Lie #271. Until and unless Hovind cares to offer some proof. I wonder if he ever read that bit in the Bible about 'judge not, lest ye shall be judged"? He sure does a lot of judging of others, doesn't he?

Hovind: "One of the things they must do to be successful is bankrupt this country, make the currency useless, and put the people in poverty. Environmental issues are a great way to bankrupt the country."

Lie #272. Precisely the opposite is the case - if we had taken steps to safeguard the environment over the last fifty years, we would not be faced with the huge cost of cleaning it up, with children suffering brain damage from lead paint, with people getting sick from asbestos, with waterways getting polluted with fertilizers, with carbon dioxide running rampant in the air, and with ozone depleting yearly. We are going to find out the real cost of neglecting the environment, rest assured. We will truly learn that lesson before so very long.

Hovind: "There are many carburetors that have been designed that will get two-hundred miles per gallon. The Pogue carburetor was designed back in the 1930s, and it allowed a vehicle to get well over two-hundred miles per gallon on any vehicle."

Lie #273. Until and unless Hovind offers some proof.

Hovind: "The environmentalist issue is a smoke screen for Communist activity to get more control so that you have to get a permit for everything."

Lie #274. Until and unless Hovind offers proof. What would Hovind rather have - anarchy?

Hovind: "The ozone is not a problem...There is no ozone over Antarctica because there doesnt need to be ozone there because the sunlight never shines directly on that area."

Lie #275. I shall not even dignify it with a response (doesn't need to be?!).

Hovind: "Automobile air conditioners cost $900 more in 1993 than the did in 1992 due to the different refrigerants that are now required all because R-12 destroys ozone."

Lie #276. Until and unless Hovind offers proof.

Hovind: "There is more smoke than fire, and the real purpose for the environmental movement is control"

And this isn't Hovind's purpose?

Hovind: "Why wouldnt the ice meteor melt as it entered the atmosphere? If you had three-hundred degrees below zero snow, and enough of it, it would be overwhelming."

Lie #277. Nope. It would explode with the heat of entry. If it didn't explode, it would vaporize with the heat of impact. No more 300 degrees below. Sorry, Hovind, but you are lying. You want to call me on this? Show me your physics - let's see it worked out on paper and submitted to a peer reviewed journal. Hovind already claimed the thing exploded into a puff of snow before it entered the atmosphere, so he is lying to himself again here.

Hovind: "What is or who is the Illuminati?"

Lie #278. Hovind rambles on for a whole paragraph and does not even begin to explain who they are - he simply farms the answer off on the devil - one of the many Bible myths stolen from other cultures.

Hovind: "As far as cloning goes, it is defiantly not being done, and probably would be an impossibility."

Lie #279. Defiantly? I think he means definitely. And it is a lie. Cloning was being done in 1995/6 when Hovind's seminar was apparently written - and this was in a mammal. Cloning in amphibians and plants had been done long before that.

Hovind: "I dont know how far they are going to go in genetic engineering. Im a little nervous that they might develop a germ for which there is no antidote."

Hovind is too late - evolution has already done this. It's called TB. Or HIV. Or whatever other one you want to pick.

Hovind: 'I believe that the zodiac is the gospel in the stars. When God first made this world they did not have a Bible. Apparently the symbols or the patterns in the stars, the constellations, depict the gospel story. It starts with Virgo the virgin, and how she brought forth a son."

Lie #280. The zodiac begins at the Vernal Equinox, and the first sign is Ares, the ram. That's actually more appropriate since Jesus is the lamb of god (according to popular fiction). I have one small problem with Hovind's claim: right after virgo comes libra, then scorpio. Just how does this fit into the nativity scene? And why is Hovind obsessing on the western idea of what the zodiac is? The zodiac did not originate here, nor was Jesus supposedly born here. They both originated in the East. Shouldn't Hovind be looking there for the story in the stars? What a small-minded, provincial hick this hayseed is.

Hovind: "To make sure the information was not lost through history, some of the wise men, possibly Adam, Enoch, or somebody else before the flood, built the Sphinx in Egypt. The Sphinx is the face of a woman with the body of a lion, symbolizing how the zodiac begins with Virgo the virgin, and ends with Leo the lion."

Lie #281. The Sphinx represents Khufu, for whom the pyramid was built right by it. Khufu was a man, and there is a bust of him which looks just like the face of the Sphinx - but in better condition.

Hovind: "This may sound far fetched to you, but I believe if you were to study more of the zodiac it would fascinate you. Just the mathematics that is involved would cause you to say, WOW!"

