Hear all about it! God wants you to be rich, and we know it because the Bible, although not a science textbook, is really a manual for free-market enterprise! Mike Huckabee endorses it! Glenn Beck endorses it! With those imprimaturs, and God’s, how can you possibly go wrong?
The huckster Chad Hovind is the son of disgraced Kent Hovind, the young-earth creationist evangelist who bilked millions of dollars out of his flock and is serving ten years in prison for tax fraud, obstructing federal agents, and other crimes. Chad seems to be following in his footsteps.
As you might expect, you’re gonna have to give the Lord some dosh before he blesses you manyfold in return. Hovind will be glad to sell you any number of Godonomic$ DVDs and books, including the “Big Six Package” for only $294.99 (regularly $377.80).
My two questions.
1. How does this differ from the “prosperity theology” of Creflo Dollar?
2. Is this organization a tax-exempt church?
h/t: Chris
another scam…..
The resemblance to the man who will sell you the Brooklyn Bridge is uncanny.
…and another
The above masquerades as news in this neck of the woods, as you can tell by the site’s layout.
Come on, Jerry. That’s a nice discount on the purchase. I’m going to act on this right away!
O M G!
“….and offer’s God’s perspective for the economic decisions of an individual, a family, and even a nation”
So, I guess I contact Chad and he talks to his god and his god tells Chad how I should spend my $$. I wonder if I’d have to get Chad and his god to sign some sort of privacy waiver that allows them to talk about my personal information like that!
Oh and “freedom to serve him” is just hilarious! So, I guess all slaves really had freedom just freedom to serve people. LOL
I find it intriguing how committed many believers are to demanding respect for their desire to serve a master. Many imply violence may be inflicted on you for any criticism of their commitment, and some will resort to it. Especially if their god tells them to.
Servility is just what any prosperous religion looks for and tries to reinforce or instill in its flock.
Any slave is free to serve a master — it’s weird to see the American evangelists get their libertarianism into classic Christian divine servitude.
“I am a slave to no man, but sky fairies are a different matter.”
(And Diana beat me to the point…)
Are you sure it’s not “I am a slave to no man, but Mistress says the collar looks good on me?”
I’d better buy Godonomic$ before the discount expires. If I don’t, they’ll say I’m persecuting Christians.
Ball State should hire him to teach in their Economics department!
+1
Teach the controversy!
Wait — that isn’t an Onion parody?
I am so in the worng business….
b&
Damn ethics and conscience getting in the way! I thought we’re supposed to be baby eating, moral lacking atheists!
Sing it, sister! It ain’t fair that the theists get to have all the fun with the lies and the hypocrisy and the scams. Almost enough to make me fall to my knees right now and say the Sinner’s Prayer, just so I can do nasty shit secure in the knowledge that Jesus will forgive me no matter what I do or the courts say.
b&
God gives us some much information!!!
Next, God’s view on diesel mechanics and retroviral recombination!!
Right along with Michele Bachmann and Mac Hammond’s Living Word Christian Center up here in Minnesota.
Buy one God and get two more free in our End of the World sale!
End of the World Fire Sale! 🙂
Fire sales are only for suckers, like bottled water. Anybody who can rub two sticks together can get fire for free.
b&
I’m guessing Matthew 19:24 does not figure prominently in “God’s principles, His teachings, and His directions…”
Luke 14:33, either.
But, I’ll bet he believes that bats are birds!
I would like to see them advertise and where the how to order says:
“Order by praying to Godonomics HQ”
Testimonials of people who ordered by praying might be amusing.
No one came up with “Godonomics” and copyrighted it until now? Wow!
You’re probably referring specifically to the term “Godonomic$”, but really, most religion is “godonomic$” and has been for a very, very long time.
Right on.
Godonomic$:
The misleading color-scheme of their logo notwithstanding, it should be clear that it’s a contraction that stands for:
Go Do Nomic (the $-sign’s meaning is obvious).
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic
hmmm, well, we do know that at least the good helpful god that some Christians claims doesn’t exist. If it did, Hovind should be quite smoted by now.
so we’ve either got a jackass god or just a bunch of jackass humans.
The phrase “no shame” comes to mind…
Vaal
These hucksters are everywhere. Some examples:
http://www.mikemurdock.com/
http://www.rockwealth.org/
http://www.bennyhinn.org/
I thought Benny Hinn got busted.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…yadda yadda.
You might be thinking of Peter Popoff – who also made a successful comeback.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Popoff
http://peterpopoff.org/
The only good chad is a hanging chad. Oh, gosh, did I really say that? Sorry, is he from Florida, The Boycott Us State? That comment was only worthy of, well, the religious.
It’s curious that the entire Hovind family makes a living by scam. We should call them The Aristocrats! (there’s a joke in there somewhere)
The Hovind clan is suffering from Osteen Envy. The mega-millionaire, ritzy living Osteen’s push the same God-wants-you-to-be-rich scam with books, DVD’s and probably stuffed animals from their mega-church (formerly the Compaq Center where the Rockets played) to the 17,000 or so sheeple who give their last dollar so the Osteens can have even more mega-millions.
Hell, I just made myself envious! Please mail your last dollar to me and Kink at BR-549. Thank you.
There’s a reason comedians do the joke about aristocrats and not about priests. They have standards, you know, and the kind of filth the priest version of the joke would entail just isn’t something a decent human being will put up with.
b&
Or Churchill would up with put!
I still haven’t figured out if I’d rather up with put or up with get. Or maybe I should down with get instead of up?
These hip modern slang terms confuse me to no end….
b&
Now THAT cracked me up. (now imagining Bob Saget demurring on telling a Catholic version of the aristocrat joke.)
