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Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
Yahoo ^ | 12/9/04 | RICHARD N. OSTLING

Posted on 12/09/2004 1:15:38 PM PST by ZGuy

NEW YORK - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. 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 super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.

Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives.

"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."

Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.

Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.

There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"

The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.

The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote.

The letter commended arguments in Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God" and "The Wonder of the World" by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.

This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Press.

Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well "that's too bad," Flew said. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."

Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife.

Flew's "name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up," Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew's reversal, "apart from curiosity, I don't think it's like a big deal."

Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.

A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15.

Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.

Another landmark was his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.


TOPICS: Skeptics/Seekers
KEYWORDS: antonyflew; atheism; atheist; morality
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To: MeekOneGOP

Thanks for the ping to this very interesting thread. After reading through, I wonder how many non-believers will be changing their minds when they turn 81, LOL.


101 posted on 12/10/2004 9:44:46 AM PST by JLO
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To: AntiGuv
I honestly don't understand how people can answer the question "where did it all come from" with "it came from God" and actually find any satisfaction in that. It's not so much that I don't accept that there's something outside of the universe - as a matter of fact, if I had to guess I would say that there must be some dimension of existence beyond and 'before' the universe - it is just that its nature strikes me as utterly indecipherable.

When I meet someone who is smarter than me I'm overjoyed. That's sort of how I face the question of who made God? Now, you're frustrated by that question. I'm delighted by it. It's the limit of the human mind. It's like an ant trying to comprehend driving a car. What was before the Big Bang? Was man seeded by aliens? Who made the aliens? There is no empiracle answer to that puzzle. We've hit the wall we cannot scale.

Now, you can drive youself nuts by banging your head against it. Or you can laugh with unrestrained mirth and be entertained. There is no way around it.

Concerning the indecipherability of the Powers that Be, I agree that reason fails. However, if this Power choses to make itself understandable it can certainly do so. I believe it has through the Holy Spirit and through Jesus as recorded in the Bible.

Why the Bible and not the Koran or some other book or tradition?

I think that, to a degree, that question can be answered through reason. Compare the lives of those who followed the one and others. Investigate via standard scholarship the claims. Look at the moral code that, I believe, is hardwired into every human heart and see what belief most reflects it.

Of course it will ultimately hinge on faith but that's true of any attempt to resolve the issue whether it's by the Resurrection or other dimensions.

102 posted on 12/10/2004 10:32:49 AM PST by Tribune7
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To: Tribune7
Now, you can drive youself nuts by banging your head against it. Or you can laugh with unrestrained mirth and be entertained. There is no way around it.

What's wrong with saying "I don't understand this, so in the abscence of meaningful knowledge, I will refrain from declaring to have comprehend an 'answer' beyond human understanding"?
103 posted on 12/10/2004 10:37:38 AM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: betty boop; Tribune7; Alamo-Girl; Eastbound; marron; Taliesan; ckilmer; escapefromboston
". . .biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved"... [Flew] accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life. . . ."

I do not accept the premise that any investigation of the "complexity" of DNA by biologists has established in any way "that intelligence must have been involved." In fact, those who are principally involved in the making of this argument are doing so from the perspective of mathematical probability rather than from scientific investigation because they are proposing that which cannot be disproved, namely; that complexity alone explains intelligent design. Explaining the origins of life is still a problem in evolutionary biology, and there has been progress in addressing it, but to say that it has failed and will not ever come up with an answer is false.

And none of what I have written denies a creator either, something in which I very much believe.
104 posted on 12/10/2004 10:41:08 AM PST by StJacques
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To: Dimensio
What's wrong with saying "I don't understand this . . .?

Nothing, unless you do understand it.

105 posted on 12/10/2004 10:41:48 AM PST by Tribune7
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To: betty boop; Tribune7; Alamo-Girl; Eastbound; marron; Taliesan; ckilmer; escapefromboston
". . . they are proposing that which cannot be disproved, namely; that complexity alone explains intelligent design. . . ."

Now that I think about it, I believe I got this backwards. I should have written:

". . . they are proposing that which cannot be disproved, namely; that intelligent design alone explains complexity . . . "
106 posted on 12/10/2004 10:47:45 AM PST by StJacques
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To: AntiGuv

FWIW, I twas smited about ten years ago and three years later found myself that Easter being confirmed in the Church.

My avowed affiliation line runs: Lutheran - Methodist - Baptist - Agnostic - Atheist - Smitten - Buddhist - Catholic.

There is a Compassion that suffuses the cosmos and we can experience this as connected to our being. (The latin "religio" mean "re-bind.") It pursued itself within me all my life. But I don't think that, for everyone, it means "choosing to believe." Some, like me, are hard-headed, and it takes time and much Grace 'til we surrender and come home again for the first time.

Thanks very much for the discussion.


107 posted on 12/10/2004 11:22:26 AM PST by D-fendr
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Although Flew now believes in a Deist God, he does NOT believe in an afterlife. Therefore, to Frey there is no real cosmic benefit for his change of heart. What he did becomes even more important.

Atheists cannot claim the 81 year old Frey was just hedging his bets.

Frey was a MAJOR non believer. His works are (were) quoted on atheistic web sites as their Holy Writ. His defection is a large philisophical loss.
108 posted on 12/10/2004 11:29:12 AM PST by catonsville
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To: BMCDA
So to say that nothing is, is just an artefact of our language since without anything a temporal dimension doesn't make sense.

Even in a theoretical perfect vacuum, the laws of the universe are present - awaiting matter. This "nothing" is not nothing, only devoid of matter. Some might phrase this as "nothingness." Not nothing.

