Hovind Writes Chick Tract;
Need I Say More?
Kristine
From: "Kristine"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Hovind/Chick publications -- Need we say more?
Date: Sunday, February 18, 2001 6:02 PM
Cliff,
I recently found Hovind's $250,000 offer, and felt the need to find out more. Aside from being astounded that he would even try to act as though putting up such a large sum of money proves his unshakeable faith in his god and creationism, I found myself wondering just why he thinks the rest of the world is as incredibly dense as he.
I honestly found it hard to believe that such ideas could exist in a man who uses the title of "Doctor." But then I found something on his main website which parted the water for me, leading me to the understanding that had been so evasive. Nothing proves your ignorance and close-mindedness more than being asked to write a Chick publication tract -- other than honoring that request. I collect these lovely things. I get all excited when I find one under my windshield wiper. If you have not yet seen this, you can find it at
http://www.drdino.com/products/Misc/index.jsp.
(Link dead at last check.)
I admit, that while I find them highly entertaining, it would make me rather sick to my stomach to actually send them money, so sadly, I will have to wait to find it sticking on the hood of my car, or slid under my door. If you happen to have a copy of it, I would simply love to see it. Anyway, I have babbled enough. Thanks for your time.
Kristine
Example of Chick's Fundamentalist Christian Propaganda
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Kristine"
Subject: Re: Hovind/Chick publications -- Need we say more?
Date: Sunday, February 18, 2001 8:37 PM
Ah, I had it backwards! Hovind didn't develop his thinking style from reading these little things, he actually writes them! Lordy!
If he offers $250,000, certain people will believe he has a valid case; such people will base that belief entirely and exclusively on his offer of $250,000. Nothing else need be said. Hovind could be offering to prove the Earth is flat: it matters naught. If this is what they need to maintain faith in their faith, these people will pursue it!
Nevertheless, James Randi's organization told me that Hovind has placed so many conditions on his offer that it is nearly impossible to collect. For example, you must convince a panel of Fundamentalist Christians selected by Hovind that you're right and they're wrong. (Could you do that? I couldn't! Wouldn't even waste my time trying.) To get a taste of what at least one of Hovind's followers thinks like, check out the "Let's Go To The Atheist Page" piece. We also have a discussion on the "Hovind's 300 Creationist Lies" web site.
I don't know what kind of a "Doctor" he is, but I can get a Doctorate of Divinity from the Universal Life Church for $20. [Update: Since this posting Hovind has admitted that his doctorate is of the "diploma mill" variety; that is, an unearned sheet of paper!] I think ULC founder Rev. Kirby Hensley was able to prevail in court on the notion that since the D.D. is granted by seminaries for instruction in theology, every D.D. is an honorary degree -- no matter how much time or how many thousands you spent at Divinity School. Meanwhile, many chemists and mathematicians are devout theists; unfortunately for the cause of creationism, very few biologists and physicists even believe in the existence of gods and the supernatural seeing as how their specialties so thoroughly refute the more popular notions of The Benign Designer.
Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
people with no reason to believe
Example of Chick's Fundamentalist Christian Propaganda
From: "Kristine"
To: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Re: Hovind/Chick publications -- Need we say more?
Date: Sunday, February 18, 2001 9:16 PM
Cliff,
Since I sort of got your attention before, please allow me to throw a few kudos your way. I found your website about two years ago, and have been checking it out on a very regular basis since then, as well as directing both the believer and the nonbeliever there when they are looking for a bit of information. My husband and I both face the incredibly difficult task of being atheist, and trying to raise our children to be freethinkers in the middle of the Bible belt (Oklahoma). It's not an easy road, but one we feel we are pretty well staying on. I have never been so proud as the day I heard my 10-year-old daughter say to one of her friends, when she was asked if she believed in god: "I still have lots of time to make up my mind on that."
