Posted on 12/13/2004 2:08:55 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
Look, Clapton is God... and he exists! Why all the fuss about atheism! We should address the bigger questions like: Why did he go Country in the 70s, or can he still pull off the solo in Crossroads with the same intense energy or does he now need a day of rest? And why was he friends with Hendrix and his devilish tritones? This is like fraternizing with the enemy, something he also did in the book of Job!
Bigger questions? Nah. Here are the ANSWERS:
Why did Clapton go Country in the 70s? Because that little riff in "Lay Down Sally" was itching him and he just had to scratch it, and then, having been scratched, the itch spread (as itches usually do).
Can he still pull off the solo in Crossroads with the same intense energy or does he now need a day of rest? A day of rest, of course—Tuesday.
And why was he friends with Hendrix and his devilish tritones? For the drugs.
But let's not turn a blind eye to this question: precisely when does a FR thread jump the shark snarks?
ANSWER: right about now.
Suppose Mithra is the real God and he's really mad at Christians for stealing his birthday? Whose screwed then?
It appears that Rationalist International is conflating Flew's 2001 statement with his 10-19-04 response to Carrier. I am not convinced that RI received confirmation from Flew before categorizing his 2003 statement as his "latest official position." On the contrary, that appears to be a technicality which will give RI an out if Flew contridicts them. Please compare the following items:
1) Flew's 2003 statement, in which he clearly indicates that while rational believers might take current scientific developments as supportive of their position, rational athesists might take these same developments as supportive of their positions.
2) Flew's early 2004 interview with Gary Habermas, a link to the full text of which was thoughtfully posted by BibChr in Post 54. This interview is to be published in the Winter 2004 edition of Philosophia Christi, but has not yet been published. This may be the basis for RI claiming that Flew's 2003 posistion is still his "latest official position." The interview, however, is enitled Atheist Becomes Theist, and the text claims Flew agreed to the title. Furthermore, in the article itself, Flew agrees that his view might be called Deism. Flew is very clear that he does not "believe in the God of any revalatory system," but seems comfortable with a philosophical concept of God akin to that of Aristotle.
3) The quote on the RI web-site from Flew's 10-19-04 letter to Carrier, which clearly states that Flew will not claim "God probably exists," because "any assertion" he is "prepared to make about God would not be about a God in that sense." This is an interesting statement. After reviewing statements Flew made in the interview with Habermas, I conclude that Flew is again alluding to the difference between a revealed God and a philosphic God. Any statement he might make regarding a First Cause would be philosophical in nature, and should not be confused with the traditional affirmation of a believer that "God exists."
Strictly philosophic assertions are different, however, from making no assertions at all. It seems clear that--at the very least--Flew is more favorably disposed toward the possibility of a [God, First Cause, Creator, Designer, Architect, take your pick] than he was when he wrote his 2003 statement.
I have not read the Habermas interview in its entirety, but what I read, combined with the timeframes of the other two statements, seem to support the conclusion that Flew has modified his philosophical position somewhat since 2003.
Please point out any flaws in my analysis.
Perhaps Rationalist International did not check with Flew before re-posting his essay (but/or perhaps Flew's interview will turn out to be mostly consistent with the essay). The situation merits further examination.
A point preliminary to later discussion: I don't have a clue as to what Aristotle's 'thought thinking about itself' might mean (see my earlier post #33 on this thread). In particular, I have zero acquaintance with thought or thinking which takes place apart from, or in the absence of, some physical substrate. So if Flew is taking an Aristotelian turn, he's turning into the wind, as it seems to me. But let me read the interview, ...
Flew doesn't get that detailed--and he certainly does not appear to agree with Aristotle on all points. He seems to use Aristotle's conception of a First Cause as a good example of a philosophic God, as opposed to a religious God--but he does not necessarily take Arisotles position as his own.
Most significantly, Flew concludes that some arguments which Habermas refers to as the "scientific forms of teleology" are "stronger" than they used to be. This seems to be somewhat more favorable towards theism than his 2003 statement. But from what I have read of the interview, I don't see any other significant changes in Flew's position.
Please relate what you learn from the interview.
