Did someone rattle the monkey cage recently? I have been getting a sudden wave of email from defenders of Kent Hovind, which is not good. Of all the creationists, Hovind spawns the most illiterate, incomprehensible mess; I think you have to be of very low intelligence to find anything at all appealing in that guy.
Anyway, here are two examples. I’d kind of like to be game-fully employed — does that mean I just sit around all day playing games? Because I suppose that could be fun.
Your assessment of Kent Hovind
You are an arrogant jackass. Your pompousness is only exceeded by your stupendous idiocracy. The fact that you are game fully employed is proof that we were created and it was obviously not survival of the fittest. If there were any true justice in this country, you would be the one sitting in jail. Hey ape-man, go back and crawl under the rock from witch you came and do the world a favor…
Have a wonderful day
This next one is just weird. He spelled my name right, but misspelled Hovind’s, which is a first. He’s also very confused — I think he has the impression I’m a Hovind supporter.
Kent hovend
as much as I love Kent hovend I have to say he is guilty
any one who has listened to any of his video’s has seen him say don’t pay your tax’s
I don’t if he did not say that in his video’s they would have left him alone
however there is a good part he get’s a captive ears that need to here what he has to say
we have copied his videos & passed them around
any one that watched them loves them
he makes it easy to understand
keeps it light [ funny ]
none of it is boring unlike most all church’s most guys drift off
in to never never land our wife’s have to nudge us
where no one that watch’s Kent never drift’s off everif he get’s out some day he will maybe in a few years
tell him not to talk about tax’s for or not just shut up about it
he can do more good out than in jail
on the good side when he gets out he will have a new set of suckers to
debate the old one retire or die off
hes still a young man & he has his son’s to take over
yes I did signed your paper to get him out
about a year ago
remember it is better to use a little honey to get them on your side than to
make them pissed off & wont talk to him any more
yes I know its not as much fun hahahhaha
Those are the strange line breaks in the original. I get the feeling he was trying to write a poem.
(Also on Sb)
Need better email loons.
The quality here is much less that I was hoping for. Too short and not enough spittle flecked vitriol.
Though they’re ranking fairly high on the dumbfuckery scale, they could use some work.
Email like that always makes me wonder about Plantinga and how he thinks that people actually understand the truth of anything. According to him, if we evolved we should have something like the level of incomprehension that seems to be the norm on his side.
Then there’s the trivial BS about not knowing the “truth” of the universe, but we don’t even know if there is anything like the absolute truth that he believes in, it’s just his prejudice.
But why should anyone care about that? If humans evolved from monkeys, why do so many sound like ignorant primates? Easy answer, they evolved from monkeys (monkey-like ancestors for pedants), and were clearly not designed for knowing some grand Truth.
Glen Davidson
The second one IS a poem and you’re oppressing the author if you think otherwise.
It is cute (and sad) how these folks never learned* how to spell or punctuate properly.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe
* Or is it that they can’t be bothered? Hmm.
“the rock from witch you came”
Well it was just Hallowe’en
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent email were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this blog is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
You have to respect the religitrolls for their persistence.
I’m a bit pissed. I don’t know what “game-fully employed” or how it proves creationism. But I do know that I want to be game-fully employed. It sounds awesome though. And I’m pissed because you won’t share the secret of being game-fully employed!
Wait, is it related to pointing out that Kent Hovind is a moron? Cause I totally could do that, has he actually is a complete moron, and a liar.
The second one actually hurt my eyes.
I suppose I can let the “witch” slide (I saw the same mistake in a museum in either Sweden or Norway back in the 90’s).
Odd that after insulting you, he wishes you a nice day though…
You know how I know these people are teabaggers?
PZ…I think you are undergoing a massive, coordinated Poe-attack!!! Why, I have no idea; maybe these are idle tea party folk with a free day?
I think the fact that you are game fully employed means god likes you the best.
They really are brilliant pieces, and I wish the first one would expand a little on how your being game fully employed relates to being created.