An interesting financial read:- THIS is IRS Form 990 [25-page pdf] for God Quest Inc 2012 filing. It’s a Domestic Non-Profit Corporation [Charity]. I believe it to be the umbrella for CSE & Creation Today ~ the latter is just a trading name.
Chad had two companies registered in Florida; Strawman Rentals LLC & Godonomics LLC, but they are no longer active. He closed them down because he never used them to do business. I’m fairly sure that most or all of his sales of Godonomic$/Godonomics products [he owns both trademarks] is shifted through God Quest.
I also note that near the end of the pdf God Quest Inc. appear to have received a grant of $8,954 for the supply of DVD *teaching materials* to 180 jailbirds [nearly $50 per DVD or set of DVD’s] as part of their “Prison Ministry.” I wonder if that happens to be Kent’s prison? 🙂
It would be interesting to know how that works…
This clearly means Richard Fuld was part of a divine plan.
What the Hell just read this and i’m like what the hell. Will go on their facebook page you know they have one and be like what the hell.
😀
So how do teach critical thinking? It would begin not only with logic, however some notion of the psychology of selling and the existence of personality disorders. I can’t imagine what its like to be behind these consumer’s eyeballs!
Prosperity theology first took off in 1950s USA ~ the ideal message to broadcast in such a consumerist have-it-all-now nation. In an environment where the media has been pushing *personal growth* since at least post-WWII this makes perfect sense.
A sizeable portion of Americans believe that the redistribution of wealth to support the vulnerable is some sort of pinko communist plot. Where else would the have-nots vote against their own best interests but in America? Where else could rumours spread that the ACA would require those people covered by public insurance to have a microchip implanted [& even that it would include 666 in the chip]?
Michael, yes, I understand the Prosperity Theology – some of it floated around Australia in the 80s. However, how do we teach critical thinking to kids so that they can evaluate any damn thing? A handy set of criteria, and then another set of criteria about how to seek an appropriate expertise re science.
There is just so much religion in the US, and an uncritical market for it.
The conspiracy-theory angle is certainly part of it for the “sizeable portion” you mention, but another driver of their often whole-hog anti-tax stance is the coupling of selfishness and an inability to think past their own nose. In my experience they don’t realize just how much they themselves depend on the services made possible by taxes. And they therefore don’t see why they should contribute any of their income.
Godonomics? Really?
Awesome! I’ve been looking for a stay at home, work from the computer, self employment opportunity. I do hope he’s also offering a self starter kit, webinar, or seminar for a similarly amazing discounted price.
How can anyone turn it down, financial freedom AND everlasting life in one affordable package!!
“YEEEeeeee……”
Jesus H Christ!
I’m feeling the spirit already.
Apparently the H stands for Jesus “How to make a whole lotta money” Christ
So, Jebus IS the invisible hand Adam Smith was going on about!
Adam Smith gets a bad press, mostly since he gets misused as a poster-boy for the economic far right. Most of whom, I suspect, have never read him.
They very rarely quote ones like this: “It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
What of those who can’t afford the $300? As with Mother Theresa’s charitable poor, poor schmucks must exist so that rich schmucks can feel superior, making donations to [pardon while I gag on the next word] support them, buying their way into heaven and riding there on the backs of the starving poor. That must be somewhere in the Christian bible, too, no?
I have conflicting views on this – on the one hand these people are despicable & exploitative, but on the other hand I have limited sympathy for those dim enough to follow…
What I always find really amusing is how many Wikipedia pages concerning religion, religious people and religious ideas are locked.
It’s almost always because proponents of these sloppy ideas and supporters of these charlatans are always trying to whitewash the bad out of them and not because of atheist vandalism.
Hmm .. I thought Wikipedia would ‘lock’ pages only on VERY rare occasions (as it would be counter to everything they stand for!).
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Wikipedia page being locked.
Can you give an example?
I seem to recall a while back that some pages were being vandalised on such a regular basis they locked them. It’s possible to edit them after passing through some kind of process to weed out the malicious misinformers. Something like that.
Hey, if Warren Buffet and John Templeton made their fortunes with this method, well, if it’s good enough for them then it’s good enough for me.
Only god could give him the inside line on what would happen to Best Buy over the coming months almost to the cent! They wouldn’t lie, would they, or god would be angry and maybe take all their ill gotten gains away.
No, god wants you to be wealthy and all you have to do is sow the seed. Send your last few dollars to me and I will pray for a delivery of a large cash lump sum to your door. Almost guaranteed.
Chad hovind is Kent’s nephew not his son.
Kent Hovind was NOT sent to prison for tax fraud. He was convicted of over 50 counts of structuring, a crime so insignificant you’ve probably never heard of it. Basically, the feds took an innocent procedure (trying not to commit the crime of money laundering) and made it itself a federal crime.
This is the best the feds could come up with, but it was enough for a Gestapo-style raid in the middle of the night in which Kent was hauled off to jail in his pj’s and all his property and cash confiscated.
Citation needed.
http://www.2peter3.com/court_documents.html
1. Twelve counts of willful failure to collect, truthfully account for, and pay federal income taxes and FICA taxes for his employees.
2. Forty-five counts of knowingly structuring transactions in amounts less than $10,000 to evade reporting requirements.
3. One count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede the administration of the internal revenue laws.
These charges were related to his activities at Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) and Dinosaur Adventure Land (DAL), where he allegedly attempted to evade taxes by withdrawing large amounts of cash in increments just below the $10,000 threshold that triggers mandatory bank reporting.
A little more than an “insignificant crime”.