Posted on 11/03/2007 5:58:54 PM PDT by shrinkermd
THE STARTLING ARTICLE appeared on Dec. 9, 2004. “A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind,” Richard Ostling of The Associated Press wrote. “He now believes in God — more or less — based on scientific evidence and says so on a video released Thursday.
At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A superintelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.”
The “video released Thursday” was “Has Science Discovered God?” a DVD of a May 2004 conversation, held in a television studio at New York University, between Flew and two popular advocates of theism, the Orthodox Jewish physicist Gerald Schroeder and the Christian philosopher John Haldane.
There are long stretches of Schroeder, sitting behind what looks like an anchorman’s desk, lecturing an attentive Flew on matters like the unlikelihood that an infinite number of monkeys typing randomly would ever produce a Shakespearean sonnet.
(He is rebutting Stephen Hawking, who argues in “A Brief History of Time” that nature, given enough time, can perform the wondrous feats that credulous people attribute to God.) Schroeder also talks about the Cambrian explosion of animal species hundreds of millions of years ago, which he says happened too suddenly to lack some supernatural guidance. Haldane chimes in to argue that certain human capabilities, like language and reproduction, can be explained only by a higher intelligence....“Many of the greatest scientists of all time” believed that “the intelligence of the universe, its laws, points to an intelligence that has no limitation.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
OK, I'll bite. Explain it.
I took no personal affront at all. I find your posts interesting. But don’t underestimate the work needed to move a static atheist like Flew to deism. It is quite an accomplishment.
You are deluding yourself if you think this to be true.
Mathemagicians can conjure up as many Universes as they wish in order to demonstrate a mathematical theorem.
I witnessed a fascinating discussion this summer in which a mathematical analysis was made of Archimedes' principle of the lever, "Give me a lever long enough, and a place on which to stand, and I will move the world!"
Needless to say, Archimedes' physics was accurate, but mathematically, his mass would need to be multiplied by a lever longer than the Universe.
Mathematicians are not constrained by such pedestrian limits.
I believe that debate should be on every college campus in America and in Europe - and through the miracle of the internet, it can be!
Heard Ravi Zacharias speak today (as I drove to Church Service) about what it feels like to speak as a Christian before a "hostile" audience such as at a University in America or in Europe. Ravi, like Dinesh, is one of the most eloquent of those who speak to the modern "post Christian" peoples and insitutions. In fact Ravi's discussions can be found at his website and through his radio ministry, "Let My People Think!"
Anyway, Ravi said that after speaking before such an audience today, it always leaves him drained - physically, emotionally, spiritually.
So I thank Ravi, I thank Dinesh, I thank before them Dr. Francis Schaeffer, and C.S. Lewis, and others who have not in any way shrunk from the hostile audiences but have attempted, by God's help of course, to present the case for Christianity before the thinking world. While it may drain them, it rejuvenates me and I am sure others out here in flyover country as we work and live and "talk" with others who have either tried Christianity and turned away - or who have for whatever REASON or NONREASON decided it is, as Hitchens says, just a fairy tale which because it has been believed by many has done immeasurable harm to this world.
Dinesh pointed out that the preChristian world - and even the "Christianized world" for centuries - was based on one idea - slavery. Enslavement of human beings by other human beings. And that it has been the CHRISTIAN worldview which has moved the world away from an endorsement of slavery as a "given" of living life in this world. Yes there is still slavery in the world today. The atheistic communists are the worst enslavers on the planet followed closely by the followers of "Allah". Yet the West is not far behind through its enslavement to the state of those whose livelihoods are given primarily over to paying for the STATE to "take care" of them.
And soon, should we forget the God of Christianity and JUdaism, and the FREEDOM for which every human being longs - especially the atheists who seek freedom from God but freedom in all expressions....the idea of enslavement will become "accepted" - has already been so as the socialists in Europe have showed us.
Solzhenitzen warned the west of this danger so many years ago now.....pleading with us to see the suffering of the Russian and other peoples under atheistic communism.....and learning from their suffering the dire folly of "forgetting God."
Yet Hitchens and his like learned nothing from their suffering and would put us into similar suffering if his militant atheism should conquer the west.
Yet Hitchens and his like learned nothing from their suffering and would put us into similar suffering if his militant atheism should conquer the west."
Militant Atheism Conquers The West~Be afraid. Be very afraid!
Dateline Peoria: Church bells remain quiet in this exemplary American community as militant atheists again stay home in droves to sleep late on Sunday morning.