Idiocracy: I like it. I like it a lot. I think it’s the ironicity of it that amuses me the most.
Can’t help but wonder how much it’ll cost to have the apostrophe key on his laptop replaced ‘cos it’s certainly taking a hiding….
Punctuation is the work of the devil and spell check can’t detect stupid mistakes, thrush me.
That first email is a fine example of christian love… /sarcasm off
I am disappoint – not nearly crazy enough, though attempts at poetry are certainly appreciated. Don’t you get emails from people claiming to be the second coming of Jeebus, and that they’ll personally drag you down to
HadesTartarusHell? I know lack of crazies is a good thing, but frankly I feel cheated, somehow. Guess I’ll go back to /b for my daily dose of batshit insanity…idiocracy: A system of government in which the must gullible rule; c.f., theocracy
And COLOR! Not enough using color in these spams! Where’s the bright red all caps text?
Thank Gawd that he won’t be praying for you, which is better still than preying on you.
That second one needs to be read aloud a la Def Poetry Jam.
The second one is no poem–it could hardly be verse.
(OK, I’ll go stand in the corner now.)
You just know these people home school.
I think it is funny that my Kent Hovind filter on Google news only picks up his name when it is posted on a science blog bashing him. The only people that talk about him on a regular basis are the Darwinist.
If PZ didn’t mention him he would fad away, but I guess keeping a good strawman around helps you feel better about your arguments.
Sooo I saw this and immediately thought of some casual research I saw on Spelling and Grammar and Religiousness. (http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-best-questions-for-first-dates/)
It’s waaaaaayyy at the bottom, but I think the trends are pretty clear.
I’m wondering, how does one go about becoming “game fully employed”?
It sounds kind of fun…
My gaze kept sliding off that second one. I could not make myself read past the boring church bit. WTF was he on about? Kent Hovind’s a crook, but I like his videos?
I prefer Cuttlefish. At least those poems are clever.
Now we know why the rapture had happened yet– poor Kenny Boy is still in jail. God isn’t going to rapture someone from jail, since that would be aiding and abetting which is a sin. And God isn’t going to start the show without his number-one brain guy. So the new rapture date is set for August 11, 2015. Of course with good behavior, the End of the World might happen a bit sooner.
Evil unicorns
I wish he were a good strawman. Hovind is painfully popular — his videos are standard fare in church basements and with campus evangelists.
rad_pumpkin #16
Did you mean that to be poetry or Poe-try
It’s no small matter to be game fully employed.
He’s a strawman, eh?
Well, nobody’s stopping you (or anyone else, for that matter) from producing the good arguments for Jesus and his Twelve Diplodoci.
These types of e-mail (if they are not fakes) are amusing on the surface, but when I start to really think about them, it makes me sad that such ignorance could come out of someone who lives in a part of the world where knowledge is freely available.
@TonyJ
At first I thought I misspelled “poetry.” Then I thought you did. Then I got it. I then proceeded to lough out loud. Well played, sir.
It took reading the email twice and most of the comments until I realized that the author was going for “gainfully” employed. I’m not sure whether that reflects badly on me or the author.
Jayzuz, you must be a dumb one. What the hell do you have a “Kent Hovind filter on Google news” for anyways ? What for ? Expecting news that tax fraud conman Hovind has been pardoned now that Rethug-approved politicians and judges are the majority ? Expecting news that sinner Hovind has been raptured out of his cell straight to heaven ?
Yep, here’s your sign. Wear it with pride, dummy.
Not your fault.
Too much fundie stupidity to digest all at once.
Regrettably, I too am among the un-game fully employed. Game full employment would be awesome, either behind the screen or in front of it. I could supply a resume detailing over 25 years of experience, and I own my own dice.
(so….many….dice….)
Also, while I thought Idiocracy was an acceptable afternoon’s entertainment, I wouldn’t describe it as “stupendous”.
–
Since I retired, I have spent a lot of time playing WoW and Halo 3. Does that mean I am game fully employed?
As I’m in a charitable mood, I’ll suggest the 2nd email came from someone who is not a native English speaker. Probable?
