Creationist “University”
January 30th, 2008
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“So where did you get your degree”
“At a small university. You probably haven’t heard of it”
“Oh really? Well, how small is it?”
“Um. About 50 feet wide by 75 feet long”
You may have heard of the “scientist” who has been pushing Intelligent Design “theory” for a while, Kent Hovind. Hovind has been one of the biggest supporters of the idea of Intelligent Design as a “science” and is known for operating Christian theme parks, television donation beg-a-thons and for promoting his claims that he has proven evolution wrong with his scientific research. Kent isn’t doing that at the moment however. He’s taking a break at the Edgefield US Federal Correction Institution until 2015, assuming he behaves himself, for tax evasion.
One thing worth noting: It’s actually somewhat rare in the United States to go to prison for simply not paying taxes. What the government really wants is you to pay up, so in most cases, the penalty leveled is restitution and possibly interest on unpaid taxes and fines. Generally, putting someone in prison isn’t really helpful to the tax man because it doesn’t allow the person to work and therefore pay their back taxes. Kent went to prison because he’s been pulling this crap since at least the early 1990’s and has also done some things to hide his assets. So, the whole “I’m sorry I don’t keep good records and my account didn’t tell me so please just let me pay the back taxes and this won’t happen again.” line has pretty much worn out it’s effectiveness on sympathetic judges.
But getting back to the topic I started out with…
Kent Hovind, or as he prefers to call himself “Doctor Kent Hovind Ph.D.” got his education at Patriot Bible University. Patriot claims to be a Christian university which specializes in Bible study courses and theology and also various science courses. The science courses, of course, are not religious but actual fact-based scientific pursuits.. It just so happens to be at a Christian school, but that’s no big deal because after all, Notra Dame is a Catholic university and nobody seems to claim their physics or chemistry department isn’t legit, right? sure…..
Well, as it turns out Patriot Bible University is primary an independent study and distance learning institution. There’s not really anything wrong with that, considering that such programs have proven their worth in providing a solid eduction to working adults or those who can’t travel through a combination of online courses, video lectures and supervised exams at local institutions. But, Patriot University is not actually accredited as a degree-granting university. Actually, it’s not even recognized as a valid institution by any major educational body. It can’t even grant any kind of industry-recognized certification. That would tend to put it on the bottom of the heap in terms of “diploma mills,” most of them at least do a better job at pretending to be real.
They do however claim to be “Christian Accredited” which I guess means that Christ gave them the thumbs up. So if you call them into question, you’re actually assaulting the word of the risen lord and you’ll be turned into stone or get cudies and smell bad or something bad like that.
The “university” claims to have an annual graduating “class” of between 50 and 100, but of course, it is a small establishment which is committed to specialized areas of education and research. How small? Well, it can’t be that small, because the university president apparently lives on campus, as her private residence is actually the same address as the school. The photo to the right however proves that it was big enough for them to have the funds and space to erect a church-looking kinda thing on the side of it. It’s only two-dimensional, but who’s counting, right?
They do however have something of a parking lot (complete with trap rock grit to keep the dust from kicking up too much) and a concrete wheelchair ramp and stairs and such. They even have a commercial-grade streetlamp. So, that’s got to count for something. Oh and there’s a dumpster too, which coincidentally is a good place to put one of their degrees.
If you’d care to check it out you can always hit up Google Earth or Google Maps. The measurement tool puts the place at about 75 feet wide by about 50 feet deep, but that tool’s not always accurate so it might be as wide as 80 feet in reality.
The Address is:
Patriot Bible University
1135 French St.
Del Norte CO 81132
You can also find more info and get some more pictures here.
It’s on a lovely secluded road not far from a couple of trailer parks and a small housing development. There’s also a gas station just a little ways up the street! Apparently campus life and the university community are really hopping! The only problem is that apparently the University is under attack by the same forces that defamed poor Kent and oppose teaching of “the truth.” But they school assures us that they will prevail!
So there you go. If you want a degree and don’t want to actually learn anything this place might be the place to go. I remember being told a while ago that “too many students are just concerned with the reputation of a school and not with whether or not it’s the proper fit for them.” That might be a good statement in this case. Because if reputation means nothing to you and you’re an outright liar and federal convict, this school is a perfect match!
HOWEVER: I should also mention that Depleted Cranium also offers educational services and distance learning. (Starting at) Just $49.99 (Plus shipping) you can get a degree sent to you of equal value to that from Patriot Bible University. You can even have it personalized with your own name or framed for a very reasonable fee. Please contact us for more information on how you can receive your degree! Sample shown:
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under Bad Science, Education, Humor, Politics, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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January 30th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Ha! I like your degree.
