I wanted to write about a specific area of the globalized religion that bewilders me – Faith in those who we know are liars. In recent years the faith debate has come under media scrutiny and theist proponents have swarmed on the opportunity to ‘prove’ their baseless nonsense. 

This has given light to such Golden Crocoduck nominees as Kirk Cameron and Ben Stein or perhaps most notably of all the Golden Crocoduck winner Kent Hovind. 

Kent Hovind claims to be a degree and a masters holder in religious [Christian] education but both of those qualifications come from uncertified universities considered by some to be “diploma mills”.

Hovind spent his career pushing young earth creationism and using intentionally misleading tactics to convince succeptable youth and naieve adults alike that the scientists were out to trick you. Perhaps that is a pecismistic perspective and he might genuinely be ignorant of the scientific facts he intends to disprove but one would assume he wouldn’t speak from a position of convinction on a topic of which he’s largely ignorant.

I will illustrate my point with two examples: In disproving the big bang theory hovind took an extract from a textbook and used that quote from that text book as a premise to disprove the big bang theory. I’m sure everyone has already identified the problem with his methodology … But what if i told you the excerpt he used was not even describing the birth of the universe but rather the birth of a star? 

The second example is the “$250,000 offer” which says that he will award scientists with the money if they can ‘prove the theory of evolution’. As with all similar competitions it comes with fine print but this fine print is exactly why nobody has won it – It states that to claim the prize you must prove that evolution explains not only the complex organisms as we know them today but also that evolution also explains the origins of the universe.

In case you didn’t know, Evolution =X= Origins of the Universe.

Returning to my original point – Why do people believe this man when we know he intentionally (or completely idiotically) misinterperates the science to allow him to use his broken pseudo-science to persuade the gullable? 

Why do people believe this man to this day when he was convicted of tax fraud. This man is not only a liar as proven by the scientific community but also a thief as proven by the court that tried and convicted him.

I did not want to mention VFX too much as that snake has enough of a global spotlight on him but in case you didn’t know VenomFangX is a young American theist who uses blanket quoting from hovind and other untrustworthy sources to fight scientific videos on YouTube. He is widely regarded by Christians as a source of great information relaying the ‘truths’ from other sources to help combat the evils of science.

In reality he’s a liar. Not a third party liar either by endorsing and replicating Hovind’s intentional lies but a liar himself in his actions and his claims. He has been caught numerous times abusing YouTube policies and creating multiple accounts for the sole purpose of “upping” his own videos.

His actions grew so nefarious that a few months ago his actions against a prominent Atheist by the title of Thunderf00t which involved illegal flagging campaigns and claims of DMCA violations resulted in a temporary freezing of his account and him issuing a full apology for his actions in which he admits to lying, perverting the course and even admitted that he had no understanding of basic copyright or free-speech laws.

My question is – In a world where the only way a theist can argue with a scientist is to lie and intentionally pervert the views of not only their trustees but also the public at large then how can you believe any of it? When someone in your church says something absurd do you just let it go? 

There is a gap between what we know and what you believe and when the man who helped you jump that gap is a liar or a fool exactly how far will you allow it to go before you say to yourself – I can’t trust anything you’ve said.