talk
about creationism in their classes, which is illegal.
> > He attacked Lyell on uniformitarianism, nevermind that he uses
> > uniformitarianism in the majority of his arguments explaining why the
> > Earth has to be young, by extrapolating current rates of XXXX back to
> > millions or billions of years ago.
>
> Good catch; very few people in my experience notice this.
I have to fess up in that I noticed something was wrong but Andrew was
the one who actually spoke it out loud.
> > He also attacked cigarettes, alcohol, and (obviously) drugs. He
> > admitted that he's never tasted a drop of alcohol in his life, and
> > says, "Why should I try it to know if I like it? I don't have to put
> > my head underneath the wheels of a semi-trailer to know I wouldn't like
> > that."
>
> I've tasted alcohol only once. It's awful--you can feel your body
> fighting it all the way down. You have to suffer through it several
> times before "acquiring" a taste for it. You can save a whole lot of
> money by trusting your body the first time.
Mehhh, it ain't that bad. And seeing as how I started with the
"lighter" stuff, i.e. beer and wine, I really never did feel my body
fighting it all the way down. Different tastes for different people
and all that ...
> > His solution? Ask "Were you there?"
>
> Ugh, I hate that one. Tell all archaeologists to go home.
Is it archaeologist or archelogist? I've been using the former
spelling but my spell checker complains to me about it and suggests the
latter? Is this an American/European thing?
> > And that ends my discussion of Kent Hovind in Maryland. It took me
> > longer to type this up than it took him to give the whole performance.
>
> Thanks for taking the time to do that.
That's six hours (including driving) of my life that I'll never get
back. Apparently he's doing an all-day seminar type thing today. When
he announced this, Andrew and I turned to each other and didn't even
have to say a thing. Two hours of his spiel was more than enough for
an entire year, thankyouverymuch.
Cyde Weys
Ernest Major wrote:
> In message <1131858480.8...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Cyde
> Weys <cyde...@gmail.com> writes
> >And most of the other people were decidedly WASP-ish looking. Some had
> >brown hair but they still had the WASP features.
>
> Speaking as a citizen of a nation with a majority of white, Anglo-Saxon
> post-Christians, brown hair is the commonest colour among WASPs.
I'm just reporting on what I saw.
And it has more to do with just hair color, there's eye color, facial
structure, noses, etc. All of these people were decidedly WASPish. I
was the ethnic one. I'm half-Jewish, half-WASP, and have a darker
complexion than all of those people at the church. And I sure as hell
am not used to being the "ethnic" one.
Cyde Weys
frogm...@yahoo.com wrote:
> <Excellent post - snipped - but please read>
>
> Thanks, Cyde for a great post but I think it leads to the question of
> what if anything can be done. Clearly the platform is not open for
> rebuttal, but maybe a 'Hovind is an honorable man' type of speech (ala
> Marc Antony's speach in Julius Caeser) is needed to dispell the aura
> (ala 'But Dr. Hovind would never bear false witness' type of thing).
He had a part in his speech where he was talking about the Ten
Commandments and how everyone was guilty. But then he went on to say,
"But I'm going to heaven because I have accepted Jesus Christ as my
personal lord and savior." He repeated the "I'm going to heaven" part
twice more to make it really dig in. I don't think he cares if he is
bearing false witness ... he thinks he is doing the Lord's work and he
is sure he's going to heaven anyway, so no matter what he does, it
doesn't matter. Frankly I find this thinking rather dangerous.
> Can something like that be done with a few pointed questions. Is it
> possible to ask anything at these types of venues? Could one point out
> that he said uniforminism (sp?) is bunk but uses only uniformism type
> arguements for the age of the earth, that sounds dishonest, but Dr.
> Hovind would never bear false witness, would he?
You can't ask questions. You could interrupt, but seeing as how the
crowd would be against you anyway, you'd just get torn a new one.
Really, you can't win at these places. It's not worth it even to try.
Nobody there gives a damn about uniformitarianism (or indeed any of
science). They just look at his so-called scientific examples and go,
"Lookee thurr! Evolutionism is false!" They don't really care if
they're scientific or not, it's just confirmation that their worldview
is correct. Hovind is telling these people what they want to hear,
whereas real scientists have been telling them what they didn't want to
hear for decades. You can't fight against something like that in their
atmosphere.
> Or is it better to omit the sarcasim and just ask some pointed
> questions? For example, could one ask Hovind if he thinks no one can
> be convicted of a crime unless there is an eyewitness or is it possible
> to know things whithout an eyewitness? Do you think that they should
> stop teaching comparative anatomy in medical schools, if all kinds are
> unrelated, how do you pick which ones to study? Would you object to or
> encourge people who heard your talk to go out and look into your claims
> from a variety of sources? Simple questions that may serve to break
> the spell and at least cause some of the fence sitters to at least
> start thinking a liittle more about what they heard?
Once again, the people there are totally in his thrall. You could go
up to him afterwards and ask him these questions, but he'll roast you.
He's been doing his public speaking and "debate" schtik for sooo long
that evidence or truth is irrelevant, he'll just use rhetoric and
destroy you in front of the true believers who are all waiting to get
their books signed or whatever. The only way to take these people on
(where they won't step all over your facts simply be being louder and
interruptive) is in written debates, which of course Hovind doesn't do.
I suppose some very slight tactics of noncompliance might work. For
example, I wore my "In the beginning, God said ... [integral
formulation of Maxwell's laws] ... and there was light" t-shirt, but I
wore a jacket over it and forget to take off the jacket in the picture.