And Kent DID NOT go to prison just for not paying up on taxes. If it’s a simple issue of you don’t pay your taxes the government almost never sends you to prison because that’s the last thing they want money wise. They’ll impose fines and seize property if they have to, but they would rather have you work and they’ll garnish your wages. Sitting in a cell is a financial loss when they can make you work and pay.
Kent said he could pay the back taxes with money people would dontate. He’s probably right. There are enough suckers out there who would cough it up for someone like that. The reason that he was prosecuted in criminal court and that the judge imposed the sentence is that his behavior went far beyond just not sending in his money. He actively hided assets and committed fraud to try to get out of paying on taxes on what he pretended was money for the non-profit groups he ran. It was outright fraud and not deception on many levels. Also he did it repeatedly and in the past they were pretty lenient and let him pay restitution and fines.
You know Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion too, and it also wasn’t just because he didn’t pay his taxes on time or didn’t pay in full. It’s because they needed to get that bastard behind bars and it was the easiest way to do it because of his connections in local law enforcement and lack of federal jurisdiction otherwise.
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Shame on you Giant Pulsating Brain, the poor man was persecuted not prosecuted, let’s get our terminology right here!
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Oh yeah sure. According to Wikipedia:
“Kent Hovind had been charged with falsely declaring bankruptcy, making threats against federal officials, filing false complaints, failing to get necessary building permits, and various tax-related charges. He was convicted of federal tax and related charges, for which he is currently serving a 10-year sentence.”
Sounds about square with what else I have seen. When you consider that he’s tangled with the law since about 1992 or so over taxes, claiming his organization was non-profit when it wasn’t, falsely filing papers with the IRS and other agencies, threatening officials and so on, it’s amazing he was not locked up until 2006.
If you ask me he was pretty damn lucky that the feds went easy on him the first few times. “No it wasn’t like that” “I didn’t know” “I’m a good christian..” “I’ll pay up I promise. I’ll pay back all the money from my doaners.” They only will eat that bull**** a certain number of times. He got his second chance and his third. They were pretty damn patient but he pulled this **** once too many times.
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January 30th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
You know if somebody was applying for a job and I was interviewing them and asked to see verification their credentials, I’m not sure which one I’d take more seriously. At least the bottom one I could use to wipe my nose with, so I think it’d take that one more seriously.
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January 31st, 2008 at 8:52 pm
“…cudies…”
I think you mean “cooties”.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooties
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February 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I wonder what it takes to start up a diploma mill.
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February 1st, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Schools like that in Britain (mostly not religious) also have the angle of allowing foreign students to enter the country when otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed. I don’t know if that applies in the U.S. Colleges make money for Britain but foreign workers take money away. Is this right? is the purely rhetorical question.
For instance
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7175730.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7177033.stm
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February 1st, 2008 at 5:30 pm
You know that is an interesting point. I had not heard of this before but it would not surprise me. Non-US citizens have a much easier time getting a long term visa to enter the US as a student then by other means. It would not surprise me if this same thing existed. I’ll have to look into it.
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February 4th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Michael Ejercito Says: “I wonder what it takes to start up a diploma mill.”
A sheep farm and a lot of printer ink.
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February 4th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
This is the kind of person religion creates. Think about it. Plenty of people go bad without religion, but with religion, they go bad and think they’re doing the right thing.
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February 5th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Bryant College in Tennessee, Liberty University in Virginia, and Bob Jones University in South Carolina are other Creationist schools with a LITTLE more academic credibility than the one in the OP.
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February 13th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
He wasn’t removing social security or any of that from his employees paychecks because they worked for god, not him and thus were not even really employees in the legal sense. Also, he used residential land for his park “Dinosaur Adventure Land.” I know this because its about 15 minutes from my house. I drive by it going across town.
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February 15th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
PROOF READ & EDIT.
i just stopped reading after the second blatantly misspelled word. If you want people to read your writing, then show them that you care about it.
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February 15th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
“the english language” is snob enough to stop reading because of the blasphemy of a misspell…and yet can’t capitalize the word “English” in its name…. That’s awesome!
Anyway, as I was reading I began to feel bad for all of the actual academics who engaged in direct or indirect discussion with this fraudulent Christiocrat. In they end they may as well have debated a 5th grader about biology and evolution.
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February 16th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Why is everyone quoting wikipedia??
Its been proven wrong many times before… i wouldnt trust it too completely…
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February 16th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
i have to agree with senor English language, please please please check your spelling, Firefox itself has one built in itself and has corrected mr deliberately misspelt use of ze English language on no less than ten times, yo!
