Prof. of Philosophy, lifelong atheist, 81, concedes yes to God no to afterlife.

[alterego]

• 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.

here 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.

Worth noting is his prior acquaintance with C.S. Lewis and his age–81. Two questions come to mind - did he find Lewis’ conversion inspiring, and, has he heard of deathbed repentance? (tongue-in-cheek)

[alterego]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_re_us/believing_atheisthttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_re_us/believing_atheist

[Greenback]

I can’t follow the link.

[alterego]

@Greenback

I can’t follow the link.

Sorry about that. This one should work.

[Greenback]

Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a “minimal God” and believes in no afterlife.

It’s okay because he’s still mostly an atheist?

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.”

To paraphrase: Flew is only influential as long as he is an atheist.

Seriously, it would be interesting to track how he progressed from atheism to a “minimal God” viewpoint.

[NurseCarmen]

He’s 81. He’s hedging his bets.

[js_africanus]

Cool. Now I do believe in UFOs. I can’t think of any other way to explain those lights in the sky, thus they are extraterresterial intelligent astronauts. Minimal extraterresterial intelligen astronauts, of course.

[The_Hamster_King]

Odd that as a lifelong atheist he doesn’t seem to realize that all he’s proposing is another varient on the classic “God of the gaps”.

And as a humanities professor, I really don’t think he qualified to be making pronouncements on what is or is not possible in a highly technical and specialized field like biochemistry.

[alterego]

@Pochacco

Odd that as a lifelong atheist he doesn’t seem to realize that all he’s proposing is another varient on the classic “God of the gaps”.

And as a humanities professor, I really don’t think he qualified to be making pronouncements on what is or is not possible in a highly technical and specialized field like biochemistry.

Wikipedia if anyone needs. (Perhaps, not having had access to Wikipedia for most of his life, he never heard of it )

[alterego]

@Wikipedia:God of the Gaps

The god of the gaps argument is one used to contrast faith-based explanations for nature with those derived from science.

The term is used in a pejorative sense by those wishing to deride perceived religious retreat in the face of increasingly comprehensive scientific explanations of natural phenomena. The argument starts with the position that early religious descriptions of objects and events (e.g. sun, moon and stars; thunder and lightning) placed these in the realm of things created or controlled by a god or gods. As the scientific method came up with explanations for observations in the realms of astronomy, meteorology, geology, cosmology and biology, the ‘need’ for a god to explain phenomena was – and is being – reduced, and occupies smaller and smaller ‘gaps’ in knowledge.

Creationists see the God of the Gaps in a different light. They argue that every step in the development of science has uncovered greater and greater evidence of design; for example, the God of the Gaps that created the geocentric universe pales in comparison to the God of the Gaps that created the universe as we now understand it. They argue that if the God of the Gaps were getting smaller with scientific advances, one could expect Him to ultimately disappear. On the contrary, however, every step of science has made the God of the Gaps bigger, making his existence more reasonable. They argue that while Creationism requires the assumption of a single enormously powerful creator, naturalism requires the assumption of innumerable unknown sources and causes for the intricately interwoven nature of the universe. They conclude that since Occam’s razor prefers the theory requiring the fewest discrete assumptions, creationism is more reasonable than naturalism.

Fundamentally, explanations for the creation of the universe and the creation of life remain outstanding problems for which science has yet to form a scientific consensus. The theistic position retains these within the domain of god. Since it is unlikely that there will be scientific resolutions of these questions, the ‘god of the gaps’ argument will remain within the realms of philosophy.

[RIGHT]God bless the GFDL[/RIGHT]

[Abbie_Carmichael]

Can’t wait to see how many people chime in to say “Oh well, he’s 81. Getting a little loopy.”

[ShibbOleth]

@Abbie Carmichael

Can’t wait to see how many people chime in to say “Oh well, he’s 81. Getting a little loopy.”

If not “loopy” then possibly “poopy”. Definitely “droopy”.

Hang on, Sloopy!

[Helen_s_Eidolon]

There are indeed many reasons to believe in G-d. But, for heavens sake, to justify the origin of life IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

[Hal_Briston]

A snippet of conversation I had yesterday with a fundie co-worker –

Her: <rather smugly> “Have you heard? Antony Flew now says he believes in God”.
Me: “He said he now believes in God. I think he made it quite clear, however, that it is not your God”.

She was less than appreciative.
Still, I enjoy working with her. I may not agree with many of her beliefs, but she’s got a passion and thirst for knowledge about them which I admire.

[MrFantsyPants]

Now what I don’t understand in all of this is that people conclude that the universe is so improbable that some super-intelligence must have had a hand in creating it. But how the hell does such a super-intelligence come into being, how was god created? Isn’t that even more improbable?

[Homebrew]

@Hal Briston

A snippet of conversation I had yesterday with a fundie co-worker –

Her: <rather smugly> “Have you heard? Antony Flew now says he believes in God”.

What you want to bet she’d never heard of Flew (I hadn’t) until this glurge started circulating.

[Hal_Briston]

I’ll call it even money, Homebrew. When she believes in something, she studies it pretty well from all sides. I can see her having read some of Flew’s writing in the past (although she did refer to him as “Anthony”).

[Largo62]

Mr. Flew reminds me of W. C. Fields, who, when seen near the end of his life reading a Bible, explained that he was “looking for loopholes.”

[js_africanus]

@DesertGeezer

Mr. Flew reminds me of W. C. Fields, who, when seen near the end of his life reading a Bible, explained that he was “looking for loopholes.”

IIRC, when Machiavelli was on his deathbed the Pope asked him if he wanted to renounce the devil and his evils and Machiavelli replied, “This is no time to be making enemies.”

(Or something like that.)

[Eve]

Of course, the AP, bless their little cotton socks, have headlined the story, “Famous Atheist Now Believes in God.”

Which begs the question: just because one more person believes in a god doesn’t make a god start existing.