In the ongoing Hovind trial, no new revelations except for more details about how rich the creationist con artist and tax evader is. He makes $50,000/year in speaking fees, and with his wife, sells $1.8 million/year in “Christian merchandise” (tell me, you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula: do those two words in conjunction make you cringe a little bit, deep down?).
They still deny that they earn salaries, and claim that they have no income at all.
As you sow, so shall you reap:
Antichrist buzz brings Bachmann camp denials
tell me, you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula: do those two words in conjunction make you cringe a little bit, deep down?
A little bit? Deep down? No, not a little bit, and not deep down.
(I’m not sure I’m ‘devout and faithful’, BTW, but I suppose that by Pharyngula standards I’m close enough.)
you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula
Hell you talking about? ALL of your regular readers are “faithful and devout”. They pay obeisance at the Altar of Materialistic Reductionism, and pay homage to their priest, Fr. PZ.
That said. . . I hold no brief for defending Hovind. There are snake oils salesmen of every stripe. Some of them claim to be atheist.
I agree with Mrs Tilton: why should I cringe at the phrase “Christian merchandise,” any more than the phrase “Islamic merchandise” or “Jewish merchandise” or “Minnesotan merchandise.” Someone has to sell those crosses, Korans, yarmulkes, and big foam cheese hats.
“He makes $50,000/year in speaking fees, and with his wife, sells $1.8 million/year in “Christian merchandise” (tell me, you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula: do those two words in conjunction make you cringe a little bit, deep down?).”
They make me cringe somewhat, though Hovind’s obvious dishonesty and grasping for wealth make me cringe much more considering how consistently Jesus spoke in favour of the poor (and not just ‘the deserving poor’ and he didn’t mention that other cop-out ‘child poverty’) and of the difficulty in being both righteous and rich. Heck, I feel guilty about how my comfortable public service salary compares to my charitable giving.
And Hovind’s family availing itself of what I assume is the charity of the Baptist Health Care is the moral equivalent of robbing the church poor box. The moreso as his ilk support those dead set against comprehensive public health care.
I have vague memories of a temple and some moneychangers, but the story must be too esoteric for a mere unbeliever like me to recall. Perhaps one of the believers better-schooled in Christian theology than I could enlighten us…?
Hey, nothing sells like dead messiah!
I agree with Mrs Tilton: why should I cringe at the phrase “… “Minnesotan merchandise.” Someone has to sell those … big foam cheese hats.
Minnesota is not Wisconsin, thank you very much.
Not to go too far off on a tangent, but I’ve wondered about “Christian” stores and merchandise for a while now; I know I’m just a know-nothing atheist, but it seems that a business based on selling Christian memorabilia is somehow…unChristian, or at least un-Christ-like. I’m not talking about books (including the Bible) or even crosses and fishies, but the kitschy knick-knackery, the stuff that’s obviously useless decoration and stamped “Made in China” (by Chinese believers, one would hope). It serves little to no devotional purpose AFAICT, but is quite effective at concentrating money into fewer bank accounts.
I mean, I’m not going to pick on someone for buying a serving platter with Our Lord’s likeness painted on it (whatever floats your Ark, Bubba), but I just wonder how the whole enterpise jibes with what Jesus himself was actually, you know, saying.
But then I’m reminded by the helpful folks that run the country that Jesus was indeed a true laissez-fare capitalist who saw nothing wrong with accumulating vast amounts of wealth, because after all that meant you were right with God.
Choose your poison, Caledonian:
KJV
Brick Testament
(Disclaimer – I’m not a believer, but I grew up with this sort of thing.)
“[T]ell me, you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula: do those two words in conjunction make you cringe a little bit, deep down?”
This sort of snide comment has been creeping into the blog more and more. I can not believe that PZ has never met Christians who also despise Ken Hovind and his huckster ilk.
“Not to go too far off on a tangent, but I’ve wondered about “Christian” stores and merchandise for a while now; I know I’m just a know-nothing atheist, but it seems that a business based on selling Christian memorabilia is somehow…unChristian, or at least un-Christ-like.”
You should check out the upscale yuppie materialism in Buddhist magazines. I decided not to buy any more copies when UBS, the Swiss investment bank that bought Dean Witter, started taking out ads.
Stephen- Christians, yes (liberal types like UCCers.) Evangelicals? Good luck. (Who do you think sells and buys all that “Christian merchandise”?) And there are a lot of conservative Catholics who are no better than the evangelicals.
This sort of snide comment has been creeping into the blog more and more. I can not believe that PZ has never met Christians who also despise Ken Hovind and his huckster ilk.
Yeah, but I think the point was that Jesus wants us to sell the merchandise, and then after that, give away all the money. And then hate our families. And then go pray in the closet. And then bingo we’re in there. And then in “this generation” the end is near. One might argue that Jesus was talking to specific people at a specific time about specific things that only pertain to them specifically, but then one might ask: When wasn’t he?
So it all just boils down to this: Jesus says whatever we feel like we want him to say. That’s my kinda religion. Oh yeah.
Hey, even those followers of Abrahamic religions that see no contradiction in amassing worldly wealth don’t believe they can take it with them — but financial planning for future reincarnations — that’s different. What if a stockbrocker is a yak herder in his next life? Starting out with some cash could really help.
I think I’m going to develop a habit in malls of taking one step into christian stores, yelling “MONEYCHANGERS!” and walking out.
Mainly because I like to giggle.
“(tell me, you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula: do those two words in conjunction make you cringe a little bit, deep down?).”
Well, one would have to accept the idea of hypocrisy in yourself to feel that cring, yes? I have seen little evidence of hypocrisy awareness in a good number of the devote or especially the right-wing. That sort of thinking gets in the way of attack ads, profits, and materialism so out it goes.
