Living Large in Nature: A Writers Idea of Creationism

In Living Large in Nature, Reg Saner—regarded as one of America’s greatest nature writers—employs his lucid and unpretentious style to offer his unique take on the fundamentalist advocates of creationism and intelligent design. Rather than combat fundamentalists with the latest research in evolutionary biology and cutting-edge astronomy, Saner interweaves a creative mix of memoir and intellectual critique to expose the irreligious and immoral aspects of militant creationism and—by the end—to offer instead his own worldview, an existence grounded in a reverence and respect for nature but free from religious dogma. Along the way readers meet the author as a five-year-old creationist, attend his laughable and losing debate with a creationist spokesman, learn the theological reason for deities on the ceiling, hike into the scriptural geology of the Grand Canyon, encounter creationism’s relation to Pinocchio’s nose, and receive satirical suggestions for a diety upgrade.