Although a picture with Hovind and me wearing that shirt would've been
priceless. And then if he challenges you on something like this, you
have plausible deniability. "What? No, I'm a good Christian. This
brings God back into science." It won't fool Hovind but it will fool
the onlookers, and Hovind won't go any further for risk of making
himself look foolish. That is how you score a very minor victory. You
could go with something that says "I love Lucy" (as previously
mentioned), and if challenged, say, "But that show is excellent!"
And yes, I know these tactics seem kind of cowardly, but there's really
no way you can win some kind of argument like this in the church in
front of the true believers. Hell, you couldn't win against him
one-on-one unless you had many hours to dispell his myths - which of
course he wouldn't do. There was even a part of his presentation where
he railed against some guy on the internet for talking about the Oort
Cloud and Hovind called that shifting the burden of proof. Yes, this
was very juvenile. Some guy pulled one over on Hovind online and so
now Hovind distorts the evidence and roasts him in front of every
performance audience he has. And of course everyone is laughing along
at that foolish atheist evolutionist because his argument is distorted
into absurdity.
BruceW
Cyde Weys wrote:
> BruceW wrote:
>
>>Cyde Weys wrote:
>>
>>>[snip boffo description of the whole "Hovind Experice"]
>>>
>>>And that ends my discussion of Kent Hovind in Maryland. It took me
>>>longer to type this up than it took him to give the whole performance.
>>
>>Nevertheless, thanks for taking the time, and especially for making
>>an effort to capture the mood the event. I could almost hear the pages
>>flipping and the crowd ooh's and aah's, etc.
>
> I don't know if the page flipping was meant to be figurative, but there
> was no page flipping. ...
You described paging through a hymnal and the bible before "the show"
started -- those were the pages I "heard". See, your description was
even more vivid than you realized! :-)
-BruceW
Cyde Weys
BruceW wrote:
> Cyde Weys wrote:
>
> >
> >> I could almost hear the pages
> >> flipping and the crowd ooh's and aah's, etc.
> >
> > I don't know if the page flipping was meant to be figurative, but there
> > was no page flipping. ...
>
> You described paging through a hymnal and the bible before "the show"
> started -- those were the pages I "heard". See, your description was
> even more vivid than you realized! :-)
Damn, I'm good!
Gary Bohn
news:1131858480.8...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
<snip>
Thanks very much for the low down on Hovind.
I just recently subjected myself to 6 hours of his seminars (I
downloaded them) and it appears his schlock hasn't changed much if any
since they were made.
I found it very difficult to not get frustrated to the point of violent
anger while listenng to the seminars. The man is a snake oil salesman
that has a captive audience and should be removed from polite society.
I admire Aren's and your restraint while there; I would have been
ejected within the first 10 minutes.
--
Gary Bohn
Science rationally modifies a theory to fit evidence, creationism
emotionally modifies evidence to fit a specific interpretation of the
bible.
Andrew Arensburger
> He was very well prepared (he had all of his jokes
> memorized and knew the appropriate times to use them, etc.). But then
> again, he probably does dozens of these talks a year ... he should know
> the material by now! :-P
He says it's hundreds of times a year, not dozens. That's also
one of his excuses for never engaging in a written debate. The other
is that he's a hunt-and-peck typist (though he has a large enough
staff that you'd think he could find *somebody* who could take
dictation).
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Making tomorrow's mistakes today!
Andrew Arensburger
> but the one page that was
> equating the Holocaust with evolution was really pissing me the hell
> off.
Did it mention evolution? I thought it was about abortion. Or
is Hovind now lumping that in with evolution as well?
[...]
> I really felt like I was standing out. Andrew was standing out too --
> if you've seen a picture of him, you'd understand. He'll be posting
> his own write-up which includes a picture of him, me, and the man of
> the hour.
It's here:
http://www.ooblick.com/weblog/2005/11/13/its-the-kent-hovind-show/
The other picture, where your eyes aren't closed, is at
http://www.ooblick.com/gallery/misc
[...]
> Later Andrew remarked to me that a church audience is the
> easiest audience in the world,
Or so I'm told by my musician friends. I suspect it's a big
part of the social aspect of church.
[...]
> He said something about how the Earth's rotation is slowing down
> (true), and then went on to say that leap seconds are the result of
> scientists correcting for this, which is false -- leap seconds are
> there to correct for the difference between sidereal years and calendar
> years, not the slowing of the Earth's rotation.
Aren't you minoring in astronomy? I know I could hear your
brain shrivel every time he said something about astronomy.
[...]
> He had people guffawing over this one, laughing at
> those silly evolutionists who posit that people were around for that
> long because, you know, they could totally reproduce until they covered
> every square inch of land with tens of thousands of people. This was
> the worst example of a strawman argument I saw all night.
Then I guess you missed the part about "if evolution is true,
why aren't the laws of physics evolving? Why don't you wake up ten
pounds heavier because the law of gravity changed overnight?"
[...]
> "I, on the other hand,
> have an alternate theory ..." and then he'd bring up the slide with his
> creation timeline again. He drilled it into people's heads at least
> half a dozen times, using the very popular rhetorical technique of
> repetition, and by the end of it I daresay he had people chanting along
> with him over the creation timeline.
I thought this was particularly ironic, since early on he put
up a picture of Adolf Hitler and explained the principle of the Big
Lie: that if you repeat something often enough, people would believe
it, no matter how outragous it was.
[...]
