Genesis: is it to be taken literally?

ok. thanks.
Interesting how Hovind stirs so much up in this forum. I will try not to cite the site.

Ah! Another Kent Hovind sighting! And what significants do you make of Doctor Kent Hovind's website?
You do realize that he is not a scienctist? What is his doctorate in and what institution granted it?lfenedit: adding this URL to make my question less of a teaser.
Account SuspendedThis message has been edited by lfen, 11-25-2004 12:51 AMThis message has been edited by lfen, 11-25-2004 12:52 AM

You may refer to the site if you find it useful.The guidelines just point out that it is you that must support anything you post.The hovind references stir both the non believer and most of the believers up for about the same reason. It is junk. It is annoying to have such foolishness promogated and the religious don't like having their religion made to look so foolish.The reason for warning you about it is because many people here are already familiar with it and have had a lot of practise ripping it to pieces. You won't do yourself much good if you try to depend on it for answers to the questions you will get.I know you don't believe what I'm saying but I can assure you that there are things you don't know. Lots and lots.

I can respect your point of view. I will keep researching.
When I saw him speak at a university near me things seemed quite solid. He debated with the audience quite well. It seems to me evolution has just as firm a ground to stand on as creationism. that is my own personal oppinion.How does one explain "the conservation of angular momentum" not having adverse effects on the evolution theory? why do entire solar systems spin in reverse if there was a big bag?That kind of thinking began to make me think.I will read the link in the second last note. Hovind readily admited he was a hichshool teacher (if I remember correctly). It is not my position to defend him and in fact it is not my desire.
I am here for conversation and debate. I will however read the link once I get time

Oh dear! ok, you may have trouble believing me with this but I will try.That is exactly the kind of thing that makes Hovind look so utterly stupid. He has had plenty of time to get that kind of thing right. The fact that he might ever mention such a thing make him dishonest.This is complete and utter rot! You have been lied to! Big time!It is very off topic for here I'm afraid. Liability of the Theory that the law of Angular Momentum disproves Big bang.I'll add a bit to the end for you but I think it should be well covered in that thread.

interesting. so where did matter come from?

citing hovind will get you torn to pieces here, and well, just about anywhere else. he's so bad that scientists just laugh and creationists are ashamed. answersingenesis even says he's full of it.mostly, we've gotten tired and just send people here: How Good are those Young-Earth Argumentsif you want, i'll find a few other places that also refute every argument he's ever made, point by point. but that's a good place to start. i don't see what one has to do with the other. one is physics, and one is biology. that's a fundamental flaw with hovind: he doesn't understand which area of study which, let alone individual fields.if he's debating, well, gravity this time, perhaps he should go read some newton or einstein. why do drains swirl the opposite way south of the equator?

The site quite effectively tears appart the thesis Hovind made. I do not follow every area of his life and timelines of what he said and I will not defend his position.
No to excuse kent in anyway, I do know that I am educated as a primary healthcare practitioner. I am always learning. I am also a businessman. As me 10 years ago to write a paper on either health or business and it would look quite flawed and different than if I wrote one today. We are always leaning, our views are always changing. At one time we "knew" that there was nothing smaller than an attom. Then we found the electron. Now we learn that there are elements that create magnitism.
I do not intend to defend hovind in any way but I will say I would hate to be judged by something I did many moons ago. He may be flawed. Some of his theories may be flawed. I am still learning and am glad I have found this forum.

many of his arguments continue to be flawed, even after it's pointed out to him. the idea in creationist circles is that belief comes first, facts come second. in fact, i used to have a nice quote by him that said something like "when facts contradict what we believe to be true, the facts must be in error."he's great on debating high schoolers, i'll agree. but why does he refuse serious written and moderated debate with educated scientists? i've heard of a few who've wanted to take him on, and none have gotten a chance. the man is hiding. he knows he's wrong, he just doesn't want to admit it.as a side note, i once thought about issuing a challenge to hovind personally: double or nothing on his challenge.if he can demonstrate creation in a lab setting, by creating at will a universe out of nothing, i will personally and gladly pay him twice his current offer.

What of his arguments that are not flawed? I am sure there are some.
His take is that he has debated with many proffessors and many refuse to debate him.
one the site are 4 debates with profs. is that not the kind of debate you are speaking or are there different types of debates. I am a little ignorant here.

If you find the debates your are refering to you can copy the URL that is in your browser and then paste that URL here so we can click and read the debate you are talking about. It's what I did with the article that discusses his credentials regarding his claim to a Ph.D.lfen

Hovind says a lot of things. Assume for a sake of argument that he is an ignorant clown - why would a professor want to debate him ? Moreover Hovind insists on spoken debates where rhetorical effectiveness is at a premium - he refuses written debates where factual errors are harder to cover up. Hovind's refusal of written debate is the more significant point - it shows that even he knows that his skill as a speaker is his best hope of winning and that he is very likely to lose on the facts.Now consider Hovind's claims about angular momentum. Why would the orbits of the planets be based on the supposed spin of the pre-Big Bang singularity ? Why would it not be based on the way that the solar system itself formed ?
(If you want to actually provide a serious answer please provided a referenced, scientific, estimate of the supposed spin and an explanation of why it should still completely dominate the movement of all matter after a period of around 9 billion years)

no, there are not. i have never seen a good creationist argument. behe came the closest, but he's still pretty far off. hovind... is off the deep end. he's a crackpot among crackpots. if you don't believe me, well, see what you can dig up on answersingenesis about his arguments. even THEY refute him. he's not interested in debate, he's interested in preaching. from what i hear those infamous debates he HAS had with legitimate professionals were circuses. that's why the request came for a written, moderated, and juried/checked debate. a request which he probably still refuses.

Interesting.
I have emailed them. I would love to hear what they have to say about it.This is a great conversation. Also paulk i am not a scientist so I would be hard pressed to "prove" even the evolution theory. I am enjoying learning from your posts.

Kent Hovind is skilled in persuasive rhetoric to sway those largely ignorant of the subject. He makes appeals to what they can understand, uses ridicule they can understand. This kind of demogogery has been in use for millenia, but it's not science and is not used to establish or falsify scientific or other rational arguments. That doesn't mean it's not useful in entertaining people or motivating people politically, religiously, or to sell things or work hard, whatever.A good scientist or scholar may be very skilled in making logical arguments without being a good motivational rhetorical demogogue.I know that the plural of ancedote is not data, but I'm going to toss an ancedote in here. I work briefly selling stereos. The best salesmen in the store was incredibly ignorant of electonics but customers loved him and he sold a lot of equipment. I once had to leave the floor to keep from bursting out laughing as he explained in all earnest ignorance to a customer's question about a receiver they had just purchased from him in regards to the post marked "ground". He told them they could hook it up to anything, a piece of wood and it the radio reception would improve. A lot of people found him charming and his enthusism, totally ignorant as it was, seemed to be infectious.I actively censure Hovind though. He uses his slick talk to manipulate people and trample on real work, real facts, and theories. I find his behaviour despicable. To debate him won't establish truth. If he was sincere about his theories he would submit them for written analysis. That is how real science is done. Frauds on the other hand utterly avoid knowledgable scrutiny. Hovind is a fraud, a huckster, a snake oil peddler, profiting by selling people what they want to believe, that the old time religion is easily defended by a few simple to understand jibes at science.Hovind's claims aren't true. Some are meaningless like the ads that claim something is "100% pure". Most are misleading lies or nonsense.
But he is a good salesmen with lots of satisfied customers.lfen