Famous Atheist Now Believes in God

Yahoo ^ | 12/9/04 | RICHARD N. OSTLING

[JLO]

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.

[Tribune7]

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.

[Dimensio]

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"?

[StJacques]

". . .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.

[Tribune7]

What's wrong with saying "I don't understand this . . .?

Nothing, unless you do understand it.

[StJacques]

". . . 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 . . . "

[D-fendr]

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.

[catonsville]

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.

[D-fendr]

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"?

[Tempest]

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

[Tempest]

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

[ckilmer]

". . . they are proposing that which cannot be disproved, namely; that intelligent design alone explains complexity . . . "
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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.

[Dimensio]

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.

[BMCDA]

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.

[StJacques]

". . . 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.

[Alamo-Girl]

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.

[ckilmer]

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.
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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.

[Eastbound]

Thanks for the ping. Bookmarked for later.

[little jeremiah]

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.