> According to Kent Hovind murder rates went up over 1000%
> between 1960 and 1990 and this is solely the fault of evolution.
I don't have a good URL for this, but a casual Google search
seems to show that murder rates in the 1950s were at a 50-year low.
And his graphs cut out at 1990, but various Bad Things (e.g., crime,
teen pregnancy) have declined since then. I don't know whether he cut
off his graphs at 1990 because he didn't want to imply anything good
about Clinton, or because he hasn't bothered to update them in the
last 15 years.
The latter is plausible: most of the textbooks he had in his
slides were from the 1980s, augmented by a handful of texts from the
1990s, and -- I think -- just one reference from 2004.
[...]
> He seems to be paranoid. He believes that evolution is a plot by
> atheists and humanists to train people to not think they are created in
> the image of God, and thus, they can easily be enslaved and used in The
> New World Order.
Download the MP3s of his talks and listen to them. He has a
whole segment dedicated to these paranoid fantasies of his.
[...]
> He said creation can legally be taught in schools, it's just that it
> can't be mandated.
He may even be right: IIRC the newly-elected Dover Area School
Board does advocate teaching Intelligent Design, but -- and this is
crucial -- in a social studies or comparative religion class.
[...]
> He confused evolution with 6 different things - microevolution,
> macroevolution, chemical evolution, abiogenesis, galactic evolution,
> and something else, saying that only the former has been observed.
Speaking of which, I think I've run into the term "chemical
evolution" either here or on Pharyngula. But there, it meant something
like change in chemical composition of primordial oceans, before and
leading to the first life forms. Hovind, OTOH, seemed to use it in the
sense of "formation of more massive elements from the original
hydrogen and helium formed in the Big Bang".
Anyone care to set me straight?
[...]
> I pointed out that the kind of people buying these videos are
> not the kind of people who are going to go online and download the
> videos or copy them off friends rather than simply buy them. If you're
> making blockbuster movies, then yes, online piracy is a big deal. But
> if you're making creationism videos, you're already selling to the
> converted, the online trading of them is nonexistent (go try to find a
> .torrent of these vids),
Here you go:
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torrentdetails&id=440698
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torrentdetails&id=440699
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torrentdetails&id=440700
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torrentdetails&id=440702
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torrentdetails&id=440703
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torrentdetails&id=440705
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torrentdetails&id=440707
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
If I wanted your opinion, I'd take you out of my killfile.
Andrew Arensburger
> Can something like that be done with a few pointed questions. Is it
> possible to ask anything at these types of venues? Could one point out
> that he said uniforminism (sp?) is bunk but uses only uniformism type
> arguements for the age of the earth, that sounds dishonest, but Dr.
> Hovind would never bear false witness, would he?
The seventh and last part of his talk is entitled "Questions
and Answers". IIRC it's part reading FAQs, and part taking questions
from the audience. But it's not a matter of raising your hand and
asking a question; rather, people write their questions on slips of
paper and hand them up, and Hovind decides which ones he'll answer.
Last night, he hung around for a while after the show, and
there was a possibility of asking him questions, but I doubt there
would have been more point: Hovind himself is beyond hope, and any
audience members who might have benefited from the questions were
milling about and heading out the doors.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Okay, that's it! Arm the electric bagpipes!
Cheezits
[etc.]
> He says it's hundreds of times a year, not dozens. That's also
> one of his excuses for never engaging in a written debate. The other
> is that he's a hunt-and-peck typist (though he has a large enough
> staff that you'd think he could find *somebody* who could take
> dictation).
That why he never writes any books? <smirk>
Sue
--
I didn't lie! I was writing fiction with my mouth! - Homer Simpson
Cyde Weys
Andrew Arensburger wrote:
> Cyde Weys <cyde...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > but the one page that was
> > equating the Holocaust with evolution was really pissing me the hell
> > off.
>
> Did it mention evolution? I thought it was about abortion. Or
> is Hovind now lumping that in with evolution as well?
I don't remember so much, I didn't actually read it ... just the title
and the pictures were offending me.
> > I really felt like I was standing out. Andrew was standing out too --
> > if you've seen a picture of him, you'd understand. He'll be posting
> > his own write-up which includes a picture of him, me, and the man of
> > the hour.
>
> It's here:
> http://www.ooblick.com/weblog/2005/11/13/its-the-kent-hovind-show/
> The other picture, where your eyes aren't closed, is at
> http://www.ooblick.com/gallery/misc
That guy taking the pics was a moron :-( I wonder if he's ever seen a
digital camera before in his life.
> > He said something about how the Earth's rotation is slowing down
> > (true), and then went on to say that leap seconds are the result of
> > scientists correcting for this, which is false -- leap seconds are
> > there to correct for the difference between sidereal years and calendar
> > years, not the slowing of the Earth's rotation.
>
> Aren't you minoring in astronomy? I know I could hear your
> brain shrivel every time he said something about astronomy.
Yes, I am minoring in astronomy, and that was the sound of my brain
shrivelling.
> > He had people guffawing over this one, laughing at
> > those silly evolutionists who posit that people were around for that
> > long because, you know, they could totally reproduce until they covered
> > every square inch of land with tens of thousands of people. This was
> > the worst example of a strawman argument I saw all night.
>
> Then I guess you missed the part about "if evolution is true,
> why aren't the laws of physics evolving? Why don't you wake up ten
> pounds heavier because the law of gravity changed overnight?"
That's bad, but I think what I cited is worse.
