The dude isn't sitting in jail because what he was teaching was wrong (well not in a direct way), I don't know what his situation is but he may be in jail (in a indirect way) for what he was teaching.
No, what he "teaches" is wrong because even the most basic of facts, backed by libraries of observational, reasonable evidence, disagree with him.
He's in jail because, let's be honest again, he scammed people out of their money and then knowingly evaded tax laws on the basis that "everything he owns belongs to God," so he doesn't have to pay taxes. Humorous to say the least.
It's a common thing for someone to start teaching Bible based facts, outrage others, and then have a group decide this person needs to be stopped by any means possible ...which then brings accusations to surface (sometimes true, many times fabricated), death threats, etc. (It seems that if a Christian begins preaching/teaching a message that is Bible based and not designed to just please the masses...it's never long before the "investigations" begin, the criticism, the accusations of fraud & scandal, etc. I realize noone is perfect, and some "leaders" have really screwed up but I find it difficult to believe that there can be such a high number. It does seem something "fishy" is going on. It's also "funny" that preachers that just preach to please the masses (those that aren't actually accomplishing anything) are never questioned.
There is no conspiracy to put him in jail, which is what it seems you're implying may be the case. He has openly admitted to the accusations, dubbing himself a "tax protester." He has tried every loophole in the book to get around taxation on his "earnings," because he is greedy and deluded. He got caught, tough luck. Break the law, do the time.
Scientists that believe the Bible: http://earnestlycontending.com/?p=383
http://www.icr.org/article/bible-believing-scientists-past/
List of 100 Bible believing scientists: http://unmaskingevolution.com/29-100_scientists.htm These too are considered to be among the world's most intelligent mathematicians, physicists, paleontologists, archaeologists, biologists, anthropologists, geologists. They too made it their life goal and career to research.
The first two lists consist of almost nothing but scientists from the 1800s and prior (at a glance, I think there's 4-5 that lived into the early 1900s). Darwin's account of evolution by natural selection was not even made formal until 1859, and it took decades, up to the 1930s through the 1950s, for the proposal to be combined with other solidifying discoveries -- the importance of Mendel's work was not discovered and put in context until the early 20th century, the modern structure of DNA and its relation to RNA and protein synthesis wasn't formally proposed until 1952, for examples. Modern evolutionary theory has only been around for 60-70 years...of course the guy doing alchemy in 1615 wouldn't care about it. Even those in the 1800s who showed opposition to the proposals did so on the basis of an extremely tiny piece of the big picture, which has been continuously unveiled over the recent decades.
Scientists were religious then, because there was hardly a legitimate alternative. The evidence supporting modern science in this field simply wasn't there; hell, many of the proposals weren't even in place yet or their importance was overlooked until the early/mid-1900s when biology became a legitimate field of science and scientists began fitting the pieces of numerous discoveries together. Never mind the stronghold the Church had over society throughout much of that time -- no desire to even get into that. .
The third list has more modern scientists. I have never claimed science doesn't have theists working within it -- they are individuals capable of separating their religion from their work. They very, very rarely come out and openly state a scientific theory is plain false and they rarely set out to prove their religious beliefs with their scientific research. They may critique or criticize, which is to be expected as that is what science is about. They're, more often than not, scientists when they walk into the lab and theists when they walk out. No big deal.
Atheist or theist is irrelevant to me on this discussion -- good science is good science. Good science backed by extraordinary credentials is even better. Good science backed by huge numbers of people with extraordinary credentials is even better than that. Hovind lacks in all these categories. His understanding of even the basics of the scientific topics he lectures about is terribly bad and his credentials are worse. He's a crock out to get people's money. Sadly he was largely successful, raking in millions of dollars over the years between his lectures and his theme park, and will probably be successful upon his sentence ending.
Community Forum
Topic: 100 Reasons why Evolution is Stupid (Read 10371 times)
February 01, 2010, 09:34:09 am
