Friday, May 25, 2007

Hovind's mind is beginning to crumble

There are signs emerging that Kent Hovind is starting to deteriorate between the ears ("Whaddaya mean, starting to?" you're saying, I know) as a result of his incarceration. His latest letter from the pen posted on the Creation Science Evangelism blog is a bizarre, self-pitying bit of blather in which he refers to God as the "master," Jesus as the "woodsman," evolution as a "big oak" and himself as the "ax". He then goes off in a profoundly weird rant, following a "why hast thou forsaken me" motif.


Dear Woodsman,






The Ax

This is the kind of thing you read, and then sit there quietly for a second, before exhaling and thinking "...Wow!"

Hovind is disintegrating. When he's released, it is likely he will have to undergo treatment of some kind in a mental health facility. He may even have to be remanded to such a facility before his release. I don't feel sorry for him in the least for who he's been and what he's done. But it's a reassuring sign, I suppose, that his influence has considerably waned, and may even be considered negligible. In the "deuling polls" matter discussed a few days ago, the "Free Hovind" petition still has fewer than 100 signatures, many of which are pranks, while the "Keep Him Locked Up" counter-petition has over 1100. He's lost his fan base except for all but the stupidest and most deluded, and now he's losing his marbles.


  1. At first blush, that letter sounds like self-pity (the "why hast thou forsaken me" element), but there's an undercurrent of delusions of grandeur, too. Hovid seems to think this experience is all about sharpening his "cutting edge", suggesting that he'll be able to "chop wood" all the more readily when he eventually gets out.

    It's a clever metaphor in some ways, but I think I can extend it a bit to improve its accuracy: the "big oak" of evolution is healthy, robust and well-established all right, but all along, "the Ax" was composed not of steel, but of silly putty. He's not being sharpened. He's being discarded and replaced... by an equally ineffectual slab of Ham.

    Yes, evidently the mythical "Woodsman" is just that stupid. On purpose.

  2. Eh, this is just more of that evangelical glurge that passes for Deep Spirituality among the fundies, similar to the whole "how the pot must feeling being fired in a kiln in order to be useful to the Potter" dreck that used to be so popular a couple of decades ago. It's extremely manipulative and wayyy overboard masochistic, and is meant to rev the faithful up and convince them that their horrible, misery-laden circumstances are "God's Way of Creating Shiny, Gleaming Tools Out Of Them So They Can Be Used Properly."

    When, in fact, they are just being used.

  3. I wonder if he'll get the same lambasting Job got for insisting he was innocent and that god had no reason to strike him with so much tribulation? I mean, Hovind better watch it. God can get plenty peeved when you ask him "why"--trying to make sense of god's plan is a big no-no! Just ask Job.

    But maybe Hovind will get a new, better family out of the deal. Job got a new family. I'm sure that made up totally for the one god killed.

  4. Hovind's supporters have deserted him? Explain why the FreeHovind petition ( currently has several hundred more signatures than the "keep Hovind in jail" petition.

    Hovind is neither loosing his marbles, not loosing his supporters.

    The only loosing going on involves Evolutionists and a debate over origins.