> > "I, on the other hand,
> > have an alternate theory ..." and then he'd bring up the slide with his
> > creation timeline again. He drilled it into people's heads at least
> > half a dozen times, using the very popular rhetorical technique of
> > repetition, and by the end of it I daresay he had people chanting along
> > with him over the creation timeline.
>
> I thought this was particularly ironic, since early on he put
> up a picture of Adolf Hitler and explained the principle of the Big
> Lie: that if you repeat something often enough, people would believe
> it, no matter how outragous it was.
Remember how I poked you when he brought that up and you smirked at me
knowingly? I wonder how many other people in the audience saw the
connection.
> > He said creation can legally be taught in schools, it's just that it
> > can't be mandated.
>
> He may even be right: IIRC the newly-elected Dover Area School
> Board does advocate teaching Intelligent Design, but -- and this is
> crucial -- in a social studies or comparative religion class.
He wasn't talking about teaching creation in social studies or
comparative religions. His version of science education is paper
airplanes, rubber bands, and creationism.
> > I pointed out that the kind of people buying these videos are
> > not the kind of people who are going to go online and download the
> > videos or copy them off friends rather than simply buy them. If you're
> > making blockbuster movies, then yes, online piracy is a big deal. But
> > if you're making creationism videos, you're already selling to the
> > converted, the online trading of them is nonexistent (go try to find a
> > .torrent of these vids),
>
> Here you go:
[snip torrent links]
Torrents are the provenance of the young, for the most part. How many
of those churchgoers do you think are going to go online to download
from a torrent? I wouldn't be surprised if some of them didn't even
have computers. And "old" people typically don't go online to download
stuff ... they certainly don't go online to download DVDs which are for
sale right in the lobby and proceeds are going to "a good cause".
Taoshan
I appreciate your sharing all this with us. You have an eye for vivid,
telling details.
You wondered about anything constructive you could do in a seting where
you rpoptions are so limited. I think it would be productive just to
say to anyone, after it's over, that you disagree; that you find the
evidence for evolution overwhelming and that his presentation didn't
reflect the true state of knowledge. No attempt to argue or elaborate.
Just stand your ground and say it where other people can hear you, then
be polite and shake hands.
A simple, self-assured statement like this has a more powerful effect
in that environment than you may think. People around you will pay
attention. You are not talking like a member of the herd (in a place
where herd behavior is rampant). You are not talking like a sneering
God-hating devil (as they expect). You are living proof that his
presentation is not persuasive to everyone (when everyone else is
hailing it as a slum dunk). And you are someone who has gone to the
trouble and taken the time to listen to the other side (which they have
not).
They will note all this, whether they admit it or not. That's why a
short statement still has power. Fundamentalists, sad to say, rarely
see these things on their home turf. They will remember what you said.
They will wonder what more you might have said, what you might have
seen that they didn't. Someone might even follow you out to your car to
ask you about it. But whether anyone follows up or not, you can be sure
that, with very little effort, you have made an impression as strong as
any of the guy's slides. They can't erase the experience once they have
it, and it's a good one for them to have.
Taoshan
_
Mark Isaak
<mis...@lNO.SPAMonshore.com> wrote:
>Off topic, but what is it about Florida and slimey people, anyway? Florida
>seems to be the home of so many con artists, spammers, and just generally
>shady people. Do they have loose laws regarding fraud or something? Has
>anyone else noticed this?
An offhand guess: People go to Florida to retire and live the easy
life. That means they don't want to bother about anything. That
makes them easy marks for con artists, attracting them too.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Mark Isaak
wrote:
>"Cyde Weys" <cyde...@gmail.com> wrote:
>[etc.]
>> Anyway, and this is just the college male in me speaking, one thing
>> that struck me was the make up of the audience. There were no black
>> people anywhere, out of several hundred people.
>
>It just occurs to me that I have encountered very few non-white people on
>the Usenet newsgroups I read.
All of my encounters with people on USENET are white, too, but I
attribute that to the background settings on the news and email
readers I use.
Have you noticed that the people who post to The Panda's Thumb
(www.pandasthumb.org) are blue around the edges?
thissteve
Cyde Weys wrote:
> I suppose some very slight tactics of noncompliance might work. For
> example, I wore my "In the beginning, God said ... [integral
> formulation of Maxwell's laws] ... and there was light" t-shirt, but I
> wore a jacket over it and forget to take off the jacket in the picture.
> Although a picture with Hovind and me wearing that shirt would've been
> priceless.
Sorry, my pastor, a YEC, has that t-shirt. No conflict there.
Cyde Weys
Maybe you should get a new pastor then :-/ It's hard to take someone
seriously on other issues when you disagree on something so
fundamentally basic as "how old everything is".
catshark
[...]
>> > He had people guffawing over this one, laughing at
>> > those silly evolutionists who posit that people were around for that
>> > long because, you know, they could totally reproduce until they covered
>> > every square inch of land with tens of thousands of people. This was
>> > the worst example of a strawman argument I saw all night.
>>
>> Then I guess you missed the part about "if evolution is true,
>> why aren't the laws of physics evolving? Why don't you wake up ten
>> pounds heavier because the law of gravity changed overnight?"
>
>That's bad, but I think what I cited is worse.
FWIW, I'm with Andrew on this one. After all, the observation that the
fundamental regularities of the universe *don't* change is the basis for
methodological naturalism and is the very foundation of science. Hovind is
making rhetorical hay out of something that shows virtually everything else
he says to be a lie.