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March 21st, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Really, check your spelling. Did you also graduate from Patriot Bible University? Maybe from Patrot Bibble Unstevristy? Your mocking Hovind about his purported education while misspelling along the way is just hypocrisy. I don’t like Hovind and his ilk either, but I’d be certain to check my writing before I’d fill a web page about how dumb he and his followers are.
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March 21st, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I talk good english said:
Are you talking about the napkin? That’s supposed to be satirical – scribbled down on a napkin with no professionalism.
If I misspelled something then it would be nice if you’d mention it since I’ve spell checked it three times, and used Firefox and the Wordpress spell check
I really really really HATE going into this, but since it has come up yet again
NO, I’m not good at spelling. Yes, I’m aware of it. Yes, I hate it. It’s the one thing I’d change about myself if I could.
Now I have to dig up everything that I don’t like to talk about. When I was very young I had a small amount of dyslexia. This is not terribly uncommon and most grow out of it, as I did. Yet my parents had put me in a Catholic school that was small and totally unequipped to recognize the condition and take appropriate educational measures.
To make matters worse, I didn’t even stay in the same school program or the same state at the time. I went from Connecticut to New York City and back to the same school I had been in in Connecticut because my father transferred temporarily for a year for work. The two schools used different programs and methods.
Therefore, in my formative years of learning to spell, I had some very bad influences and was not really given the kind of educational instruction I should have. This tended to reinforce some bad habits and confusion. Growing older means neural plasticity is reduced. By the time it was recognized that I was behind in spelling I was in about the fourth grade and by this time it was all but impossible to correct such badly reinforced habits.
It probably does not help that I learned to rely on a computerized spell check earlier than most of my peers. I always loved computers and was typing most of my school papers (and spell checking them) when I was very young. I had an old IBM system when I was about 8 and used Apple-II’s until I got my first 486 that could run windows at age 10.
My spelling is so bad that I’ve spelled OSHA as OCEA. You can’t tell me that it’s because I don’t know how to spell OSHA, because I know what it stands for (occupational safety and health administration.) Why?? Why would I spell this so badly? I don’t know! I tend to think of writing in an auditory capacity and somehow it does not make the transition correctly all the time. Believe me, if I had even the slightest clue how to fix this, I would.
Let me just add: I really really do not like discussing this, even to the point where I’ve considered just throwing in the towel on writing and blogging entirely.
I can assure you that I have plenty of aptitude in other areas and to this end I have taken several IQ and aptitude tests that break down abilities. I score signifficantly higher in every area EXCEPT spelling. And yes, that includes grammatical areas.
What the hell more do you want? Spell checks are not perfect and I just can’t afford a proof reader. Do you have any idea how much professional editors cost? Yes, I have tried automated dictation. It’s even worse in terms of picking the wrong wording and it’s too awkward.
What? What would satisfy you? Don’t offer any tips to improve spelling, though. Believe me, I’ve tried. Do you think I enjoy being like this? Do you think I like being taken for an idiot because of this? I really don’t. It vexes me to no end
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March 21st, 2010 at 5:52 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Steve, as I am sure you and others have noted, my spelling, and grammar are far from perfect, and it bothers me too, but I would not let these morons get under your skin. Spelling Nazis’ usually have nothing to say on the subject at hand and lash out in frustration at those who can engage in meaningful discussion, and as such they are less than the trolls, who at least have an agenda.
My advice is to send comments like this to oblivion, as being off-topic and leave it at that. You need not feel that should excuse yourself every time one of these anal-retentive jackasses shows up. Delete their noise and move on.
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March 21st, 2010 at 6:30 pm
DV82XL has got the right of it. Haters flaming totally off-topic should just be deleted. I’m a bit of a spelling nazi myself, and don’t hesitate to point out atrocious writing, but I saw nothing “wrong enough” to set off my grammar OCD, and I first read this post back in Feb 08, in the case you’ve cleaned it up. Don’t let them get you down. Hell, you could even put a note in the comment entry applet that states “flames and off-topic posts may be deleted.”
Just read it again, and you *did* spell Notre Dame wrong though, LOL
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June 1st, 2010 at 8:31 pm
drbuzz0 said:
That is indeed happening in the US.
A nice example: A “Tri-Valley University”, http://www.trivalleyuniversity.org, a creationist “university” which is not accredited by any accreditation agency recognized by the US government, but which apparently can give out I-20 forms which can be used by foreign students to apply for student visas.
I’ve come across these jokers because they are promoting their “university” in the immigrant community. They didn’t particularly like getting exposed…
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