What are the simplest books for antievolutionists to reconsider the evidence for macroevolution?
Thanks!
i would like to know this too
Others can give you a book for this better than I, since the opposition to evolution was never a possibility for me. My journey was all about finding value in Christianity in the context of evolution.
The plain science in science textbooks should not be threatening. Thus the threat isn’t in the science but in the theology. You need to address the questions where you feel there is a conflict with your own version of Christianity. That there is no profound conflict with Christianity in general is testified by the fact that the majority of Christianity has accepted this conclusion of science and does not feel threatened by it. But you have to know that not all versions of Christianity are ok for a large number of reasons from issues of mental and physical health, problems with racism and misogyny, problems with intolerance and violating the rights of others, and all kinds of bad religious practices geared towards helping people use the religion for personal wealth and power. This should be nothing new for those reading the Bible… the dangers in bad religion are legion and the Bible warns us about many of them.
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I’m not sure about books, but there are plenty of essays on this very website that are written by christians for christian antievolutionists. I would strongly recommend them, especially those by Dennis Venema since they are focused more on the science:
https://biologos.org/resources?refinementList[authors.post_title][0]=Dennis%20Venema&page=1
“Finding Darwin’s God” by Kenneth Miller might be worth trying:
http://www.findingdarwinsgod.com/
If you want to get straight to the evidence, the oft cited 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution is always worth checking out.
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I don’t think this is a good criterion to judge whether an idea is profoundly at conflict with Christianity. Christians throughout the ages have by and large accepted ideas profoundly in conflict with Jesus’ teachings.
there we go, that’s exactly what I’ve been asking for
People are anti-evolution for different reasons, so first you have to find out where their opposition to the idea stems from. If it’s theological, you have to start with Bible interpretation or they will just go to their favorite Creationist website and find “refutations” of all the evidence.
I would recommend people start with the common questions on BioLogos that concern them the most and that they think are the deal-breakers and look for additional resources from there.
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No. Not the majority. That is only the delusion of cults and self-important separatists. To be sure various leadership of the Catholic church have erred and gone astray. But that is not the same thing. The head of the universal church (so named in the early creeds) is Jesus Himself. “There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 2:5 Jesus assured us Himself that a gathering of Christianity would not be misled because He is there and the Holy Spirit will guide them. AND I am not a catholic by the way. This is a belief of Protestants also.
I don’t remember the name of it but there was a book called something like counter theory that I read 10 ish years ago that was a few hundred pages long that dealt with anti evolutionary ideas. It was wrote as a counter argument to some evolutionary book and then after than a different author wrote a counter book to the second and so you can see three books all wrote countering one another chapter by chapter. I read all three but don’t remember the names anymore.
I do agree with everything said by Christy up above though.
well, if that’s what you mean, the modern unguided evolution is certainly not compatible with the majority position catholicism, and if you want the historical consensus you have zero support for evolution, since most believed in 6 day creation
That is like saying modern meteorological science which doesn’t have God playing any role in who gets rain is a violation of the beliefs of American Indian rain dance. Theology has nothing whatsoever to do with science and science says NOTHING about the involvement of God in anything. That is the business of theology not science.
That is another typical cult rational – project your beliefs on some mythical past where everyone supposedly agreed with you on one issue even though the same people weren’t even literate and had tons of the most bizarre superstitions at the same time that you would have nothing but contempt for.
you seem to know a lot about me, are you reading my email???
Another possibility is to consider that “frontal assaults” might actually be least likely to bring about true reflection. Anybody approaching a work with the attitude: “Give me your best shot, because I bet you can’t take me down …” is in a warfare mindset - not a “search for truth” mindset. Even if the book is brilliant, and correct - such a reader will find reasons to dismiss it or its author.