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
In the name of the bee
And of the butterfly
And of the breeze, amen
- Emily Dickinson -
Do you think everyone should have a blog?
Here is the counter-evidence: <http://dododreams.blogspot.com/>
Cyde Weys
catshark wrote:
> On 13 Nov 2005 13:58:41 -0800, "Cyde Weys" <cyde...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> > He had people guffawing over this one, laughing at
> >> > those silly evolutionists who posit that people were around for that
> >> > long because, you know, they could totally reproduce until they covered
> >> > every square inch of land with tens of thousands of people. This was
> >> > the worst example of a strawman argument I saw all night.
> >>
> >> Then I guess you missed the part about "if evolution is true,
> >> why aren't the laws of physics evolving? Why don't you wake up ten
> >> pounds heavier because the law of gravity changed overnight?"
> >
> >That's bad, but I think what I cited is worse.
>
> FWIW, I'm with Andrew on this one. After all, the observation that the
> fundamental regularities of the universe *don't* change is the basis for
> methodological naturalism and is the very foundation of science. Hovind is
> making rhetorical hay out of something that shows virtually everything else
> he says to be a lie.
Well you weren't there to see his cutesy graphic that showed thousands
of people squished into one inch square. Ohhh, and they
two-dimensional people too.
But you make a good point. I wonder how many others in the audience
realized what a perversion of science this was? Or did the rubber band
and the airplane get them off track, thinking it was going to be real
science?
The really bad thing was that Hovind would slip into fast-spoken
"scientific mumbo-jumbo" that actually made sense to me but most of the
crowd just laughed at. It was as if he was making fun of science as a
whole. He called tape "a mono-layer single-sided adhesive polymeric
bonding material" - or somesuch.
Tristan Miller
In article <1131905329....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Cyde
Weys wrote:
>> > His solution? Ask "Were you there?"
>>
>> Ugh, I hate that one. Tell all archaeologists to go home.
>
> Is it archaeologist or archelogist? I've been using the former
> spelling but my spell checker complains to me about it and suggests the
> latter? Is this an American/European thing?
The most common spelling is "archaeologist" or rarely "achæologist". Some
Americans prefer the spelling "archeologist".
Regards,
Tristan
--
_
_V.-o Tristan Miller [en,(fr,de,ia)] >< Space is limited
/ |`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= <> In a haiku, so it's hard
(7_\\ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ >< To finish what you
Lt. Kizhe Catson
Some years back, I went to maybe a half-dozen Creationist presentations
put on my a local group, over a period of a couple of years, before
deciding there were more productive ways to spend my time. No Kent
Hovind; the "Big Name" C-ists I saw were Gish and Chittick, and the
lesser-known Keith Davies. The rest were either unknowns, or ICR videos.
There were Ensuing Posts, but I can't be bothered to google them up
just now.
It really *is* a creepy feeling sitting in a room where there's major
serious BS going down, complete with slides -- and everyone around you
is enthusiastically agreeing. It's the kind of situation that makes me
wish I was more (ie: at all) socially confident, and could stand up and
go a few rounds with the Chief BSer, in front of a partisan crowd.
Makes you want to stand up and scream "You're all being LIED TO by this
clown!". I did wind up in a good conversation with a local fundy pastor
who, while a YEC for theological reasons, wasn't so eager to swallow the
"science" being put out (the guy had been a chemist before entering the
ministry). I passed on to him some of the early t.o FAQ material.
-- Kizhe
Andrew Arensburger
> The really bad thing was that Hovind would slip into fast-spoken
> "scientific mumbo-jumbo" that actually made sense to me but most of the
> crowd just laughed at. It was as if he was making fun of science as a
> whole. He called tape "a mono-layer single-sided adhesive polymeric
> bonding material" - or somesuch.
Recall that at one point, he referred to "salivary extract" or
some such. I was thinking at the time that the Getty Museum did a much
better job with that joke in an exhibit that talked about an art
restoration expert cleaning a frame with "a readily-available mildly
acidic enzymatic cleaning solution stored at body temperature".
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
"Bother!" said Pooh, and then deleted his source code.
Walter Bushell
Kevin Wayne Williams <kww.n...@verizon.nut> wrote:
> Cheezits wrote:
> > "Cyde Weys" <cyde...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > [etc.]
> >
> >>Anyway, and this is just the college male in me speaking, one thing
> >>that struck me was the make up of the audience. There were no black
> >>people anywhere, out of several hundred people.
> >
> >
> > It just occurs to me that I have encountered very few non-white people on
> > the Usenet newsgroups I read.
>
> How on earth could you tell?
>
> KWW
If you look at the headers you can tell I'm a tiger.
--
"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any
charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his
peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totali-
tarian government whether Nazi or Communist." -- W. Churchill, Nov 21, 1943
Cyde Weys
Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <11nej9h...@news.supernews.com>,
> Kevin Wayne Williams <kww.n...@verizon.nut> wrote:
> > Cheezits wrote:
> > > It just occurs to me that I have encountered very few non-white people on
> > > the Usenet newsgroups I read.
> >
> > How on earth could you tell?
> >
> > KWW
>
> If you look at the headers you can tell I'm a tiger.
Sorry, I don't see the stripes.
Grace Haliburton
Walter Bushell wrote:
> In article <11nej9h...@news.supernews.com>,
> Kevin Wayne Williams <kww.n...@verizon.nut> wrote:
>
> > Cheezits wrote:
> > > "Cyde Weys" <cyde...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > [etc.]
