A deacon at Tri-City Ministries in Independence claims in an online forum that I botched facts when I wrote about his church two years ago.
But the paper trail tells another story.
A former Air Force pilot who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old, Dave Hawkins likes to mix it up with evolutionists on the Web. Participating in a forum on this Web site, Hawkins argued that scientific evidence supported the flood described in the Book of Genesis.
The debate veered into a discussion about Tri-City, Hawkins’ home church. One poster cut a passage from my story that described how Tri-City paid a $15,000 fine to the state for failing to register promissory notes it issued to church members.
Hawkins claimed on the forum that the Pitch was “absolutely wrong about the $15,000 fine.” Hawkins went on to say that the church could sue the Pitch for libel and likely win.
Not so fast, Dave.
I saved a copy of the consent order that Tri-City Senior Pastor Carl Herbster signed in 2004. In it, the church admitted to selling unregistered securities. The church agreed to refund the investments and agreed to pay $15,000 to the Secretary of State’s Investor Education and Protection Fund.
Hawkins can click here with his intelligently designed finger and read the document for himself. – David Martin
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Make sure you have proof before blasting a guy who disagrees with the beliefs you have. Just because Hawkins is a creationist doesn't mean you have a better belief (evolution) than he does.
Just found this.
Dave is possibly the most prodigious generator of creationist trainwreck threads that the world has ever seen. Among the gems that he has treated us to at RDF are:
[1] Portuguese (the language) is a mix of French and Spanish (despite being told otherwise by people with formal linguistic training;
[2] The Great Pyramid of Cheops wasn't built by the Egyptians because they were Hamites and weren't intelligent enough (i.e., he was busy telling us all that the Egyptians were "black people" and "black people are too stupid to build pyramids" - I'd like to see him run THAT one past a bunch of teenagers in Haarlem);
[3] The Global Flood wiped out virtually all animal life on Earth and caused no end of geological upheavals (strange how he can't point to any of them though) but left spider tracks in sand undisturbed so that they could go on to be fossilised (hence one of the RDF posters putting in his signature that "Dave's God makes scuba gear for spiders");
This and MANY more examples of his relentless deluge of word salad, barmy moon-pie revisionist history and ludicrous expositions of phenomena that would have physicists barfing over their breakfasts, can be enjoyed at leisure by anyone who has the patience to wade through, oh, must be getting on for 1,000 pages across the various threads he's contributed to at RDF alone. On some other boards I think he's the record holder for prolonging threads to the point where one needs to spend geological epochs reading them in full. His debut on Comedy Central being "interviewed" by Jon Stewart cannot be too far away.
Oh, whatever you do, DON'T ask him about carbon 14 calibration curves, the chimpanzee genome or the gas laws, or he'll sulk and throw his teddy. :)
Dear David Martin,
Is this an accurate statement?:
The bond program was a good program and helped many people earn good interest rates. It broke the rules 1 year out of 20(?) b/c of an oversight. And now it is up and running again as it should be. What more proof could anyone want that in substance, it was a good, honest program?
Here's Hawkins's current understanding of this story: http://www.richarddawkins.net/...
"there's nothing to apologize for to anyone here. I got one detail wrong about TCM's bond program*. But my larger point remains.
The bond program was a good program and helped many people earn good interest rates. It broke the rules 1 year out of 20*(?) b/c of an oversight. And now it is up and running again as it should be. What more proof could anyone want that in substance, it was a good, honest program?"
*(It's his contention that the only wrongdoing proved in this case is that the law allowed them to sell 25 bond notes per year and maintain their exemption from the laws in question, and one year they inadvertently sold an extra 3)
I wonder if Mr. Martin, or any other Missourians familiar with this case, can confirm or deny this interpretation?
Great post, thank you....
Since Dave arrived on the Dawkins forum, amid a flurry of capitalised bolded headings (his style), I've had the priceless experience of watching him do mental gymnastics to a standard that would get him a job with the Chinese State Circus (if reality denial could be incorporated into the show).
As an ex-YEC I cannot help but cringe when I think that Dave and I were once bedfellows beneath the covers of AiG, eating our Ken-Ham Sandwiches (mind the crumbs on the pillow, there's a good boy). Thankfully I'm cured (pun intended), and Dave has been instrumental in putting to bed any last thoughts I may have entertained that the science could be wrong.
Now to see him threaten libel action against all and any who bring up the matter of financial shenanigans at his beloved bethel is purely hilarious and I for one would love to see his face the day a lawyer (an authority Dave might accept) tells him that "truth is a defence against libel charge". Dave Hawkins is so full of bluster he'd probably accuse the lawyer of being an Anti-ID Darwinist Atheist Conspirator with an eternal future in hell awaiting.
Sad. But an excellent case study in Cognitive Dissonance and Behavioural Psychology if ever there was. Anyone with any interest in real science would benefit from a visit to any of Mr Hawkins' threads at the Richard Dawkins forum to see just how the vaccuous pseudo-science of ID/YECism pans out in the mind of a most avid believer.
Regards
Spags
Thanks very much for some further evidence of Dave Hawkins' delusional dishonesty. It's interesting to me at least that there is no subject on which Dave has touched in his online discussions that he has been even remotely competent or honest about.
I don't live in the USA at the moment, I used to however, and despite being a Brit I retain a great affection for the USA. I am genuinely disturbed to see one of the principle national bastions of Enlightenment values be dragged apparently willingly back into the Dark Ages by the likes of Dave Hawkins and chums. So "solidarity brothers and sisters" keep fighting the fundamentalist lunacy that, at least vocally, has your fair nation in it's odious grasp.
I did invite you to come view Davey's debacle at the Panda's Thumb forum http://www.antievolution.org/c... in August last year. Thanks for the pdf although I doubt Davey will stop arguing about it. Empirical evidence has little effect on him.
"afdave" Hawkins, in response to this post, wrote on the "OK. I see that the Pitch was right about a $15,000 payment, however the Sec'y of State did not call it a fine and it was not a crime. It was an administrative action. The payment was made to the State Investor Education fund"
This is his style! He denies, denies, denies... then when you put the evidence right in his face, he redefines terms. So that $15,000 was not a "fine" - it was that other category of payment mandated by a government agency for violation of laws. And there was no "crime" - there was just that other category of law-breaking.
As the title of your post indicates, denial of reality is a full-time job for the dedicated creationist. It works the same way for all the scientific evidence that contradicts Genesis (Evolution, geological time...): deny, deny, deny, and - when that's no longer possible - redefine the terms.
It would be just pathetic and laughable, if creationists like Hawkins had not made serious efforts to impose their anti-science agenda on public education. But they have. So it's the duty of every scientifically literate citizen to follow their shenanigans, and challenge them.
The spillover of this denial of reality into matters of finances and ethics is entirely unsurprising.
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