Lie #282. Mathematics of the zodiac? What mathematics? I did study the zodiac, found out what a bunch of lies it was, and never said, "wow!" once.

Hovind: "There is no question that the guy was a screwball and a cult leader, but do you know who really attacked the Koresh cult? Did you know that the black suited organization that attacked the Koresh cult was a United Nations task force?"

Lie #283. Until and unless Hovind offers proof.

Hovind: "There is a United Nations task force, including 300,000 foreign troops in America."

Lie #284. Until and unless Hovind offers proof.

Hovind: "If you happen to believe the Bible, send your children to a Christian school, rebel, hoard guns, ammunition or food, or are nervous about the government, you are considered to be a dangerous cult in their minds."

Lie #285. Until and unless Hovind offers proof. The evidence I can see of the protections religion has - and has had ever since the constitution was written - completely contradict Hovind.

Hovind: "I heard a man give his testimony who manages a mental institution. He told me that the government pays him to keep 60 percent of his beds empty. They do this because they think there is going to be a great influx in the near future."

Lie #286. Until and unless Hovind offers proof. Is he sure the guy was not an inmate rather than a manager?

Hovind: "Do whatever you can within the law to keep your school out of the Goals 2000 program. You dont want in that program. It is going to be big brother deciding what your children learn, what propaganda they are fed."

Lie #287. Hovind is describing himself here, not the Goals 2000 program. Hovind wants your children to learn only what he personally approves.

Hovind: "Children can get evolution out of their schools. If they to look ahead in their textbook , and see that evolution is going to be taught, they can say, Hey, thats not what I believe. They can go home and talk to their parents, they should be sweet, be kind, be Christian about it, not make a big stink, not embarrass their teacher in front of the class"

Pity Hovind doesn't practice what he preaches, isn't it? Those that can, do, those that can't, evangelize. Here Hovind is saying that you should blind your children to differing points of view. Don't try to defeat the position with logic, reason, or science, simply isolate, insulate, regulate, constipate.

Hovind: "...get their parents to go to the principal and say, In two weeks they are going to be discussing this chapter on evolution. I do not want my child taught that. I want my child to be exempt. If 85 percent of the class is absent that day, pretty soon they will figure out that they need to skip that part of the curriculum because nobody wants to learn it"

This from the same hypocrite who insists that the majority is often wrong? From chapter one of his seminar: "Majority does not make it right! The majority is frequently wrong.." So if the majority does not want it, then skip it? Can you imagine, if children thought they could get away with this, how many of them would also skip the other sciences, math, and any other topic that is hard, or that they don't like?

Hovind: "If you are a Christian in a school system you should be a good student...Do your best. Dont get in trouble. Be nice. Be obedient."

But refuse to follow lesson plans because Hovind says so.

Hovind: "Maybe you need to give some tape or books to the teachers or school board members, and say, Would you watch this and tell me what you think? Give them one of my video tapes or this book."

So Hovind can be rewarded for telling lies by milking money out of you.

Hovind: "You need to expose them to the creationist material. They may have never heard of it."

Lie #288. I doubt that any teacher had not heard of the Bible.

Hovind: "I think that the earths crust was cracked, possibly from a number of factors. It could have been from the impact of the ice meteor that was discussed in chapter five."

Lie #289. The same ice meteor Hovind said exploded at the 'Rosches' limit? From Hovind's seminar, chapter 5: "It continued travel to closer and move faster until it reached a point called Rosches Limit, which is about 2.44 times the diameter of the larger planet. About 20,000 miles out, the meteor exploded in space and turned into a puff of snow." Hovind cannot even remember his lies, there are so many of them.

Hovind: "In order for it to be scientific it has to be observable, testable, and demonstrable. Evolution is none of those"

Lie #290. Evolution is all of these. Creationism is none of these - because it is a religion.

Hovind: "Some of the fish would have been killed in the flood, but not all of them."

Lie #291. Genesis 7:4, "...every living thing that I have made will I destroy..." Hovind apparently doesn't believe the Bible.

Hovind: "I believe that the oceans were all fresh water prior to the flood. After the flood, the salts began leaching out of the continents...The fish have gradually adjusted to that salt."

This from the man who claims there is no evolution - that it is not observable, testable or demonstrable. Let's see his scientific evidence for this. Here is one aspect of his faith - of his belief system, that is open to scientific testing - why isn't he doing this? Why is he just claiming it as a belief? Could it be that he knows if he has to prove it, he will fail?