> > >
> > >>Anyway, and this is just the college male in me speaking, one thing
> > >>that struck me was the make up of the audience. There were no black
> > >>people anywhere, out of several hundred people.
> > >
> > >
> > > It just occurs to me that I have encountered very few non-white people on
> > > the Usenet newsgroups I read.
> >
> > How on earth could you tell?
> >
> > KWW
>
> If you look at the headers you can tell I'm a tiger.
>
According to *my* headers, you're purple. Sorry :)
--
-Grace
"Never trust anything that thinks for itself if you can't see where it
keeps its brain." - J.K. Rowling
Cheezits
> Walter Bushell wrote:
[etc.]
>> If you look at the headers you can tell I'm a tiger.
>
> According to *my* headers, you're purple. Sorry :)
Does this font make me look fat?
Sue
--
"It's not smart or correct, but it's one of the things that
make us what we are." - Red Green
Grace Haliburton
Cheezits wrote:
> "Grace Haliburton" <kaos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Walter Bushell wrote:
> [etc.]
> >> If you look at the headers you can tell I'm a tiger.
> >
> > According to *my* headers, you're purple. Sorry :)
>
> Does this font make me look fat?
>
*sickly sweet voice* No, honey, of course not!
Andrew Arensburger
> If you look at the headers you can tell I'm a tiger.
Do you have an imaginary friend named Calvin?
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Marriage means commitment. Of course, so does insanity.
Greg G.
Cheezits wrote:
> "Grace Haliburton" <kaos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Walter Bushell wrote:
> [etc.]
> >> If you look at the headers you can tell I'm a tiger.
> >
> > According to *my* headers, you're purple. Sorry :)
>
> Does this font make me look fat?
What I wouldn't give to see you in italics!
BruceW
Grace Haliburton wrote:
> Cheezits wrote:
>
>>Does this font make me look fat?
>
> *sickly sweet voice* No, honey, of course not!
Clearly, you've never been a husband. The *only* answer to such
questions must be a version of "You look *beautiful* dear".
-BruceW
John Wilkins
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
"Darwin's theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other
hypothesis in natural science." Tractatus 4.1122
Andrew Arensburger
> Cheezits wrote:
> > Does this font make me look fat?
> What I wouldn't give to see you in italics!
It'd certainly show off her curves.
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Dead men tell no tales. Then again, neither do mimes.
Ernest Major
<arensb.no-...@umd.edu> writes
>Greg G. <ggw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Cheezits wrote:
>> > Does this font make me look fat?
>
>> What I wouldn't give to see you in italics!
>
>It'd certainly show off her curves.
>
--
alias Ernest Major
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.0/167 - Release Date: 11/11/2005
Cyde Weys
Ernest Major wrote:
> In message <dldntr$nat$4...@grapevine.wam.umd.edu>, Andrew Arensburger
> <arensb.no-...@umd.edu> writes
> >Greg G. <ggw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Cheezits wrote:
> >> > Does this font make me look fat?
> >
> >> What I wouldn't give to see you in italics!
> >
> >It'd certainly show off her curves.
> >
> Would you prefer her in uncials?
I'll an serif you tell me what that means.
Ernest Major
Weys <cyde...@gmail.com> writes
Sorry, is that a request for clarification, or merely the start of a pun
cascade?
Matt Silberstein
And, yet, I so admire that fellow on the TV commercial. His wife asks
if a dress makes her look fat and, without looking up or waiting a
moment he replies "You betcha". He is my hero!
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
Matt Silberstein
<{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> in <RRH$+T8vLn...@meden.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
>In message <1132097045.2...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Cyde
>Weys <cyde...@gmail.com> writes
>>
>>Ernest Major wrote:
>>> In message <dldntr$nat$4...@grapevine.wam.umd.edu>, Andrew Arensburger
>>> <arensb.no-...@umd.edu> writes
>>> >Greg G. <ggw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> Cheezits wrote:
>>> >> > Does this font make me look fat?
>>> >
>>> >> What I wouldn't give to see you in italics!
>>> >
>>> >It'd certainly show off her curves.
>>> >
>>> Would you prefer her in uncials?
>>
>>I'll an serif you tell me what that means.
>>
>
>Sorry, is that a request for clarification, or merely the start of a pun
>cascade?
In case you don't know, Cyde does not have a job and so is not set in
his ways. He will press on this topic, justified or not.
(I count 5.)
Robert Grumbine
Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPref...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:27:44 -0500, in talk.origins , BruceW
><LevelO...@Yahoo.com> in <yNadnfPDic5...@suscom.com> wrote:
>>
>>Grace Haliburton wrote:
>>
>>> Cheezits wrote:
>>>
>>>>Does this font make me look fat?
>>>
>>> *sickly sweet voice* No, honey, of course not!
>>
>>Clearly, you've never been a husband. The *only* answer to such
>>questions must be a version of "You look *beautiful* dear".
>
>And, yet, I so admire that fellow on the TV commercial. His wife asks
>if a dress makes her look fat and, without looking up or waiting a
>moment he replies "You betcha". He is my hero!
Not looking up or pausing is key. If he looks up, or pauses, he's
in big trouble. If she sees that he's not even looking or considering,
well, depends, but he'll probably live out the day. I've trained
several women not to ask (me) this question, using this method.
The 'you look beautiful dear' is still risky. Better to go for
"I love you" or "How 'bout them Sox?"
