After a week long hiatus, the Hovind trial continues in Florida. This week, we learn about the virtues of Christian charity.
Hovind, a tax protester, makes a substantial amount of money. But he believes he and his employees work for God, are paid by God and, therefore, aren’t subject to taxation.
Schneider testified this morning that Jo Hovind requested financial help for her bills from Baptist Health Care, claiming that she had no income.
Schneider also said the Hovinds wrote checks to their children from their Christian Science Evangelism account. They also withdrew money from that account for cashier’s checks.
On one day, a $9,000 check was withdrawn for their son, Eric. That same day, another $9,000 check was withdrawn for Eric’s wife, Tanya.
So they’re raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, they just bunny-hop down to the bank and withdraw sub-$10,000 chunks of cash at will, and they have to beg Baptist Health Care for financial assistance? There must be a few poor Baptists somewhere who are struggling to meet their medical bills who are outraged about that.
Meanwhile, we can’t forget that other infamous creationist, Ken Ham. He isn’t in financial trouble (far from it; I suspect he’s doing research on squeezing camels through needle eyes right now), but he’s facing another, somewhat less critical problem to his fleecing-the-rubes operation: Lucy is coming to town.
Associated Press news reports announcing Lucy’s visit state as fact that the fossilized remains are between three and four million years old and that “debate” still rages about how close an ancestor to man Lucy would be. But Ken Ham, president of the biblical creationist group Answers in Genesis, says those reports are only the beginning of Lucy’s anti-creationism tour.
“When I see that they’re bringing the most famous of the supposed ‘human ancestor’ fossils to America, and they’re going to feature it across America, I can see this is a big push for evolution,” Ham observes.
Oh, no! How dare those wicked evilutionists confont Americans with <oooh!> EVIDENCE <gasp>!! I can see how he’d be unhappy that our museums would be confronting creationist lies with the actual data—showing the evidence is making a “big push for evolution”.
Probably not. The capacity of these people for self-deception and tortured justification is absolutely first class. If you think the open denial that the Bush admin has about Iraq is impressive, let me tell you, it’s nothing compared to what fanatics can muster.
Next thing you know they’ll be teaching Biology class from actual Biology text books. THOSE BASTARDS!
Lying for Jesus?
I guess so, as, after all, if you’re one of the truly faithful, it doesn’t matter what laws or holy commandments you break, so long as it’s for God’s bank account, er, sake.
The staggering part of the article on Hovind is the comments thread: there are vehement defenses of Hovind, most posted by no-necks arguing in favour of his ‘splendid’ stance against income tax, but there are several supporters of his work in there. I quote this post, in all its illegible glory:
Dinosaur adventure land established solely for the Lord and to strengthen peoples faith in Him. They share the gospel of Jesus Christ and show them the creation that God made to help them better understand that there is no such thing as spontaneous genertaion and organic life from non organic material (evolution). This is clearly a church type organization and it all belongs to the Lord, just like Kent said. The people that work there know what it is all about.
The next poster calls him “a good Christian”. The man is a serial liar and fraudster who embezzles from his flock and likens himself to the Pope. What do you have to be to be a *bad* Christian?
It’s awe-inspiring.
What do you have to be to be a *bad* Christian?
Being tolerant and loving of other people because you think that being tolerant and loving of other people is good?
Bishop John Shelby Spong?
oh, if you want to see some great examples of Hovind supporters, you should check out the PT thread on Hovind.
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/10/dr_dino_in_the_1.html#comments
there is a wonderful little sociopathic poster in there (who can’t decide on a name). Convinced that the Jesuits sank the Titanic, no less.
it seems Hovindites share many of the same underlying mental disfunctions.
here’s a sample:
Darwin’s Evolution is the religion of satan!
Book of John, “The Holy Bible”
44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
45And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
a real god-bothering tub-thumper, that one. funny stuff if you go for laughing at the insane.
(and you know you do, why else be interested in Hovind at all?)
But Ken Ham DOES have an urgent need for more money! AIG doesn’t have enough money to pay for the creationism museum.
“Hovind, a tax protester, makes a substantial amount of money. But he believes he and his employees work for God, are paid by God and, therefore, aren’t subject to taxation.”
But God pays him in Federal Reserve Notes, right?
Reminds me of Hal Lindsey’s claim that he doesn’t write his books, the Holy Spirit does. Yet Hal gets his name on the book covers, and presumably on the royalty checks as well.
“Convinced that the Jesuits sank the Titanic, no less.”
What a maroon! Everybody knows the Jews did that! Some guy named Goldberg, or Iceberg, or sumthin’ like that….
I saw we send him a Peso and one of these.
Hehe
Ahhh. Hahaha.