"You know they're in there, just waiting ..." said Cyrus Kornbluth, an erect and bright-eyed octogenarian, "... Who knows what Devilment they're cooking up? We've all been afraid to leave our homes because of all the emptiness out in the streets."
It is an uncanny, disquieting quiet in this otherwise somnolent midwestern town, whose sleep is now disturbed by the stirring undercurrents of inaction.
Hannity doesn't *know* God created the Universe any more than anyone else does. He *believes* it, just like you and other believers do. That is the most anyone can say, if they are honest about it.
Actually, in an interview with Lee Strobel, Flew emphatically denies *any* interest in an afterlife. He simply rejects it as an appalling idea -- eternal punishment *and* eternal reward. He simply wants his existence to end when he dies.
Not exactly the victory many Christians seem to be claiming.
Lots of people in nursing homes - few, if any, are reading the Bible and believing in Jesus.
If you want to be picky about it, nobody “knows” anything. Those people you call(ed) your parents - you don’t remember your birth therefore you could have been lied to all these years. Is George Washington really a founding father of this country or is your life really A Truman Show and we fed you baloney. Did the War of 1812 really exist? Can you prove it? Photos? Pieces of paper? Really, can you prove anything?
Ridiculous. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark all have a majority of non-believers, yet how many so-called "militant atheists" do they have? They have stable societies that are more peaceful, more law-abiding, and more egalitarian than the majority Christian nation of the USA.
D'Sousa weakly claims that this is purely a delayed effect, and that any time now, these atheistic nations will implode without belief in God. That is simply wishful thinking since he has no evidence to support it, only the same dire warnings that fire and brimstone preachers have been using since the dawn of time.
As a citizen of a "post-Christian" nation (i.e. the UK), where a couple of these militants come from, it's pretty obvious that the vast majority of non-believers simply don't bother themselves with attacking religion. Indeed, since Britain is still riddled with religious institutions -- from the schools to the lack of any separation of church and state -- the attitude is more akin to one of benign neglect.
There will always be militants -- it's not as though Christianity suffers from a lack of them, after all! It sometimes amazes me how just a half-dozen or so outspoken atheists can cause so much hand-wringing and consternation. If atheists were as thin skinned about such outspokenness, they would have given up ages ago.
“The Angles are rejoicing another saved soul, glory to God in the Highest.”
The Saxons, too ;-)
They did “see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
However, He left and is waiting in Heaven for the Father to give the word so that — “Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.” [Matthew 6:10]. And that will be the 1,000 year reign of the Messiah.
Of course, His Kingdom goes on forever, even after the 1,000 year reign, but after that 1,000 years (even while His reign continues on earth), He says, “”Behold, I make all things new.” [Revelation 21:5].
That will not be the 1,000 year reign, during which time there is still sin and death in the world. After that, all things will be made new and restored to the original condition, as God made it in the beginning. Death, the final enemy, is cast into the Lake of Fire, along with many others at the Great White Throne Judgement of Revelation 20.
During that particular 1,000 year reign, it is the time for “all” the promises that God made (as we read in the Bible, which still have not been fulfilled) to be fulfilled completely, and then the Kingdom is handed over to God, all things being totally and completely fulfilled.
Then.., all things are made new, no death, no sin, all having been restored...
Regards,
Star Traveler
thanks, bfl
“His comment spoke to how “these atheists” can deny the existence of God, how can they explain how the universe began?
OK, I’ll bite. Explain it.”
Exactly. “God just exists”. “He just is”. Same thing. Thanks for making my point.
Lots of people in nursing homes - few, if any, are reading the Bible and believing in Jesus.
***************
Few, if any... What? Do you mean the ones who have dementia? Or the ones who are invalids? Which ones aren’t picking up the Bible and how many have you interviewed about their belief or lack thereof in Jesus?
What an insane statement.
Vanity is one hell of a sin.
How do you look back on a life like his and admit it was a waste - complete and utter.
I hope that somebody gets back to him before its too late and talks to him about the Conversion of Paul.
Paul’s persecution of Christians only enhanced the glory of the conversion.
The reputation of this elderly English gentleman is being abused by younger men with ideological agendas. Not a pretty sight.
Yes, if you read the entire article one has a hard time denying that Flew is impaired. The issue is so emotional most of what is spoken of as “thinking” is actually “emoting.”
True, if we all got what we "deserved" we wouldn't like it!
Keep this old man in prayer, that he may come to the saving knowledge of the love, grace and power that is Jesus Christ.
That’s what is so great about being a Christian AND an American. You are free to believe whatever you like. One should just be prepared to accept the consequences of that choice.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.