I just realized that I referred to the statement from Flew posted on the RI web-site as both his "2001" and his "2003" statement. Both are true, since he issue the statement in both 2001 and 2003, but referring to the statement by two different names is confusing. Henceforth, I will refer to it as his 2003 statement, since that was apparently the last time he officially released it. Sorry for the confusion.
Well, I'm glad you answered your own question (and some of mine). Now here's a couple of crunchers:
1) Clapton vacationed in Greece. Plato and Aristotle wrote about his existence and there is a passage in the tenth book of the Republic where he created a bed.... was this the bed that he rested on Tuesdays?
2) Could "Sunshine of Your Love" be a reference to seeing the Platonic good after ascending from the cave?
3) Could "Tales of Brave Ulysees" really be "Tales of Brave Uglysees" if you insert a ‘g' in the appropriate spot? Socrates was ugly. Could he really been talking about Socrates as the new hero and visionary of Greek culture?
4) Was "Hideaway" more about transcendence than immanence?
God works in strange and mysterious ways... as far as I can see.
Actually, that is an extremely complex explanation since it raises a plethora of new questions about that "force/entity" and the nature of the universe in which it exist(ed).
In other words, you are envisioning an unimaginably complex Rube Goldberg, full of details beyond any current observation, and then suggesting that it is a simplification.
No one knows the answer, but truly the simplest seems to be that the mass-energy was always there, "always" being a temporal term, and time having meaning only with respect to mass-energy and space.
The problem with your explanation is that it presumes time is a property that can exist independent of mass-energy (i.e. that there was a time before the creation of mass-energy). However, empirical evidence suggests that is factually false. Time seems to be entangled with mass, energy, and space.
Here's an article by Richard Carrier linked as a Special Feature at www.infidels.org. This article seems to be the current state of knowledge of Flew's views (so to speak). I'll append it to this post for ease of reference. If somebody else on this thread has already referred or linked to it, I'm sorry to have missed the reference or link.
Just a remark or two: insofar as it's possible to speak of Flew's deity at all, it has virtually no resemblance to the God of Christianity and other religions. Indeed, Flew suggests that it might not even be conscious, has no interest in its creations, does not intervene in human affairs, does not save the souls of humans (whether they be believers or un-believers), ...
It's seems reasonable to suggest that Flew has simply lost a step or two. At age 81, he admits (see below) that his memory isn't what it used to be, and Carrier notes that a couple of Flew's arguments are straightforward to refute. But judge for yourselves...
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Antony Flew Considers God...Sort Of
Antony Flew is considering the possibility that there might be a God. Sort of. Flew is one of the most renowned atheists of the 20th century, even making the shortlist of "Contemporary Atheists" at About.com. So if he has changed his mind to any degree, whatever you may think of his reasons, the event itself is certainly newsworthy. After hearing of this, I contacted Antony directly to discuss it, and I thought it fitting to cut short any excessive speculation or exaggeration by writing a brief report on, well, what's going on. Once upon a time, a rumor hit the internet that Flew had converted to Christianity. The myth appeared in 2001 and popped up again in 2003. On each occasion, Flew refuted the claim personally, standing by his response to its first occasion with his own reply for publication at the Secular Web (Antony Flew, "Sorry to Disappoint, but I'm Still an Atheist!" 2001). So I was quite skeptical the third time around. But this time, things have indeed changed somewhat from where Flew stood in his 2001 article. Antony and I exchanged letters on the issue recently, and what I report here about his current views comes from him directly. The news of his "conversion" this time came from a number of avenues, but the three I have good information on are an interview with Gary Habermas soon to be published by Philosophia Christi in which Flew appears to depart from his past views about God, a letter Flew wrote to a popular philosophy journal expressing doubts about the ability of science to explain the origin of life ("On Darwinism and Theology," Philosophy Now 47, August/September 2004, p. 22; cf. also Flew's Review of Roy Varghese's The Wonder of the World), and, just recently on national TV (the October 9 episode of "Faith Under Fire"), J. P. Moreland used Flew's "conversion" as an argument for supernaturalism. The fact of the matter is: Flew hasn't really decided what to believe. He affirms that he is not a Christian--he is still quite certain that the Gods of Christianity or Islam do not exist, that there is no revealed religion, and definitely no afterlife of any kind (he stands by everything he argued in his 2001 book Merely Mortal: Can You Survive Your Own Death?). But he is increasingly persuaded that some sort of Deity brought about this universe, though it does not intervene in human affairs, nor does it provide any postmortem salvation. He says he has in mind something like the God of Aristotle, a distant, impersonal "prime mover." It might not even be conscious, but a mere force. In formal terms, he regards the existence of this minimal God as a hypothesis that, at present, is perhaps the best explanation for why a universe exists that can produce complex life. But he is still unsure. In fact, he asked that I not directly quote him yet, until he finally composes his new introduction to a final edition of his book God