I read “game fully employed” with the mental image of Far Side-esque game animals slogging away at their computers in little cubicles. I guess that would then be “game, fully employed.”
#10 – because their breath smells of scrotum?
A friend of mine did a bunch of voices for Assassins Creed 2. I guess she’d be a good example of game-fully employed.
@TonyJ
I have to agree. It really is tragic. It’s like the chains have been released, and the door behind them opened, but they prefer to sit there and watch the shadows in the cave and believe that it’s all of reality.
PZ is “game fully employed”?
Is the dean of UMM Milton Bradley and the bio department headed by the Parker brothers?
I have to say that is some of the most seriously twisted, industrial strength, brain-damaging, incoherent bullshit I have ever had the misfortune to read. How do you manage to endure going through such insanity, PZ? Is your brain wrapped in Kevlar for protection?
i can’t get past “game fully employed”; it gives me the giggles.
One day, Eric Hovind is going to come back and finish our discussion…
“idiocracy”
Wasn’t that the U.S. political system under Bush?
It’s your hero Kent who cheated on his taxes, not PZ.
TonyJ #30
Possibly po-8-try.
This is the guy that you don’t send to the dictionary to find how to spell a word.
I wonder who spotted him the t and h to get “the” right?
Apparently, he has decided that thou shall not suffer a which to live.
It looks almost identical to the horrifically mangled results of playing with with the iPhone’s voice recognition.
The second letter sounds to me like the syntax of a native speaker of English. There’s no trace of foreign grammar and idioms are used correctly. This is the home-grown product of the U.S. system of universal education, I believe.
Otrame,
I, too, am game-fully employed– still can’t put Fallout: New New Vegas down.
Hey! I’ve got a 9-5* job too! That’s gotta be extra super amazingly special, or something.
*More like 7:30-5:30, but whatevs.
I wonder if “game fully” was a cupertino?
Poe ate rye.
I’m not as active on Wikipedia as I used to be, but when I was, I spent an interestingly large amount of time reverting changes from Hovind supporters who wanted to make sure the record was clear about the accuracy of Hovind’s science. It was frustrating, because they never seemed to understand what ‘science’ is or why Hovind is doing it wrong, and they were often so poorly educated that having any kind of understandable conversation with them was nearly impossible in writing.
I suppose that others are still watching that Wikipedia article and making the same changes from time to time.
I had never heard of the dude until I noticed the problem at Wikipedia, and after learning more about him, I genuinely was puzzled at the existence of ‘Hovind supporters.’ But it’s a big weird world with lots of weird people in it…
Also, I wonder what the first writer wrote before spellcheck suggested “game fully”?
Well now we know what the monkeys writing shakespeare do on their day off
Reading through the emails the first time, I did not get that “game fully employed” meant “gainfully employed.” Though I didn’t give much thought to it and chalked it up to general incoherence.
I really don’t get how someone can just tell you to do the world a favor by disappearing and then wish you a wonderful day. It doesn’t seem like the emailer is trying to be sarcastic. And he obviously doesn’t want you to have a wonderful day.
Jamie
It’s the same thing as a fundie frothing at the mouth, wishing you a fiery eternity in hell, and then closing with “I’ll pray for you”. In both cases, it means “Fuck you”.
IMHO, the grammatical and spelling errors in these little diatribes aren’t worth comment. The authors are not skilled at expressing themselves in writing, and almost certainly read very little. Hence they spell various idioms as they hear them. Thus “game fully” for gainfully. No one who has run across that word in print would do that.
Such compositional disasters are par for the course and we should be glad that a couple of quite badly educated people still stick their necks out by expressing themselves in writing.
The organization and content are horses of a different color. Bad organization is again due to lack of expertise in expressing oneself in writing. The bad content, however, is due to the usual suspect, viz religious brain washing when young, reinforced by I don’t know what further nonsense spewed by ignorant pseudo-clergy.
Ahhh!
So THAT’S Christian Porn.
I was wondering.
