Dear Prudence: My Deacon Father is a loud Creationist

[minoanmiss]

Dear Prudence,

My (now) husband and I grew up in a somewhat religious community—think all day Sunday at church and another four nights a week of church functions. It was wonderful for us to have such a joyful and supportive community that included our large extended families. We’ve had children (two children now, more on the way!) and they are eagerly part of this century-old family tradition.

One minor thing: I need a script for how to deal with my father, a deacon in the church and the family patriarch. We’re fine with him bringing Jesus into every conversation—where else does our Lord have to be anyway? But I believe in evolution, and I want my children to also believe in evolution, as that is the science. My father does not believe in evolution, he is very vocal about this, and I do not have the background to debate his points. What do I say when he pulls out ironclad arguments like “Adam and Eve weren’t apes” or “I’ve been going to the zoo for 40 years and the monkeys are still monkeys?” I become bamboozled and have to back down, and my husband (he reads Slate) is no use, he just wants to get along. I don’t want to shame my father or make him back down. I want my father to see that science does not conflict with the scripture, science proves the scripture, know what I mean?

—Evolution Not Eve-olution

Dear Evolution,

To really answer this, I need to know more about your relationship to your religion. I get that you enjoy the supportive community the church provides, but what do you actually make of the basic beliefs that are fueling all those church functions? Do you buy into everything in the Bible except creationism? Do you believe in both creationism and evolution? (I don’t want to get too into it but you wouldn’t be alone if you did—there are denominations that believe “God actually may have used evolution in the process of creation.”) Are there other parts that you reject? Do you kind of take it all with a grain of salt? Do you believe in the basic lessons but not the way members of your community apply them to modern issues? Do you want your children to make Jesus a part of every conversation? Every decision? Some? Whose version of Jesus?

Whatever it is, the most important thing to do is to get really clear about what you think, and why. And then tell your kids, in as simple terms as possible. “I believe this … You might hear grandpa and other people at church say this … Here’s why I disagree, and here’s why that’s not what we’re teaching you.” Engaging in a debate with a deacon who does not believe in science (at least not as much as he believes in his religion) at every family meal is not the way to go. He’s built his whole life around his beliefs and there’s practically no chance you’ll change his mind. You’re much better off preparing your children to interpret (or disregard) what they hear from him in a way that makes sense for your family.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Anyone who knows my biography knows this hits me where I live. This letter is the best case scenario for what my life might have been like if I'd stayed.

1) I am contemplating the advice for LW to nail down precisely what she believes -- religious belief can be slipperier and squirmier than one might think, and a distinction between science fact and religious fact would have been useful here, I think.

2) LW could use a good long article or book about evolution. Not to use to argue with her blowhard father, but so she can sit quietly and know he's wrong and just nod until he talks about something else.

3) This is also/maybe primarily about an elder family member who will Not Shut Up and LW needs some advice on that.

4) Hey, LW: Adam and Eve are probably not literal people who existed, but never mind that. More importantly: evolution may or may not involve an entire species. Often it involves a population instead of the entire species. So, take A Monkey Species. A population of that species might evolve into proto-apes, who then diversify into several ape species. The remaining population of the Monkey Species, maybe because they're in a slightly different environment or whatever, stay as the Monkey Species or diversify into several other species which are all monkeys, not apes. Again, this is way oversimplified. Go read a layman's science book. Read it with your kids!

[castiron]

3 in particular.

My dad is a creationist; he can buy into evolution at the "bacteria or viruses mutate to become resistant" level but not at the "unicelluar life evolved into the wide variety of multicelluar organism we see today" level. This has never been a problem because Dad, while someone who never stops talking ;-), is very capable of shutting up about a given topic and doesn't feel the need to browbeat someone into agreeing with him. Once in a while the topic will come up when we're chatting; he'll say what he thinks; I'll just nod, and we go on to something else.

[laurajv]

the kids' book "Little Changes" is really good (although it would not give LW strong arguments here, it's probably useful anyway).

[hashiveinu]

I know there's at least one Christian book about evolution from a pro-evolution perspective: Finding Darwin's God by Kenneth Miller.

[grammarwoman]

Creationists make my brain tired. My first employers ran a computer consulting company (running payroll for small organizations, writing computer apps, acting as general tech support) and were very tech savvy. They also belonged to a megachurch and would say things like "God put dinosaur bones in the ground as a joke" or "The Earth is only 6,000 years old". I nodded and smiled a lot.

[conuly]

God put dinosaur bones in the ground as a joke

Given how many of them think that belief in evolution will determine which afterlife you go to, that's one sick joke.

[conuly]

What do I say when he pulls out ironclad arguments like “Adam and Eve weren’t apes” or “I’ve been going to the zoo for 40 years and the monkeys are still monkeys?” I become bamboozled and have to back down, and my husband (he reads Slate) is no use, he just wants to get along. I don’t want to shame my father or make him back down. I want my father to see that science does not conflict with the scripture, science proves the scripture, know what I mean?

Well, first of all, if LW can't handle that level of "argument" then LW needs to spend more time reading about this. I'll say this for my time arguing with creationists on the internet - I could refute that sort of silly argument in my sleep. If I cared to. It's usually exactly as effective to just say "That's a really stupid thing to say, and I don't intend to dignify it with a response." Which leads to point two, which is that since LW's father's opinion is not based on reason or an understanding of the facts, there is no point trying to apply reason or facts to this. Instead, LW would be better served with boundaries: "I understand that you believe that. I don't believe that, and I don't intend to discuss it with you. If you bring it up again, I will leave. Now, how about that sportsball game last night?"