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
Matt Silberstein
(Robert Grumbine) in <11nmos8...@corp.supernews.com> wrote:
>In article <hhkmn198ous1i20k7...@4ax.com>,
>Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPref...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:27:44 -0500, in talk.origins , BruceW
>><LevelO...@Yahoo.com> in <yNadnfPDic5...@suscom.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Grace Haliburton wrote:
>>>
>>>> Cheezits wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Does this font make me look fat?
>>>>
>>>> *sickly sweet voice* No, honey, of course not!
>>>
>>>Clearly, you've never been a husband. The *only* answer to such
>>>questions must be a version of "You look *beautiful* dear".
>>
>>And, yet, I so admire that fellow on the TV commercial. His wife asks
>>if a dress makes her look fat and, without looking up or waiting a
>>moment he replies "You betcha". He is my hero!
>
> Not looking up or pausing is key.
And what makes it funny.
> If he looks up, or pauses, he's
>in big trouble. If she sees that he's not even looking or considering,
>well, depends, but he'll probably live out the day. I've trained
>several women not to ask (me) this question, using this method.
>
> The 'you look beautiful dear' is still risky. Better to go for
>"I love you" or "How 'bout them Sox?"
Whatever you do, don't say "you look fine". The temptation will creep
up on you, it will step onto your tongue. Do not ever, ever let it
out. It won't do what you think it will, it will not help. "Just
fine?! I don't look pretty? I don't look beautiful? I just look fine?"
Don't do it, just don't do it.
thissteve
Matt Silberstein wrote:
> And, yet, I so admire that fellow on the TV commercial. His wife asks
> if a dress makes her look fat and, without looking up or waiting a
> moment he replies "You betcha". He is my hero!
I still remember Married With Children: "It's not the dress that makes
you look fat. It's the fat that makes you look fat."
Cheezits
<ROFL> I don't think I've ever actually asked anyone that. I can tell if
something makes me look fat. I ain't blind!
But these headers do make me look old.
Sue
--
"It's a funeral dress."
"Good choice. Really brings out your grief." - MAD TV
Mark Isaak
<{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In message <1132097045.2...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Cyde
>Weys <cyde...@gmail.com> writes
>>
>>Ernest Major wrote:
>>> In message <dldntr$nat$4...@grapevine.wam.umd.edu>, Andrew Arensburger
>>> <arensb.no-...@umd.edu> writes
>>> >Greg G. <ggw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> Cheezits wrote:
>>> >> > Does this font make me look fat?
>>> >
>>> >> What I wouldn't give to see you in italics!
>>> >
>>> >It'd certainly show off her curves.
>>> >
>>> Would you prefer her in uncials?
>>
>>I'll an serif you tell me what that means.
>
>Sorry, is that a request for clarification, or merely the start of a pun
>cascade?
It was a leading question.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Andrew Arensburger
> In case you don't know, Cyde does not have a job and so is not set in
> his ways. He will press on this topic, justified or not.
Nor is he married, so if you kill him, you won't have to worry
about any widows or orphans.
> (I count 5.)
I count three. What are the other two?
--
Andrew Arensburger, Systems guy University of Maryland
arensb.no-...@umd.edu Office of Information Technology
Someday, you'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.
Matt Silberstein
Arensburger <arensb.no-...@umd.edu> in
<dlg916$sdh$1...@grapevine.wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPref...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> In case you don't know, Cyde does not have a job and so is not set in
>> his ways. He will press on this topic, justified or not.
>
> Nor is he married, so if you kill him, you won't have to worry
>about any widows or orphans.
>
>> (I count 5.)
>
> I count three. What are the other two?
I suppose job and case are one, so that makes four. Then we have set,
press, and justified.
David Empey
news:hhkmn198ous1i20k7...@4ax.com:
> On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:27:44 -0500, in talk.origins , BruceW
> <LevelO...@Yahoo.com> in <yNadnfPDic5...@suscom.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Grace Haliburton wrote:
>>
>>> Cheezits wrote:
>>>
>>>>Does this font make me look fat?
>>>
>>> *sickly sweet voice* No, honey, of course not!
>>
>>Clearly, you've never been a husband. The *only* answer to such
>>questions must be a version of "You look *beautiful* dear".
>
> And, yet, I so admire that fellow on the TV commercial. His wife asks
> if a dress makes her look fat and, without looking up or waiting a
> moment he replies "You betcha". He is my hero!
What about the guy who said "It's not the dress." ?
--
Dave Empey
"Doyle's my friend, but he is not running around MY city
drunk, horny, and wearing a robot Buffy-suit!"
--"Ghost in the Machine", The Visitor
chris.li...@gmail.com
I tell my wife "Yes". I immediately follow it up with something along
the lines of "Everything makes a skinny woman look fat".
Chris
Robert Grumbine
So, what kind of flowers do you want at your impending funeral?
You do know that no woman really believes that she's skinny, so
you're obviously a liar trying to cover his tracks. Better go
with 'How 'bout them Sox' instead.
chris.li...@gmail.com
I have been golden since two things happened:
1. My wife said something in Chinese to our daughter, so I asked for a
translation. Our kid said, "Mommy said she would be really cute if she
lost 20 pounds". I replied "Yes". Before death arrived, though, I got
out, "Of course, mom would also be really cute if she gained 20
pounds." (That has the added benefit of being absolutely true.)
2. Not long ago, she got home after I did, to find two of her favorite
meals prepared- she had her choice for dinner. Then I cleaned up. And
various other things, too. She kept asking why I was being so nice to
her. Shortly thereafter I brought out the cake that said "Happy
Anniversary"- a minor detail that had apparently slipped her mind.
