Pity me

I have just watched a video of a debate between creationist Eric Hovind and atheist Bernie Dehler. Now that my blood has stopped bubbling and I have managed to unlock my clenched jaw, I find myself unable to refrain from unloading some of my frustration into this post. 

I have listened to/watched more than my fair share of creationist debates and lectures in my time, many of them involving that proven liar and thief, Kent Hovind, who just happens to be the father Eric, the creationist in this video. However, I can't remember a time when I have been so ticked off as a result.

Eric Hovind is every bit as arrogant and ignorant as his father, but he manages to be even more irritating, if such a thing is possible. You'll have to watch the video for yourself to get a feel for what I mean, but I don't recommend it. I lost count of how many times Eric displayed his total lack of understanding of science, philosophy, logic or morality. Indeed, virtually every argument he made did violence to those terms. Like his dad, Eric never really shut up and let the other guy talk - he just steamrollered all over him, spouting nonsensical drivel to the delight of a baying crowd - and he used the perennial debaters trick of evading difficult questions by asking one of his own.

Although the whole debate was a torturous tangle of stupid, there were two hoofing great fallacious arguments that stood out for me:

First, whenever Mr Dehler said anything, Eric always asked "could you be wrong about everything you just said?" 

In the spirit of intellectual honesty, his opponant was obliged to answer "Yes". "Well," came the gleeful reply, "that means that you admit that you don't know anything". Hovind's 'logic' is that if you 'know' something that later turns out to be wrong, you didn't know it in the first place - you only believed it. 

So, if you admit that you might not be right about anything, you are admitting that all of your thoughts are merely beliefs and that you have no knowledge. The problem with this is that it wipes out all of science, and unless one aspires to be as arrogant as a creationist, it wipes out all forms of knowledge on any subject. And this, by the way, applies to Hovind's claims to knowledge as well - he's just too shit stupid to realise it.

Second, there was another particular piece of 'argumentation' that Hovind used throughout the debate, that it is so inane, so wrong-headed, so bat-shit crazy, that it stands out, in a strong field, as the most stupid thing that either of the Hovind boys has ever said. It is this:

"If you don't know everything, you can't know anything."

Yup, you read that right - If you don't know everything, you can't know anything....

....unless...

...unless you know someone who knows everything. 

Or, to put it another way, there is can be no knowledge without God.

Brilliant! Genius! Change one syllable and the whole delicate epigram just falls apart. Here is how the conversation should have gone as soon as Hovind made this staggeringly moronic statement:

Dehler: But wait, Mr Hovind, I have a question for you. Do you think you are God?

Hovind: Of course not.

Dehler: But you just said that you know everything.

Hovind: No I didn't.

Dehler: Er, yes. Yes you did. Think about (if you can). You claim to know God.

Hovind: Uh Huh

Dehler: But 'knowing God' is 'knowing something' right?

Hovind: Erm

Dehler: So if you claim to know God, you are claiming to know something and so, by your argument, you must be claiming to know everything...

Hovind: Well I...

Dehler: ...and if you are claiming to know everything...

Hovind: Hold on a minute now...

Dehler: ...then you are claiming to be God. QED. At what is more...

Hovind: Whoa there...

Dehler: ...you are in fact claiming that in order to know God, you have to be God. 

Hovind: That's not what I meant.

Dehler: I'm sure it isn't, but that it what you said......and another thing...since you claim to know everything, and since I know you, I can, by your own arguments, safely say that I know you are a glans.

Sadly, Dehler was too nice a chap to go down this route, but Eric did get his comeuppance in the Q&A when an 11 year-old called him on the very point I've just made, and he was forced to bluster and patronise and condescend his way out of it. I'd like to say that this delicious moment made the rest of the video worth the watch. But it didn't. Ho hum.