Rook Hawkins
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Summary
Rook Hawkins is a member of the Rational Response Squad; he is a self-taught, self-proclaimed "An Historian".
At 24 years of age he is atheism's own self-confessed foremost historian, intellectual, philosopher, intellectual, traveller, intellectual, expert on ancient texts, intellectual, renaissance man and intellectual. He is current holder of the Heavyweight belts of the World Intellectual Council and the International Intellectual Federation. Plans are in place for a re-unification bout with the holder of the International Intellectualism Organisation's belt, Kent "The Doctor" Hovind, to be scheduled on Hovind's release from prison. It is rumored that Rook Hawkins is actually the evil twin of Dave Hawkins from another dimension, but this requires more extensive proof.
Early Life
According to Hawkins' own biography, he was a "precarious" youth, rather than merely precocious. The precarious nature didn't stop him developing his intellectual faculties immediately from birth, and his earliest papers on fluid dynamics in mixed waterproof/absorbant environments - written before his first birthday - still inform product development at Pampers to this day.
As a toddler, he used his steadily maturing perceptions and his best friend's Transformers to derive, from first principles, Newton's Laws of Motion, before proving that they did not hold at relativistic speeds. Further progress towards a Unified Theory was prevented when he had to give back the Transformers at the end of the party. On arriving home, he wrote up his findings in Greek iambic pentameters.
At age 7 he once embarked on studies of Brownian Motion in convection currents using talcum powder for the experiments. He was able to write one further paper that day on the rate of increase of blood circulation rates to the glutei when they are repeatedly struck by a mother's hand.
It was around this time that an accident with superglue saw a volume of the Rev Pryze-Pritchard's "Travels in the African Bush" become attached to his left index finger. Embarassingly, the page to which his finger became permanently stuck featured a naked Ngoni tribeswoman in Nyasaland taken by the Victorian cleric on a field-trip. Hawkins claims to this day that the book fell open on that page entirely by accident and that he was merely reading the book for clues as to the etymology of the Chichewe language, in which his next important paper would be written. The calamity was complete when, in his panic, he spilt further glue resulting in books being permanently attached to both hands. As a result of this accident, Hawkins appears to be reading in every single photograph ever taken of him.
Despite his masterful intelligence - reputedly, his IQ is expressed in scientific notation - Hawkins was forced to endure being processed through the formal education system. This proved to be a hindrance to his intellectual development, but appeals to the authorities failed to gain an exemption for him, and his output of important papers dwindled as he went from one educational establishment to the next.
Then came his Damascene moment, when a ray of light from a window - not the Sun, but a window - literally lit up the way forward. Seeing an advertisement for the priesthood being hit by this ray of light, he brilliantly surmised that the entirety of history had been contrived in order to show him where his future lay. Every cosmological variable, every drag on the Earth's rotation around the sun, every decision made by the school architects had been made merely to illuminate his path.
This led to 6 years of study at the seminary, where his dogmatic nature and brute force intellectualism were given free reign to express themselves fully, so long as it was entirely in a Catholic context.
Eventually rebelling at the imprisonment of his titanic IQ, he showed his stability and his penchant for evolved rational processing of information by deconverting overnight. The deconversion was only partial, though. While he rejected the conclusions of Roman Catholicism and Christianity, he still retained their dogmatism and their stifling of intellectual opposition, both of which he carried into his atheism.
The shaft of light incident left another indelible imprint on his life, and his friends occasionally bring out the disco ball at house parties, where he has been recorded as going through 60 consecutive reconversion/deconversion cycles in the course of one dance track.
Travel
In his own words, he has travelled the World. He has also been to Roma in Portugal, where he marvelled at a Roman Aqueduct.
Future Projects
Rook Hawkins is engaged on writing a book which will change the world. He has not, as yet, indicated whether this will be for the better or otherwise, but certainly, the jocularity of his writings will be elevated to numerical proportions unheard of.
Also Rook is apparently a master of literotica: The Pleasure Cruise.
Research needs
Rook Hawkins needs a small amount of research materials to fill some gaps in his intellectual bookshelves. $20k should just about cover it, and by donating you will have the opportunity to participate passively in the earth-shattering research being undertaken by this modest intellectual Leviathan.
Broadcasts
To satisfy his thirst for the classical aesthetic, Hawkins has recreated the Platonic Dialogue in the form of submissions to YouTube. In some of these, he is joined by another heavyweight intellectual, Sapient Brian, and through their characters Simplicio and Moronicus they explore the evidence for a mythical Jesus.
Personal Life
Hawkins is very protective of his real identity, which he conceals by publishing his photo on just about every blog which will post it - along with associating himself with a highly-publicised activism website. In his business life, Hawkins has been known to amuse his clients by asking in Koine Greek if they want fries with their meal. He is silent as to his love life, but has let it slip that his last two relationships - possibly with sisters - involved women with the surname "JPG". He also blogs under the pseudonym Thomas Verenna
Influences
Hawkins is so far up Richard Carrier's arse that he can almost see out of Carrier's mouth. The only things preventing further progress up Carrier's alimentary canal are the aformentioned books attached to Hawkins' hands.
RationalGate 2008 Findings
An effort made by Pavlov's Dog, Rathpig, Dlx2, Ishmael, and Sanshou on RDforums resulted in a set of responses by Rook as to his credentials[1]. Rook claimed that his writings speak for themselves, but further pressure from these brave crusaders exposed that Rook has not contributed anything to academia at all, and that the very best he has accomplished is submission of short articles to those asshats at IIDB. RnR subsequently declared EPIC WIN, resolving once and for all that Rook Hawkins is a fraud.
Speaking Engagement at NYCA meetup
- IGEPanda and Jane Everheart had a difference of opinion on Rook's qualifications.
- Rook admits he did not translate the bible, or the NT
"First, no, I never said I translated the "bible" from the Greek. What I said, and what is quoted from the transcript, is that I spent a few years translating the New Testament from the Greek. I never said "the whole bible" or "the whole New Testament". Only ignorant nimrods would ad hoc me about such a thing. And the statement I made is true - I did spend about three years translating quite a bit of the New Testament. What was translated? The whole of the Gos. Mark, parts of John, Luke, Matthew and Romans, all of Galatians and 1 Corinthians and parts of 2 Corinthians, along with Hebrews."
See Also: Rookisms.