Hovind: "There is a man in Minnesota that has two huge aquariums in his home, one is a salt water aquarium, and the other is fresh water...In about ten years, he was able to get both of them to about half salinity, and then he mixed all the fish together. They are doing fine."

Lie #292. Where is the published paper on this scientific research? Where is the ongoing study to show that this is true of all fish, not just a chosen few species? Until I see the evidence, this is a lie. Real, working scientists publish papers frequently. Creationists never do. In a survey published in 1985, 68 journals were examined for creationist offerings. Out of 135,000 submissions between 1980 and 1983, only 18 dealt with creationism, 12 of these went to one single journal, which was not an appropriate one for first publishing of new science material anyway! All of these submissions were rejected on grounds of poor scholarship. (Quarterly Review of Biology (60)1, 1985, E. Scott and H. Cole.)

Hovind: "There are salt water crocodile and fresh water crocodile, which are totally different species, but they are still crocodiles. They are no longer inner-fertile, they cannot breed together..."

Inner-fertile? Does Hovind realize that crocodiles are reptiles, not fish? That it is immaterial to them whether the water is salty or not because they neither breathe via the water nor have osmotic problems like fish do?

Hovind: 'Is the NAFTA a stepping stone toward the New World Order? Absolutely! There are those who really object to nationalities. They want to get you to get rid of the I love America! and get you to say I love the world!"

And Hovind, who wants you to say, I love god and all else is unimportant, thinks nationalism is important? I would love to see his logic behind this.

Hovind: "Nobody knows what triggers an eruption [of a volcano].

Lie #293. Pressure of magma underneath. Next question?

Hovind: "Krakatoa, a volcano in Java near Vietnam, blew up in 1883. It was such a bad explosion that it made a tidal wave. The tidal wave traveled almost two-thousand miles an hour. It crossed the Indian ocean and hit Madagascar and killed 36,000 people."

Lie #294. The 36,000 people died in the coastal areas of Java and Sumatra. I would also like to take this opportunity to challenge him to show how the tidal wave traveled at three times the speed of sound, given that people miles away heard the volcano, before there was any flooding or tidal waves.

Hovind: "Questions to ask evolutionist: In the big bang, what exploded? And where did it come from? When they admit they don't know, ask, "Which is easier to believe: 'In the beginning God,' or 'In the beginning Dirt'?" The theory of evolution is something people chooses to believe. They do not and cannot know that it is true."

Lie #295. What people "chooses" to believe is up to them. What they can offer scientifically is something entirely different. It is not the theory of evolution which starts, "In the beginning, dirt..." - that's the Biblical creation story of humankind. What would you prefer to believe - that we came from so-called inanimate matter, stretching toward godhood, something truly miraculous, or that you are nothing more than animated dirt?

Hovind: "Plants and animals that lived on the earth four thousand years ago would have had much less C14 in their body to start with. This would make them appear to be thousands of years older than they really are... Since the rate of decay may not be constant, dates obtained by C14 must be accepted only with caution..."

They are accepted only with caution. Only creationists think they are not.

Hovind: "...Different parts of the same sample often yield different ratios... The sample being tested [may have] been contaminated...Parent of daughter products may have leached in or out of the sample. Many lab test have confirmed that this can happen."

Lie #296. If this is the case, why do objects of known age test out accurately? How could science make this error when it is not the total amount of C14 they are testing, but the proportion of one isotope to another? Why do all radiometric dates fit together if there is so much uncertainty? The age of the Earth had been verified by at least five different radiometric methods. If there are so many variables, how come these all match?

Rest assured, radiometric dates are accepted only with utmost caution. Scientists who do this are experts and do not get fooled easily. They are quite aware of the variability of samples and ratios, and of contamination. The only reason Hovind can say that lab tests have confirmed this is because scientists have conducted such veracity checks!

Hovind: "Secular writers of antiquity tend to exaggerate ages so even these dates are suspect."

Lie #297. Until Hovind offers something more than an ad hominem attack on this topic. Secular writers of antiquity exaggerate ages, but religious writers exaggerate nothing? The Bible is absolute truth but other, comparable writes are wrong?

Hovind: "[Do not trust that] The geologic column can be used as a base to calibrate the C14 dates."

Lie #298. Since C14 is useless over 50,000 years of age and therefore is really irrelevant in the geological column, this is nothing more than a red Hovind, or herring.

Hovind: "II Peter 3:3-8 tells us that people who scoff at the Bible are "willingly ignorant" of the Creation and the Flood. In order to understand science and the Bible, we must not be ignorant of those two great events in Earth's history."