Having said that, I would love for you to take a look at a parody of evangelical sites that my husband made. If you have the time it is at
My husband is a very talented writer, and if you ever are in need of a little extra help with articles on your site, etc, please feel free to email him. I dont know if you have a staff, if you use all freelance, or if it is all strictly volunteer work. But he would be thrilled to possibly do some stuff for you in any of those circumstances.
I am babbling again. Can't help myself. Keep up the good work!!
Kristine
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
[ -- Albert Einstein]
Example of Chick's Fundamentalist Christian Propaganda
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To:
Subject: Re: I posted your letter
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 04:40:02 -0000
The newly revised "Big Daddy" tract is online.
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp
Question: If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, as they say, then why did Chick need to revise this tract?
From: "Kristine"
To: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Re: I posted your letter
Date: Monday, February 26, 2001 5:21 AM
I feel as though my life now has purpose. Now that it has been explained to me so clearly, I can follow the right path. I am curious, why is all their resource material either from Chick, or Hovind? I mean, surely they could have found someone else.
I cannot for the life of me remember which one it was, but I was reading a letter from one of your less than supportive correspondents, and after reading this publication, I have realized that everything he mentioned in the letter, he seemed to have gotten from the "Big Daddy" tract. The lord does work in mysterious ways, don't he?
By the way: I particularly liked the painting behind the professor in the first frame. "Our Father" What a riot. Pardon me while I suppress a hysterical giggle.
Kris
Example of Chick's Fundamentalist Christian Propaganda
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Kristine"
Subject: Re: I posted your letter
Date: Monday, February 26, 2001 8:20 AM
Collect them all! Every English-language title for only $10! They even come in their own carrying case!
http://www.chick.com/catalog/assortments/0915.asp
This guy knows exactly what he's doing. That's why I posted the panels I did: in them, he all but admits that he's in the propaganda game -- just like he accuses Mao of doing. But it's okay, because the propaganda is for "our side." Jeez!
I've seen people that are looking for the rare ones -- I guess a few offended even the ultra fundamentalists and only stayed on the market for a short while. Others have been revised (read: had the violence or bigotry toned down a bit).
Hell, maybe my "vestigial fear of the Christian afterlife" came from reading these things as a teenager. I was raised in an atheistic household; not even the grandparents -- any of them -- were anything more than atheistic Unitarians. And these little buggers are so gauddamn graphic about it: "Yaaaaaaaaaa!!" screams the poor hapless soul [pun intended] as a faceless "angel" (whatever that is) literally tosses the guy, naked, into The Everlasting Arms of Christ's Redemptive Fire.
Meanwhile, here's another of Jack Chick's boasts about Hovind:
| ||
Hovind's contention is that evolution is not science, but an alternate belief system -- a religion. Surely it takes more faith to believe that animals came from rocks than it does to believe in a loving Creator Who designed them. | ||
 |
Yeah, right! This whole enterprise is based entirely upon the Straw Man ruse. Animals came from rocks!? Indeed! Show me an evolutionist who contends (or even suggests) that either (a) animals came from rocks or (b) evolutionary theory states that animals came from rocks, and I'll dismantle this project and post in its place an apology for uttering falsehood. [Update: A full three years later, we've still had no takers. Nobody has tried to show our readers that any evolutionists have ever said these things! All we ever get from this camp are claims, claims, claims!] Okay, so at least these Christians, in describing the "faith" of their Straw-Man evolutionists, end up admitting that faith is the act of believing something that only a fool would believe!
That slogan "preaching to the choir" sure derived from the right subject matter! All of these apologetics -- all of them: from the somewhat involved "Bible Problems" books to the sophisticated-sounding works of Lee Strobel to the ticky-tacky comic tracts of Jack T. Chick -- are created solely to keep the sheep from wandering astray of the fold. Not a one of them is useful toward recruiting, especially a learned atheist! Now, atheists do convert, but it's hardly ever due to the apolotetics efforts of organized reiigion. Rather, it's almost always a private emotional fluctuation of some sort.
Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
people with no reason to believe
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