and Philosophy, due out next year. He hasn't completed it yet, precisely because he is still examining the evidence and thinking things over. Anything he says now, could change tomorrow. I also heard a rumor that Flew claimed in a private letter that the kalam cosmological argument proved the existence of God (see relevant entries in Cosmological Arguments). But he assures me that is not what he believes. He said that, at best, the kalam is an argument for a first cause in the Aristotelian sense, and nothing more--and he maintains that, kalam or not, it is still not logically necessary that the universe had a cause at all, much less a "personal" cause. Flew's tentative, mechanistic Deism is not based on any logical proofs, but solely on physical, scientific evidence, or the lack thereof, and is therefore subject to change with more information--and he confesses he has not been able to keep up with the relevant literature in science and theology, which means we should no longer treat him as an expert on this subject (as Moreland apparently did). Once Flew gives me permission to quote him I will expand this article with more information about his views and the reasons for them. That will have to wait for when Flew himself has finally mulled things over and come to something like a stable decision about what he thinks is most probable, and that may not happen until the release of his 2005 edition of God and Philosophy. For now, I think his view can best be described as questioning, rather than committed. And there is much to criticize in his rationale even for considering Aristotelian Deism. He is most impressed, he says, by Gerald Schroeder's book The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth (2001), but Schroeder (a Jewish theologian and physicist) has been heavily criticized for "fudging" the facts to fit his argument--see Mark Perakh, "Not a Very Big Bang about Genesis" (1999); and my own discussion in "Are the Odds Against the Origin of Life Too Great to Accept?" (2000), as well as my peer-reviewed article "The Argument from Biogenesis," soon to appear in Biology & Philosophy. Flew points out that he has not yet had time to examine any of the critiques of Schroeder. Nor has he examined any of the literature of the past five or ten years on the science of life's origin, which has more than answered his call for "constructing a naturalistic theory" of the origin of life. This is not to say any particular theory has been proven--rather, there are many viable theories fitting all the available evidence that have yet to be refuted, so Flew cannot maintain (as in his letter to Philosophy Now) that it is "inordinately difficult even to begin to think about" such theories. I have pointed all this out to him, and he is thinking it over. For now, the story of Antony Flew's change of mind should not be exaggerated. We should wait for him to complete his investigation of the matter and declare a more definite conclusion, before claiming he has "converted," much less to any particular religious view. Update (December 2004) Flew has now given me permission to quote him directly. I asked him point blank what he would mean if he ever asserted that "probably God exists," to which he responded (in a letter in his own hand, dated 19 October 2004): I do not think I will ever make that assertion, precisely because any assertion which I am prepared to make about God would not be about a God in that sense ... I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations. Rather, he would only have in mind "the non-interfering God of the people called Deists--such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin." Indeed, he remains adamant that "theological propositions can neither be verified nor falsified by experience," exactly as he argued in "Theology and Falsification." Regarding J. P. Moreland using Flew in support of Moreland's own belief in the supernatural, Flew says "my God is not his. His is Swinburne's. Mine is emphatically not good (or evil) or interested in human conduct" and does not perform miracles of any kind. Furthermore, Flew took great care to emphasize repeatedly to me that: My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms. He cites, in fact, the improbability arguments of Schroeder, which I have refuted online, and the entire argument to the impossibility of natural biogenesis I have refuted in a forthcoming article in Biology & Philosophy. So what of the claim that Flew was persuaded by the Kalam Cosmological Argument? Flew "cannot recall" writing any letter to Geivett claiming "the kalam cosmological argument is a sound argument" for God but he confesses his memory fails him often now so he can't be sure. Nevertheless, I specifically asked what Antony thought of the Kalam, to which he answered: If and insofar as it is supposed to prove the existence of a First Cause of the Big Bang, I have no objection, but this is not at all the same as a proof of the existence of a spirit and all the rest of Richard Swinburne's definition of 'God' which is presently accepted as standard throughout the English speaking and philosophical world. Also, regarding another rumor that Flew has been attending Quaker meetings, Antony says "I have, I think, attended Quaker meetings on at least 3 or 4 occasions, and one was at the wedding of a cousin," and thus hardly a religious statement on his part but a family affair. Nevertheless, for him and his family generally, he says "I think the main attraction" of Quakerism has been "the lack of doctrines." On the whole God thing, though, Flew is still examining the articles I sent him, so he may have more to say in the future. What do you think? You can post your comments on this article in the Secular Web Feedback Forum. |
Date published: 10/10/2004
Of course, such an appeal to consequences presumes (1) we don't care about truth, and (2) we can simply choose to believe things that don't make sense to us.