And then, of course, LW needs to follow through with the "I will leave" every single damn time.

[jadelennox]

this answer is actually really bad -- the details don't matter. What LW is asking for can be taken out of the context of church, and translated into a standard dear Prudence letter:

Dear Prudence, I'm trying to raise my kids in a certain way and my dad keeps telling them the opposite, and when I try to argue with him he goads me in ways that I cannot actually have a conversation. How do I set rules for how I want things discussed in front of my kids in a way that doesn't require me actually winning an argument with my parents? How do I do it in a way that doesn't hurt my relationship with my father any more than it has to?

That's the actual question at hand, and the philosophical and religious beliefs of the LW are irrelevant and I think prudence is almost asking out of a sense of prurience.

(Also,

Do you believe in both creationism and evolution? (I don’t want to get too into it but you wouldn’t be alone if you did

It's not that exotic! That's basically mainstream Orthodox Judaism, FFS! As my dad used to say (paraphrasing) "my G-d is not so small that he could not have simultaneously created the world in 7 days and billions of years. The actions of God don't need to be things that I can wrap my brain around, and both the science and the book can be true.")

[ethelmay]

As far as I know, both the Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant sects all now teach that evolution is itself the work of God (that's my paraphrase, not sure how they put it), and that the "seven days" are not to be taken literally.

[ethelmay]

Kirk Johnson, the Sant Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is an ex-Seventh Day Adventist. I don't know if he's written much about that experience, but he did write a blurb in praise of James L. Hayward's Dinosaurs, Volcanoes, and Holy Writ: A Boy-Turned-Scientist Journeys from Fundamentalism to Faith (2020).

[melannen]

LW, there are several problems here, the original answer addresses one, and "how do I handle what my loudmouth dad says around my kids" is another one (beyond my paygrade.)

But the answer to "I want to teach my kids about evolution but I don't know anything about evolution" is to sit down and learn with them. I don't have any resources at hand but I know they exist and I can help you find them if you want. Either Cosmos series is a good start, not just for evolution but for the basics of how science works that let you understand evolution. Learn together! "I believe in this thing but know nothing about it" isn't actually better whether it's science or the bible.

(That said, you won't learn the gotcha answers to your dad's arguments because they don't exist, you can't argue creationists out of it with science. Either trust that your kids will learn from you more than him no matter how much he talks - once you try to learn with them - or look up actual strategies for that. The simplest one is to just ask him to defend his own beliefs. "Oh, can you explain to me how 40 years of going to the zoo is the same thing as all of the history of earth?" "Do evolutionists believe Adam and Eve were apes? Can you tell me more about how they think that works?" And be sincere, not confrontational! Just firmly make him actually address your questions, not swerve it somewhere else.)

[mommy]

Examples for the kids could include London's famous peppered moths that evolved to have dark coloration after the industrial revolution started and the Italian wall lizards that were left on an isolated island in the 1970s and evolved to become primarily herbivorous in the decades since. Both of these are relatively recent examples and the lizards in particular happened during living memory. There are other recent examples that can be found with google search, too.

[melannen]

Those are good examples of recent small-scale evolution (which a lot of, though not all, young-Earth creationists already accept) but it sounds like LW would really be better off starting from scratch with something beginner-level that kids and adults can both enjoy that walks you through the history of life and how we know what we know about the history of life at the same time - there's lots of that available, as both books and video, and even museums! Cosmos is just the most recent one I watched all the way through.

Throwing individual examples at people is something creationists are really good at countering or using for their own purposes, but a good foundation in how science knows what it knows is a lot harder to deal with.

[conuly]

Creationists have adapted and changed in response to these and other arguments, and now say something about "microevolution" and "macroevolution", which is garbage, but there you go.

Also, the peppered moths in particular are... well... a bit controversial.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/science/staple-of-evolutionary-teaching-may-not-be-textbook-case.html

TBH, I'd take with a serious grain of salt literally anything that appears in high school biology textbooks. For some reason, a lot of myths keep getting recirculated over and over in those without ever being corrected or removed. Generations of ninth graders are being taught blatant falsehoods like "your tastebuds are divided into discrete sections on your tongue" and "the shape of your earlobe is an inherited trait". These aren't even just oversimplifications, which would be justifiable - they're just wrong.

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, my mother (who has a hard-earned degree in Biology) told me about microevolution vs macroevolution. I was unimpressed.

I didn't know the moth example was being reexamined. We learn something new every day!

[conuly]

Yeah, and even if, upon reexamination, it turns out that the story is 100% true anyway - the creationists are gonna keep repeating that it's a lie, so you need to pick a different example. (That, or they'll say "But they're still moths!!!!!!!" like that means anything.)

[torachan]

Just lolling that the LW describes all day church on Sunday + four more days of church a week and including Jesus in every conversation as "somewhat religious".

[shirou]

I had a hard time getting past that.

[torachan]

I guess in the sense that there's room to get even more religious, but...

[minoanmiss]

That was my childhood. Whee.

Even now I sometimes wake up on Sunday mornings, think "I don't have to go to church," smile, and go back to sleep.