Leading Atheist Philosopher Concludes God's Real

Thursday , December 09, 2004

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NEW YORK —
A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism (search) 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 (search) 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 (search), 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 (search), 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 Books.

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 http://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.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141061,00.html

Oh. You may know that the atheist need politicians behind them to force their opinions on our children by the use of law.It is like Darwin goes to school and behind him is a cop with a gun pointed at the children with orders to believe or be shot.Communist governments began that concept so our politicians put court judges in power to enforce it over here.They deny the words of the Bible but any person can track their actions right along the lines of the written word. We are getting very near the stage of the mark of the beast. Just look at this being brought in with the aid of computers. All the billions that went to higher education has created a scientific monster that will stop at nothing short of total power. The liberals who say that education will answer all our problems talk out of two sides of their mouth.The more education we get the more problems arise. They claim Christians are doomsayers? What is Al Gore talking? Stephen Hawking is supposed to be the smartest guy on the planet.But he says we need to learn space travel in order to get away from this deadly planet. <> Oh yes. My new pal Bob should be joining us soon here. He is a Christian.

He should be here soon.I got an e mail from him today.Here is one from a pal in Canada.He is a nice guy who seldom mentions anything about God on a board.>>>>>>> Philippians 4:13 --- I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens
me.

The road to success is not straight. There is a curve
called Failure, a
loop called Confusion, speed bumps called Friends, red
lights called
Enemies, caution lights called Family. You will have flats
called Jobs.
But, if you have a spare called Determination, an engine
called
Perseverance, insurance called Faith, a driver called
Jesus, you will
make it to a place called Success.

None of this removes the fact that "god" is an assertion based on a non-answer of faith. It doesn't matter if Flew now believes in a prime mover or first cause. The question arises as to how the first cause came to be. Are we really to believe that something as complex as an intelligent being always existed? Where is the proof to validate this claim?

I think we all need to sit on the conclusion of "I don't know, period," until we have validation one way or the other. We can't assert a god, and especially the Christian god because of the baggage that goes along with faith in the Christian god.

"G"

Hey Geremy, glad you could make it. I've invited Raymond and Ed too, so maybe we can pick up where we left off on BT.

You can sit on that conclusion if you want, that is your free will, but as for me on the day of validation, I want Him to know that I have believed, if you wait until then, you have waited too long and you won't like your new accomodations I am afraid. I know this sounds sort of smart alec and I don't mean it it too. I just don't any other way to say it.

You can sit on that conclusion if you want, that is your free will, but as for me on the day of validation, I want Him to know that I have believed, if you wait until then, you have waited too long and you won't like your new accomodations I am afraid. I know this sounds sort of smart alec and I don't mean it to. I just don't any other way to say it.