When I went to a church near my uber-nerdy alma mater (which should have included as close as you can get to rational believers), I pointed out the Ken Ham propaganda on the flyer table. No one seemed to care. I mentioned his beliefs about the age of the earth. No one cared.
Believers don’t challenge each other. Once you’re part of the club, you’re not supposed to have doubts (and if you do, you’ll never get a satisfactory answer). This is because membership requires straight faith, in any case.
How come they need money for medical expenses, anyway? Can’t they just let the power of Jaysus heal them?
ick and double ick!….SH
U.S. laws require that banks report to the fed. gov. any withdrawal or transfer of cash over $10,000. These laws were put in place to combat drug dealers and, now, terrorists.
Further, it is illegal for an individual to structure their financial transactions, by say withdrawing one amount of $9000 and the next day withdrawing another of $9000, in order to avoid these reporting requirements. Looks like Hovinds been breaking another law, eh?
Perhaps he’s going to claim that his bank account is also only answerable to God?
…Wait… this is the same person as this group of idiots: http://www.drdino.com/ ? I’ve been howling at some of their stupidities for days, like “Belief in evolution justified the excesses of the industrial revolution…” ( http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=4 ) – good to know History is as mutable as Science, eh? I mean, surely they wouldn’t be trying to claim evolution was retrocactively responsible, eh?
Or here: http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=3 , which asks “Where did Cain find his wife?”, and well, I was raised Fundamentalist (I got better), and… let’s just say his knowledge of the bible is as bad as his knowledge of evolution: After spending the whole article talking about how horrible it is that Christians don’t know the bible anymore, he… comes up with an explanation that shows him deeply ignorant of the bible: Cain married one of his sisters. Who were born after he was exiled to another land and took a wife. He also claims a number of children for Adam and Eve not at all supported by Genesis chapters 4 and 5. Because he’s an idiot.
Frankly, every single article on that site ( http://www.drdino.com/articles.php ) is hilarious, with undertones of “Oh, god, people listen to these people?”
Re: Ken Ham’s “scare up a few $$ from the suckers video”
I really don’t want to watch him again (I’ll be forced to take another shower)…so can anyone confirm that it showed a diorama with a T. rex chomping down on some leafy branches with a set of false teeth ?
The financial shenanigans the prosecution is revealing in this trial are practiced by many, many churches and religious institutions in this country. What many people don’t realize is that churches and other “religious” institutions are not required to file any kind of financial report publicly, to their contributors, or the IRS. They get a free pass that no one else gets. It’s like giving your pre-teen children free access to the family treasury. For many, like Hovind, the temptation is beyond resisting and then they rationalize it beyond belief. Hovind and his wife should go to jail and so should thousands of other “religious” entrepreneurs in the US. But the IRS will only go after the most egregious violators like Hovind. We should demand they go after all. Better yet, all churches should be required to file audited states for public viewing.
That would be truly awesome, but I can’t imagine that happening. What politician would last five minutes after proposing a church tax? I think it would be literally an act of suicide.
I guess it could be worse. In modern day Germany, they actually have a “church tax”, where people are oblidged to pay 9% of your wages to the church your family is registered in. Oh, and it turns out that registration happens at birth and assignment follows the religion of the parents, and unregistering takes A LOT of paperwork. Modern Germans can thank Adolf Hitler for this tax as a result of the 1933 Reichskonkordat made with Pope Pius XII.
He’s just following scripture. Ask and you shall receive.
If Hovind doesn’t pay taxes, who pays for the xian crusade against Iraq?
Is Hovind a cut-and-runner who doesn’t want to pay for America’s xian army?
Here is an example of what the U.S. military budget costs real American taxpayers. By Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s.
I guess it could be worse. In modern day Germany, they actually have a “church tax”, where people are oblidged to pay 9% of your wages to the church your family is registered in.
Holy crap, 9 percent??? It’s like 1 percent in Finland, and that’s annoying enough. But you can get out of the church via a web page nowadays :)
The trial…is expected to go to the jury for deliberation Thursday.
Seems that the Hovinds do not have a defense for this case.
Slightly over 1 % in Austria.
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Hovind clearly is not a Christian, he is a Scientologer:
MAKE MONEY
MAKE MORE MONEY
Would be cool if someone said this during the trial.
Hovind’s videos opened my eyes to science that supports the Bible. Though he believes differently than I do on taxes, I am thankful for the evidences he communicates. Mainly, facts like Carbon 14 found in supposed 200-million-year-old coal seams, or helium found in supposed “billion-year-old” granite got my attention. Even MORE attention- getting for me as a former evolution proponent are the clear words of Scripture that give a specific age for the earth (found in the genealogies).
Once I realized that God is real and that he came in the flesh to take MY punishment on himself, my eyes were opened. You may mock Christianity, but even so, God loves you. My prayer for Kent is protection in prison, for unbelievers, revelation.