Lie #299. Here is Hovind, just getting done whining that scientists are dishonest and science unreliable, demanding they prove everything. Now he turns right around and demands that we accept and utterly swallow the Bible uncritically and without any evidence, proof, indication, reliability whatsoever. He insists that we accept, based on nothing more than the say-so of anonymous and primitive writers, the Biblical myths of creation and flood, both of which were demonstrably stolen from earlier myths, none of which Hovind himself accepts! Can you say 'hypocrite'?

Hovind: "Even using the small 18-inch cubit...the ark was large enough to hold all the required animals, people, and food with room to spare."

Lie #300, as I have demonstrated in several previous postings.

Hovind: "The length-to-width ratio of 6 to 1 is what shipbuilders today often use. This is the best ratio for stability in stormy weather. (God thinks of everything!)"

Lie #301. If god thinks of everything, why didn't he think to simply magic all the evildoers away and leave Noah and the Earth alone instead of subjecting the innocent animals to horrible drowning deaths, and Noah to a year of hell afloat caring for hundreds if not thousands of animals? It is no big deal that the ark shows a six to one ratio - presumably the writers were familiar with boats.

Hovind: "The ark may have had a "moon-pool" (sometimes called moon-pull) in the center. The larger ships would have a hole in the center of the bottom of the boat with walls extending up into the ship..It allowed water to go up into the hole as the ship crested waves...The rising and lowering water acted as a piston to pump fresh air in and out of the ship...The hole was a great place to dump garbage into the ocean without going outside."

Lie #302. I know of no large ship which was ever built with a hole in the bottom and the Biblical story itself - which gives explicit ark-building instructions - makes no mention of this feature. In rough seas (as there must have been with the entire Earth covered in water - sloshing back and forth, according to Hovind - with no wind breaks or shelter, continuing torrential rain, and the fountains of the deep breaking up) the water would have slopped all over the ark (together with the floating garbage), eventually sinking it. If the pool surround was built high enough to prevent this, it would not have ventilated the lower floors of the ark. A hole in the boat, far from strengthening it, would have made it weaker. If Hovind or any creationist disagrees with this, I challenge them to build such a boat, fill it with their family and animals, and go afloat for a year in rough seas. Let them put their faith where their mouth is.

Hovind: "Skeletons over 11 feet tall have been found!"

Lie #303. Until and unless any creationist produces a real one.

Hovind: "God told Noah to bring two of each kind, not of each species or variety."

Lie #304. Until and unless the creationists find some Biblical definition of kind that can withstand scientific scrutiny, there is no way Hovind can pretend 'kind' and species are different. Primitive peoples today very much define kinds in the same way as science defines species. Creationists need to do their homework on this and come back when they are ready to debate. They also need to explain how animals can vary dramatically within kinds, but never cross the kind barrier no matter how flimsy that barrier may be between two 'kinds'.

Hovind: "Animals have diversified into many varieties in the last 4,400 years since the Flood. This is not anything similar to great claims that the evolutionists teach.

Lie #305. Damned right it isn't. Evolutionists would not dare pretend to a rate of evolution that the creationists need in order to explain this immense diversity arising in such a short time.

Hovind: "Noah did not have to get the animals. God brought them to him (Gen. 6:20, "shall come to thee")."

Lie #306. This is one of the many Biblical contradictions. Hovind chooses Gen 6:20 because it suits his purpose, but it not only depends on which part of the story you read - it also depends on what translation you read. The Catholic Bible gives this same verse as "...two of each shall enter with you to be kept alive." The Dartmouth Bible specifies, "...two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark." I shall choose my own verse, just as Hovind did, since it suits my purpose, just like the one he chose suits his. My verse comes right after Hovind's - Gen 6:21. "And take unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee, and it shall be as food for thee and for them."

You see, the problem with Hovind is that he cannot think, and he cannot imagine anything outside of his own paranoid schizophrenic world. Does Hovind imagine, I wonder, if the food came unto Noah like his animals? Did it come walking like the brush figures from the Disney sorcerer's apprentice cartoon? Just how did this food get there? The Bible says Noah had to gather it; enough food for a year, for eight people and countless animals with specialized diets. The fact that god told Noah to gather enough food is proof positive that Hovind's insane idea that the animals hibernated is nonsense. They were alive and awake and desperately hungry, and there were only eight people to feed and clean them, and entertain the higher mammals for a year in rough seas on an ark with a door built in the side, and only one window.