RationalWiki has an expanded front-page feature on Kent Hovind, and it’s pretty thorough — I learned a few new things. I hadn’t known that he claims to have four doctorates, and it has a good breakdown of several examples of his bad math. However…
Does it feature any apocalyptic imagery? No.
How many times does it mention Hitler? Only once.
Does it have a doom-laden industrial soundtrack? Nope.
Sorry, RationalWiki, but you are hampered by that “rational” thing. When you’re talking about Kent Hovind, you need to bring the gold-plated stupid to the fore. Kent knows this. Kent knows how best to summarize his life: with lies and screeching and threats of imminent destruction.
Like in his trailer for a possible “documentary” that Creation Science Evangelism is making (warning: grisly scenes of death and corpses, and truly over-the-top Godwining).
That is so metal.
I notice, though, that for all of his Hitler-howling, most of the trailer is somehow about how he was an innocent man thrown into prison for blamelessly preaching the Gospel, rather than mentioning that he was really imprisoned for blatant tax evasion. C’mon, Kent, own your badassery: you were arrested for defying those Satanic tax accountants. You can’t simultaneously claim to be be a brave rebel while hiding behind claims of pious innocence.
Also, the title needs work: An Atheist’s Worse Nightmare
? Seriously, Kent, comparing yourself to a banana is so wimpy.
I do feel a lot of sympathy for the RationalWiki crew, though. Imagine if this Hovind “documentary” ever actually happens — the fact-checking will be exhausting. It’s going to be measured in errors/second, or lies/second.
David Gerard says
Cheers :-D We were somewhat hampered by having to nail down every claim. This is particularly important when the subject has previous tried to sue you …
PZ Myers says
Also when your subject is a dishonest rabid ass-nugget who makes constant claims without regard for the truth.
blf says
I suspect he’d be howling at the moon so much you could skip vast hours of it and still not miss any of the lies, errors, distortions, and eventually getting eaten by wimpy bananas.
coreyschlueter says
His “documentary” was available, in several parts, on his YouTube channel until it got flagged for violating copyright content.
Brian Pansky says
Yet another supposed “atheist’s worst nightmare”. It’s such a bafflingly clueless thing to say.
Menyambal says
When I first attended a talk by Kent Hovind, about twenty years ago, I had never heard of him. By the end of his talk, I had written in my notes that he was evil, in all caps, bolded, underlined three times. I couldn’t figure out where dishonesty shaded into stupidity, but he was a shade smarter than his audience, though not nearly as smart as he thought he was.
The next time I heard him speak he was on a college campus, and giving a very different talk. But still stupid, still evil.
colinday says
First, isn’t the “gold-plated stupid” more of a Trump thing?
Second, do you know who else got investigated for tax evasion?
PZ Myers says
Al Capone?
chigau (違う) says
Samuel Pepys?
DonDueed says
Hmm, I don’t know… could it be… SATAN???
Sven says
I immediately recognize the music playing here, brazenly stolen from the trailer for “Prometheus”
Rich Woods says
Yeah, I’ll just go dig out my old AC/DC albums and celebrate the fact that Kent Hovind has broken no laws except those tragically inconvenient tax laws, and wants to distract us from his personal greed and victimhood status by showing us all a load of pics of Hitler. So metal.
Hang on, I didn’t see a single umlaut! You’re having me on, PZ, you’re having me on…
“Wanna tell you a story…“
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says
Yeah. His schtick is not very a=peel-ing.
garydargan says
I’m not sure but one of those images of piles of bodies looks suspiciously like the Jonestown mass suicide and we all know how that happened. Also did anyone notice how towards the end of the video his voice starts to wheeze and morph and begins to sound like Darth Vader’s? The Dark Lord of the Sith, coming to a church near you?
Athywren - not the moon you're looking for says
My worst nightmare is a broken ceramic teacup.
I still have flashbacks.
colinday says
To answer my previous question, the alleged evasion involved royalties from Mein Kampf.
andrew says
‘That is so metal.’
That is an insult and I demand that you retract it immediately.