"First there was nothing, then there was existence"

Have you ever heard of "Vacuum Genesis"?

109 posted on 12/10/2004 11:34:35 AM PST by D-fendr
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To: ZGuy

Poor guy has found the road but he's still a little lost.


110 posted on 12/10/2004 11:36:39 AM PST by Tempest (Click on my name for a long list of press contacts)
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To: wallcrawlr

I'm sure the shaved typing monkeys will show up soon.


111 posted on 12/10/2004 11:37:56 AM PST by Tempest (Click on my name for a long list of press contacts)
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To: StJacques

". . . they are proposing that which cannot be disproved, namely; that intelligent design alone explains complexity . . . "
/////////////////////
I have seen displays which show the radical difference between organic and inorganic chemistry. The structure of the molecules of inorganic chemistry is a pattern repeated over and over again. This holds for molecules consisting of elements throughout the periodic table. However, with inorganic chemistry the molecules do not form any consistant repeated pattern. Its sort of like the difference between rational and irrational numbers.

The point is that life on the smallest scale looks very different from mere matter--and yet the overwhelming balance of stuff in the universe is matter/energy/space. What's the evidence of God when adam and eve are in the garden of eden. The answer is the Garden. I think a similiar arguement is being made for all life.


112 posted on 12/10/2004 11:51:46 AM PST by ckilmer
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To: catonsville
Atheists cannot claim the 81 year old Frey was just hedging his bets.

No, we just claim -- and rightly so -- that the alleged 'conversion' of Flew has been blown out of proportion.

Frey was a MAJOR non believer. His works are (were) quoted on atheistic web sites as their Holy Writ. His defection is a large philisophical loss.

Until yesterday, I had never heard of Antony Flew. My athiesm is not based upon the alleged 'holy' writings of any philosopher, it is based on the fact that thus far I remain unconvinced regarding the existence of deities.
113 posted on 12/10/2004 11:53:26 AM PST by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: D-fendr
Even in a theoretical perfect vacuum, the laws of the universe are present - awaiting matter.

Space is something so a theoretically perfect vacuum is not what I was referring to.

114 posted on 12/10/2004 12:11:10 PM PST by BMCDA
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To: ckilmer
". . . What's the evidence of God when adam and eve are in the garden of eden. The answer is the Garden. I think a similiar arguement is being made for all life."

Yes; the argument is being made, but it's not a scientific one, remember the original quote was that "bilogists" had found evidence of complexity that suggested intelligent design, because scientific arguments can be disproven through testing and observation with rigorous application of scientific method. The intelligent design theory does not fit into this standard.
115 posted on 12/10/2004 12:23:09 PM PST by StJacques
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To: StJacques; tortoise; Doctor Stochastic; betty boop
Thank you so much for the ping to your posts!

I do not accept the premise that any investigation of the "complexity" of DNA by biologists has established in any way "that intelligence must have been involved." In fact, those who are principally involved in the making of this argument are doing so from the perspective of mathematical probability rather than from scientific investigation because they are proposing that which cannot be disproved, namely; that complexity alone explains intelligent design.

One of these days when we all have some time we need to pick up the conversation about "complexity" in biological systems again.

I do agree with you that it is not biologists who have raised the issue but mathematicians. However, I do not believe the issue of complexity was raised primarily from looking at probabilities but rather in response to the von Neumann challenge with the emphasis on cellular automata (self-organizing complexity).

Nature's Own Software (biography of Wolfram)

Uncertainty, Entropy, and Information - Tom Schneider

A Mathematical Theory of Communication - Claude Shannon

Randomness in Arithmetic - Chaitin

Should we decide to explore the subject though, I would like for tortoise, Doctor Stochastic and betty boop to be involved as well so we can make sure we are all using the same jargon with the same meanings.

116 posted on 12/10/2004 2:58:33 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: StJacques

Yes; the argument is being made, but it's not a scientific one, remember the original quote was that "bilogists" had found evidence of complexity that suggested intelligent design, because scientific arguments can be disproven through testing and observation with rigorous application of scientific method. The intelligent design theory does not fit into this standard.
///////////////////////////
true but in order to make this clear you have to also make clear that evolution does not prove by means of the scientic method--that a.)natural selection is random b.)there is no God.

further you have to mention that in greek terms say, the scientific method has been designed for aristotles creatures and not plato's creator.


117 posted on 12/10/2004 6:22:50 PM PST by ckilmer
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To: StJacques

Thanks for the ping. Bookmarked for later.


118 posted on 12/10/2004 9:18:49 PM PST by Eastbound ("Neither a Scrooge nor a Patsy be")
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Comment #119 Removed by Moderator

To: ZellsBells

Unless I read more about what Flew actually thought, and the path of reasoning that led him to his current belief in God (of some sort), I can only take his words at face value*. And your idea goes along with what is stated in the article.

Basically there are two kinds of people {those who divide people into two kinds, and those who don't}...

No, really - these two kinds:

1. Those who have a certain set of beliefs, want to continue believing, and therefore only allow information which supports these beliefs into the purview of their mind's acceptance.

2. Those who want to know that the Truth with a capital T is, and follow the search wherever it leads, not thinking that they know the destination before they arrive.

Unfortunately, group (1) is very numerous. But group (2) is the only one to be in to achieve the actual goal of human life.

*And being the uneducated fool that I am, I probably wouldn't understand his writings even if I tried.


120 posted on 12/10/2004 9:46:20 PM PST by little jeremiah (What would happen if everyone decided their own "right and wrong"?)
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