Keene native David Read will return to Texas on Easter Weekend for an event at the Adventist Book Center. He is introducing his newly published book, “Dinosaurs: An Adventist View.”
Read is the youngest son of John and Aquila Read, longtime residents of Keene. He is a graduate of Southwestern Adventist University and The University of Texas School of Law, and has practiced law in Paris, Texas, and Los Angeles, Calif.
“As an Adventist creationist and a trained controversialist, I couldn’t help being interested in the controversy surrounding origins, the struggle between Darwinism and creationism that has now been raging for 150 years,” Read said. “I began to read books on the topic, and other aspects of very ancient history and archeology. When I finally decided to write a book on origins, I decided to make it dinosaur-centric for several reasons, including the fact that anything featuring dinosaurs seems to be very marketable.”
The book covers topics such as when dinosaurs lived and where they came from, Read said. It is also written from the creationist perspective, he said.
“Darwinism has plenty of defenders; it is the dominant point of view in academia, media, museums, foundations, government, entertainment, business, etc. Darwinism has no need of additional advocates.”
There has never been a full-length book for adults specifically exploring the Seventh-day Adventist angle on dinosaurs, Read said, but that does not mean it is meant only for Adventists.
“I wanted anyone to be able to pick up the book and follow the chain of reasoning from the beginning, which meant that I had to explain why Adventists reject not only Darwinism but also long-ages geology; I had to explain the damage that those two scientific philosophies do to the structure of Adventist and Christian doctrine.”
Read will sign copies of the book from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Adventist Book Center, 201 S. Old Betsy Road in Keene.
“I think I have presented the material in a fresh and interesting way,” Read said. “I think a scientist writing this book would not have spent as many pages on the history. But the history is crucial, because it is impossible to evaluate contemporary science without knowing how and when it picked up its biases.
“Academics who have studied the topic will tell you that Adventists have been very influential in creationism from the beginning. But I think Adventists have a unique emphasis to add, which is that the Darwinian model is not only wrong, but also backward.
“All creationists reject the idea that humans evolved from lower animals, but most Christians seem to have bought into the Darwinian meta-narrative that the race started out in a primitive condition and has been continually advancing. By contrast, Adventists believe that mankind has dramatically fallen — physically, mentally, and spiritually — from where we when we were when God created us. Instead of evolution, there has been a profound devolution from our original condition.
“Any scholar who has read and studied over the course of a life as short as 40 years soon realizes that he has already forgotten far more than he currently knows. That’s why we write things down; it is why we write books.”
Johnson County
Former Keene resident returns to promote book
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