Chris
Jack Dominey
Weys" <cyde...@gmail.com> wrote:
>The Hymnals were
>interesting, as they included such American songs as "My Country Tis Of
>Thee" and "The Star-Spangled Banner". It became quite obvious that
>Baptist is a merger between American patriotism and Christianity. Also
>I was paging through the Bible because it was interesting to me. I
>rarely ever look through one on my own, so it was actually sort of
>interesting to me. Did you know that the combined four Gospels of
>Mark, Luke, John, and whoever are only like 50 pages out of 700?! And
>that the New Testament is like a third of the size of the Old
>Testament? I didn't know this stuff, so it was interesting to me.
This was, to me, the most striking passage of your report, Cyde.
I grew up in a small town in the Deep South, raised Methodist with
about eight years of perfect attendance at Sunday School. With
allowances for the 30+ intervening years, my religious background
probably wasn't much different from the folks surrounding you at that
church. The things you found odd and surprising were matter-of-fact
parts of the culture I lived in until college.
The connection between patriotism and evangelical Christianity *is*
very strong, and probably not too surprising if you think about it.
Both are primarily emotional commitments to an abstract set of ideas.
Both beliefs imply that the believer belongs to the elect, and is set
apart from (and superior to) everyone else. There's also a ready-made
parallel - the USA as a modern Israel, with evangelicals substituting
themselves for the Israelites of the Bible as God's Chosen.
And from my POV, it's bizarre that someone could get to your age
without at least being aware of the general structure of the Bible. It
would be like not knowing that most of the US lies west of the
Appalachian mountains.
Don't take this as criticism, please. It's just that I (like many
people, I assume) tend to assume my background is "normal". I get
surprised when generic person X, who doesn't self-identify as other
than white middle-class American, shows a real cultural difference.
--
"I'm gonna act grown up/That's my plan"
Jack Dominey
jack_dominey (at) email (dot) com
R.I.P. Bob Denver
Cyde Weys
Yeah, I was definitely aware of why the patriotism and the religion was
tied together, I just didn't realize it was so blatant. After I saw
"My Country Tis of Thee" in the Hymnal I jokingly turned to Andrew and
said, "Yeah, and I bet the next page is the Star-Spangled Banner."
At least from my end it's so transparent what they're trying to
accomplish with this unholy merger of state and religion (and it is
unholy, Jesus was all about God above the State) ... you become so
unquestionably "patriotic" from your religion that you never question
your government, and in return, the religion gets all sorts of tax
exemptions and payouts from the government.
> And from my POV, it's bizarre that someone could get to your age
> without at least being aware of the general structure of the Bible. It
> would be like not knowing that most of the US lies west of the
> Appalachian mountains.
>
> Don't take this as criticism, please. It's just that I (like many
> people, I assume) tend to assume my background is "normal". I get
> surprised when generic person X, who doesn't self-identify as other
> than white middle-class American, shows a real cultural difference.
Some background ... I grew up in Takoma Park, Silver Spring, and
Potomac, MD. My mom made a half-hearted attempt to raise me Jewish but
nobody ever taught me Hebrew so I could never read the Torah. I do
know a few prayers (phonetically, they all start with something like
"Barook atah adonai") and some Yiddish, because my grandmother's
parents only spoke Yiddish and so she still speaks it a little. I went
to synagogue maybe once a year, more often during the Mitzvah seasons.
And that's about it. I went to public school so of course we never
picked up the Bible in there, and I never picked one up at home,
although I know my dad must've had some (he's agnostic but he's also a
"historian", meaning he has thousands of books on lots of shelves).
Very occasionally I would pick up a Gideon's Bible or whatever but it
just never occurred to me to look at the Table of Contents. Hell,
awhile back I bought a Bible at a used books store and it's back in my
room at home right now, unread. I started with Genesis, and ugh,
couldn't make it past Eden. I never looked at its table of contents
either.
So that's how I remained ignorant about the general structure of the
Bible for the first 20 and a half years of my life. I can't say I feel
like I've really been missing anything, though. What parts I did read
were boring and failed to capture my imagination like science did. In
my childhood I learned science instead of religion, somewhat literally.
My dad was always taking me to math programs or science for kids
seminars on the weekends. One of these science for kids programs is
called Adventures in Science, and it's still being run in multiple
locations in this area (one such location is NIST). I remember how, at
the end of every year, the big last activity was BUILDING YOUR OWN
rockets from cardboard tubes and then launching them from a seemingly
endless bulk box of rocket engines. You only stopped launching when
your rocket ship either didn't return to the Earth successfully
(drastic parachute failure) or had a failure on the launch pad
(explosion). And let me tell you, when a rocket blew up on the launch
pad, that was fricking awesome.
So yes, I didn't have religion, I had rockets, rockets that zoomed
hundreds of feet into the air, gracefully returned to the Earth via
parachutes, and occasionally blew up. It was better than reading dull
stories in some religious book, though of course I am not disparaging
books (in elementary, middle, and high school I was a book fiend,
reading on average at least one novel a week). And my first taste of
coffee was from my father's canteen when I was trying to get the taste
of black powder out of my mouth (rocket accident). The coffee tasted
worse, by the way, and has to this day.
I'm not implying that science has taken the place of religion for me,
but it has satisfied many of the same needs that other people feel,
such as answering the questions "Who are we?", "Where are we going?",
and "Why are things the way they are?"