Now we know why the rapture had happened yet– poor Kenny Boy is still in jail. God isn’t going to rapture someone from jail, since that would be aiding and abetting which is a sin.
Naw, it’s because the bars are made of cold iron, and that interferes with God’s magical rapturing powers.
O.o
PZ, what have you been DOING behind our backs?
trying to petition for Hovind’s freedom?
for shame.
:P
I’ve seen one of Hovind’s videos, and that was more than enough.
They’re inane, 6th grade level nonsense fit only for those whom religion has kept ignorant beyond their years. In other words, they’re just about perfect for the intended audience.
You’d almost think that the religious right had some agenda here to keep people ignorant. . .
This jumped off the page at me:
*giggle*
I am proud to say that I may be the only person here ever to have been game-fully employed, having worked for several years at a major toy and game manufacturer.
naw, I’m sure, like myself, there are others around here who worked for the computer gaming industry at some point.
i just read the second letter, boss
now archy is ghostwriting for creationists,
mehitabel asks
but wotthehell, pz
i knew hovind in a past life
and he wasn’t much then
…
[http://donmarquis.com/literature?pp=262 ]
I still work in the computer games industry and, yes, this week I have probably spent far too much time playing games as my job.
I’d love to be fully-employed in the computer gaming industry! I’ve got a few certificates I earned at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment in my room gathering dust! Instead, I’m dismantling computers for recycling. :P
oh, man, i laughed a long time on that.
Somehow, I doubt that is what the writer meant.
But hey, PZ, do me a favor and have a wonderful day.
It’s almost scary to think there really are people who have drivel like this running through their heads all day, every day.
The weirdest thing about the 2nd post is that he continues to pluralize with apostrophes until the one freaking time he needed one!
Maybe the first guy just left out the parentheses and meant “The fact that you are game (fully employed) is proof that we were created”. You see, PZ, the fact that you are willing to play along is proof our parents procreated. Since you are a biologist this makes sense.
I knew a guy who was game-fully employed in Vegas. He said it got really boring and eventually he couldn’t drag himself to the handful of casinos where he wasn’t listed.
All of you, headmaster’s office for pun-ishment, now.
I say this with no qualms about it:
I fucking hate Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, and Ray Comfort. It’s people like them who have me at what is essentially a high-school level of scientific knowledge. It’s people like them who killed my love of science when I was a kid. It’s people like them who make me feel like an idiot when I wander into a discussion about genetics.
They prey on children by twisting facts and lying and deceiving. They formulate their predations in ways that make them sound like they’re experts on the topic and because it’s usually a parent showing these videos or Web sites or conferences, the children are pushed into a “listen to the authority” type of situation and don’t dare question your mother.
Fuck them. Fuck them all.
I presume that Tis knows about Black Bart, the Po8.
Unlikely.
I’m not a native english speaker and even as a beginner, these are not the type of mistakes we do.
Someone for whom english is a second language will use expressions and synthax (as well as words that may be common to both languages but have a different meaning – faux amis) that comes from their native language, and is more unlikely than a native speaker to mix up homophones like “which” and “witch” because they will have learned to read and write at the same time or before they learned to speak.
I cannot help but wonder “witch” rock this guy comes from – definitely not the 3rd from the sun! Bwa-hahahahaha.
Have yous peoples heard the breakdown of Kent Hovind’s ‘Doctoral Dissertation’ from the duo at Irreligiosophy (it is a great atheist podcast)?
Anyone who is aware of Hovind’s background and dissertation couldn’t help but realize he is a clown. They actually ended up devoting three entire episodes to this document because it was so crazy.
http://www.irreligiosophy.com/?s=hovind
Good stuff in a painful kind of way.
I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the dissection of Hovind’s dissertation. Those shows were hilarious!
It doesn’t surprise at all, considering the quality of his dissertation, that his fans are about as illiterate as he is.
@sc_randomstring:
One of my first Pharyngula posts was the facepalming (followed by face-desking) that I had over Hovind’s dissertation. It’s a hilariously terrible piece of writing.