So it may well be more profitable to have a more oblique and patient approach of simply recommending books that prime the reader’s mind to become more of a thinking Christian, more confident that truth** is not something to fear seeking out; willing to let go, bit by bit of their fear of at least considering anything outside their narrow traditions or dogmas. And that is a dangerous project because for some - that “narrowly received dogma” has become inseparable from whatever mustard seeds of genuine faith they have - they may walk away from all good or well-rooted faith entirely. But if done well, such works will shake what can be shaken, and clear away the rubble so that what is strong and true can be seen more clearly and more singularly valued and clung to.
In that spirit I would recommend nearly anything by authors like C.S. Lewis or Chesterton or George Macdonald. Some of that won’t be easy reading at all … but much of it is quite accessible, written for a lay audience - even children (like the Chronicles of Narnia) but with much more enduring reward than that most juvenile fiction as to offer. Just get a person to open up and use their mind that God gave them … keeping in mind as Chesterton wrote somewhere … that like the mouth, a mind is meant to open up only so that it can close again on something nourishing.
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The only thing I assumed was that like most people with a modern education you would not credit some of the superstitions that have been made absurd by the discoveries of science. This assumption is true of 99.99% of people in the world. But of course it is possible that your education is lacking and who knows what weird stuff you might believe. Forgive my presumption and please don’t kill any more people for being witches or vampires.
i would say read some humana generis and summa theologica first part question 69 article 1 reply to objection 5, and determine how consistent that all is with mainstream evolution theory
For Chesterton, check out Orthodoxy for his views on evolution
For C S Lewis, the Acworth letter show his later view on evolution, the Biologos article about his views should include this if they want to accurately portray his thought
Oh I never said that nobody in Christianity ever wrote anything that didn’t contradict all kinds of findings in science. I didn’t even say that nothing in the Bible was in any way contrary to the findings in science, such as Jesus saying or implying that the seed of the mustard plant is the smallest of all seeds on the Earth (which is not even close to being true). But that detail has no bearing on what He was communicating, does it? In same way evolution does not conflict with anything but details which are NOT even close to being the central teachings of Christianity let alone those of Jesus and Paul. AND in the same way that insisting evolution is wrong because of an excessively literal treatment of part of the Bible contradicting other parts of the Bible is no more rational than insisting that plants with smaller seeds than the mustard plant to do not exist because of what Jesus said.
you said beliefs of majority of christians are not in conflict with evolution
we seem to agree catholicism represents the majority christian position
i point to papal encyclical saying the himan soul cannot have evolved and must be specially created by God. i don’t believe this is consistent with mainstream evolution theory
i point to aquinas stating the genesis are literal 24 hour periods, and aquinas is the preeminent catholic theologian
best as i can see majority view of christians throughout history is anti evolution
Evolution says absolutely NOTHING about any human “soul” not that I believe in such non-Biblical pagan notions anyway. I believe in the “spiritual body” taught by Paul in 1 Cor 15 and evolution doesn’t say anything about that either.
If you add as many things to some so called “mainstream evolution theory” as you add to some so called “Christian consensus” then it is no wonder you concoct so many conflicts between them. But the theory of evolution is not the atheists rhetoric you have equated it to. The scientific theory is about the origin of the species and not about the origin of any spiritual existences.
AND He also wrote in Summa Theological, “It seems better to maintain the view that the creation of the heavens and the earth was prior to any of the days, literally before the days.” Besides it is just wrong to say that Aquinas represents the beliefs of the Catholic church, which is set out quite specifically in considerable detail in the Catholic catechism. And this gives its full support to the findings of science.
What people believed BEFORE Darwin’s book “Origin of the Species” is irrelevant. You might as well talk about the beliefs of Christians about the existence of black holes, the number of stars and galaxies in the universe, or about the elements before science discovered such things. Does the fact that most people believed that everything was made of the elements earth, fire, air, and water for most of the history of Christianity have any relevance to whether the periodic table is compatible with Christianity? Seriously?
well if you want to claim majority christian view is not in conflict with evolution, and then discount what most christians thought there’s not much more to be said here 