Hello.
Just yesterday my older brother strolls into the house unusually late after work. He has a glowing smile and radiates confidence. He settles down-showers, shaves, etc- and joins the family in the living room. The rest of us are watching the Norte Dame game.
He expounds that he has just come from church, the Saddleback Church, and that he is no longer Catholic, but is now Christian (I didn't want to sound arrogant so I kept myself from correcting his mistaken belief).
He now looked at me and I could discern from him an itching sensation to "teach" me what he had just been taught. (I'm an agnostic who accepts evolution). We have debated God and evolution before, and this time was no exception.
As I make leave into the kitchen, he follows.
"Brian, do you believe in evolution"?
"I don't believe it. I accept it based on the facts".
"Do you believe a God exists"?
"I believe it's possible".
"You can't believe both. They are incompatible".
"Nonsense. Of course I can believe in the possibility of both".
"Nowhere in the bible does it make any mention of evolution".
Wasn't hard to refute, but the conversation continued.
He mentioned that a pastor at the Saddleback Church was the author of the Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren. We talked of Purpose, and that which you could see and not see.
Anyway, to wrap this up, this "conversation" left me feeling like a heretic. I calmly tried to answer each and every question as they were hurled at me from three different directions, instantaneously- Mother, Father, brother. Standing in a half circle round me, eyes as wide as dinner plates, and voices which sounded like gunfire, I felt incredibly uncomfortable, even though I love to talk of the possibility of God, and Afterlife, and evolution.
So, the favor which I ask of you EVCer's is counsel on how better to defend myself against such barrages of "holy-understanding". I want to learn more of evolution. I plan on taking a biology class next semester at college. But until then, I would very much like to read a book or two for the laymen on the how's and why's of evolution. I want to better defend myself and the noble and awe-inspiring endeavors of science.
Any suggestions for an outnumbered, evolutionist, army-of-one?
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