Ah, but isn’t it all part of Our Heavenly Father’s multi-level marketing business plan? You see, you sell a certain amount of the merchandise, then people see how well it works, they become return customers, and then you set them up with a franchise. After awhile, they recruit more people, and the merchandise practically sells itself! If you stick with the program, you can retire in only a couple of years…
The whole religion thing is a vast con artist money making operation – prey on people’s vulnerabilities and fears to extort money from them.
The priests, rabbis, ministers, etc. call themselves spiritual, but at bottom it’s just a glorified fleecing operation.
Sickening, really.
MAJeff rebukes me, “Minnesota is not Wisconsin, thank you very much.”
Yeah, yeah. And Maronites aren’t Roman Catholic, even if they seem pretty much two peas in a pod to outsiders. Two midwest states with lots of lakes and snowy, frigid winters. Do people ice fish in Wisconsin? Then how was I to know they didn’t wear big cheese hats?
:-)
Purely hypothetical aside: Why do equations done in MS-Word look so f*@%ing sh!tty?
Anyone who has taken more than a glance at ‘flyover country’ should know that Wisconsin has cheese, and Minnesota has pro football stripper party yachts. Oh, and that huge mall somewhere.
Otherwise, not that much different.
Stripper party yachts!?
Obviously, I haven’t been paying attention. My apologies to Minnesotans everywhere.
And I expect a guided tour when I next visit. =:-)
“Tell me, you devout and faithful believers who also read Pharyngula: do those two words in conjunction make you cringe a little bit, deep down?”.
What do mean, “a little bit, deep down”? I detest such hucksterism; I can’t even walk into a Christian bookstore anymore, it seems. I think that started when I wanted to buy a book by Calvin (I think–it was a while ago) and discovered that it would have taken up shelf space that was apparently better filled by Left Behind and Veggietales.
And don’t get me started on those stupid T-shirts with the Christianized logo parodies.
Anyway, it’s nice to see that moron finally getting his comeuppance (Hovindfreude, indeed).
I agree with Mrs Tilton
Russell, I fear you may have misunderstood Mrs Tilton.
Because Word isn’t a type-setting program, it’s a word-processor, and EquationEditor is a half-assed later add-in. The equations in my thesis were what convinced me to switch to LaTeX, and I never went back–after getting through the pain-in-the-ass LaTeX learning curve, all my papers look much more professional than they used to.
I use Latex for my own docs, but when you work with other people, you don’t always get to choose.
I guess to be more specific, Why doesn’t Word have a better-looking, more user-friendly interface for equations?
Mrs. Tilton, I think you may need to check the batteries in your irony meter, if you have one.
Because Word isn’t a type-setting program, it’s a word-processor, and EquationEditor is a half-assed later add-in.
… That wasn’t even written by Microsoft in the first place. I remember the early days of OLE, and they were painful. Objects taking it into their heads to resize to five pages wide, objects spontaneously degenerating into mere images, objects changing their scale spontaneously, and no user interface to change the scale back, Word refusing to save because “the disk was full”, never mind the crashes. “half-assed” is a big step up.
“…with his wife, sells $1.8 million/year in “Christian merchandise””
That’s the humble “piano teacher”, isn’t it?
I’ve seen other people do this, with some success–it seems like a lot of effort to me, but it may possibly be useful in collaborating: typeset the equations in LaTeX, then do a screenshot of the typeset equation, then insert it in Word as a graphic.
So true, Andrew, so true.
The good news for people forced into using Word for scientific documents is that after decades of complaining there’s a new equation editor in Word 2007 and it doesn’t suck nearly as much – there’s no OLE involved, it does smart symbol replacement (e.g. theta or e^(2x+1) or whatever gets transformed into the correct symbol on the push of a spacebar), the new standard equation font is much nicer than Times New Roman, you can add to a gallery of predefined equations to drop in quickly…
It won’t exactly attract LaTeX converts (and for free plus learning curve, there’s nothing better), but it is a step in the right direction. Which isn’t something you can often say about Office upgrades, that’s for sure.
Kent Hovind and Al Capone–both brought down by the IRS.
Now all we need to do is get Sean Connery to make a cameo in the trial and start talking about the Untouchables and the Chicago Way:
“…They put one of your’s in the hospital, you put one of their’s in the morgue…” or white collar prison. Wherever tax evades go.
Well, I’d rather use LaTeX and keep my money. But then, I’ve been known to use vi and even Emacs for most of my simple text editing. Learning curve? I used to write FORTRAN and APL programs for fun. Everything else is a mere bagatelle.
Here’s that Temple temper tantrum that Caledonian was likely talking about:
Heck, he should pay his audience $50,000 /hour just for listening to his drivel!
That’s a lot of execution-device necklaces!
It’s so funny to see how HovindGate unfolds. Maybe Hovind can publicly say “I’m not a crook!” just for my kicks.
Maybe Hovind can publicly say “I’m not a crook!” just for my kicks.
Rienk – So, you want Hovind to lie, just so you can get your kicks!
Just read the latest story from P-Cola – The judge is all over Hovind’s attorney for being an idiot. Cool!
I don’t much care for Hovind. I think he’s a complete hack.
But then…don’t Atheists, and plenty of pro-evolutionary scientists do this shit too? I don’t understand it. You people would (and have) ignore it if a self-professed ‘Godless Liberal’ were to evade taxes or commit some other crime, but act like the explosion of the sun is drawing nigh when a Christian does it. Chalk it up to the moral superiority so many Christians exhibit if you like, but then, you naturalists sure do seemed quite concerend with moral superiority and inferiority for a group of people who don’t believe in such nonsense.