True. And an appeal to consequences makes most believers out to be hedonists...we act the way wee do to create the most pleasure and happiness for us.
I'm all for happiness. But, I don't think belief is a matter of immediate choice. At least, it isn't for me. And the most threats can do is cause me to lie about what I believe.
Thanks for the summation. Any change in Flew's position seems to be tentative and very conditional.
Thanks for the summation. Any change in Flew's position seems to be tentative and very conditional.
"Newspeak" is language designed to obscure or misrepresent a concept.
The terms negative and positive in this case are used correctly to more specifically describe something. Any use of language which decreases confusion and more accurately describes something is the opposite of the idea of "newspeak."
A negative atheist is one who is not sure about the existence of God, but sees no compelling reason to believe. A positive atheist is one who is sure, based on what s/he sees around him/her or a priori reason that God is impossible/ridiculous and therefore cannot exist.
It is useful enough to make the distinction, because oftentimes stupid/ignorant/dishonest religious people fail to split atheists into those two groups, and instead just ridicule positive atheists for "hating god" or whatever.
Negative atheism is more difficult for religious people to contend with, because both groups have already accepted that god is "possible." Negative atheists have a much more difficult claim they put to mindless religious zombies: WHY should we believe in your garbage. WHY? Why should we choose your religious claptrap over someone else's? WHY should we have "faith" in something that will never be revealed to us in this lifetime? Why shouldn't we see your religion as a pathetic attempt to weasel out of struggling with the hard questions of this world (what is life? what is death? why are we here? what is right and what is wrong?)
Why shouldn't we look at two religious people, each equally convinced that their religion is right, and the other's wrong, and not find the whole thing absurd? Why, if we can never know of nor measure the effects supernatural forces have on our lives, should we believe they are nonetheless there? How does belief help us live better lives? Why should we believe that there's a "pie in the sky when you die?" Why should we dedicate part of our lives now to a church that won't reward us until we're dead? Doesn't that devalue our current lives, if you say they only have value because of an afterlife?
Before you insult atheists for using two lousy, tiny, already-in-existence words to describe an intellectual rift in our community, why don't you remove the beam from your own eye? How many words have Christians invented to describe the fragmented status of Christianity today? What the heck is the word "episcopalian?" "epistle?" "lutheran?" "hugenot?" "transubstantiation?" "branch davidian?" wtf??? Where do those crazy words come from? Probably the same place as "xenu" and "E-meter." What infernal machine does the Catholic Church use to create new words?
IF Dennis Prager's comment (a few days ago) about the Flew story appearing in
The Washington Times but NOT in The New York Times was true...
I wouldn't be suprised if Prof. Flew didn't get a nudge to produce some
"news fit to print" for the Old Gray Lady.
Negative and positive atheism is garbage. Newspeak.
How is that different from an agnostic? The term seems superfluous to me. I call myself a near atheist rather than an agnostic, because my guess is that the odds are considerably less than 50-50 that God exists, whatever that means, and thus while I don't "know" for "certain," I have a strong suspicion, close to but quite to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt.
I think the difference between an 'agnostic' and a 'negative atheist' is that the former claims to not know and to have not made even a tentative decision, while the latter has made a tentative decision based on a presumption of the burden of evidence being solely upon the theist to prove his case and finding the evidence wanting.
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