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Philosopher Who Gave the New Atheists Their Theoretical Foundations Became Convinced that God Exists
Enza Ferreri Blog ^ | 29 December 2013 | Enza Ferreri

Posted on 01/24/2014 7:51:27 PM PST by Enza Ferreri

Splendid sunset on the sea - from the website Human Health and Animal Ethics

British professor Antony Flew wrote over thirty philosophical works which established the foundations for atheism for half a century.

His 1950 paper "Theology and Falsification" was the most reprinted philosophical publication of the 20th century.

In December 2004 Flew announced in a symposium and subsequent video that he had completely changed his view and now, based on scientific evidence, believed that God exists.

In 2007 he wrote the book There Is a God (Amazon USA) (Amazon UK) , subtitled How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

This is the man without whose ideas the various Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dennett, Wolpert, Stenger, (not to mention Christopher Hitchens and Pat Condell) et al, none of whom is a philosopher, would not have had rational arguments to support their faith: atheism.

So it's not surprising that, when on 9 December 2004 the international journalist agency Associated Press gave the world the news about the British Professor of Philosophy's "conversion" with the headine "Famous Atheist Now Believes in God: One of World's Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, More or Less, Based on Scientific Evidence", atheists became hysterical.

Roy Abraham Varghese, in his Preface to There Is a God, wrote:

"One atheist Web site tasked a correspondent with giving monthly updates on Flew's falling away from the true faith. Inane insults and juvenile caricatures were common in the freethinking blogosphere. The same people who complained about the Inquisition and witches being burned at the stake were now enjoying a little heresy hunting of their own. The advocates of tolerance were not themselves very tolerant. And, apparently, religious zealots don't have a monopoly on dogmatism, incivility, fanaticism, and paranoia.

"But raging mobs cannot rewrite history. And Flew's position in the history of atheism transcends anything that today's atheists have on offer."

Photo of sea sunset courtesy of the website Human Health and Animal Ethics


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Politics; Religion; Society
KEYWORDS: antonyflew; atheistphilosopher; atheists; flew; god; peta; philosophy; vegan; vegetarian
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To: Sane View; GraceG

Welcome to Free Republic.

Nice to note your warm, modest, charitable manner too.


21 posted on 02/23/2014 3:00:08 PM PST by Fightin Whitey
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To: Sane View

22 posted on 02/23/2014 4:17:01 PM PST by GraceG
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To: Sane View; trisham; Fightin Whitey

[ You admit to RESPECTING an atheist?

These people, including Penn Jillette, deserve no respect. Funny wisecracks do not redeem damnation by God. Giving even one of them respect is an insult to God. Please consider long and hard what you are doing. ]

Penn has mellowed out recently and has actually said he regrets attacking religious people as much as he did in his youth.

But hey, might as well revive an old thread on Free Republic in order to sling some mud around to make yourself feel better. What is a little Thread Necromancy amongst friends....eh?

For the record I despise atheists that want to exert the power of government to ban or crush religion. People like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher are complete retards in my opinion because they want to use the power of big government to mess with people.

I respect Penn because he doesn’t believe in using Big government to tell people how to worship, while me may personally dislike religion, he doesn’t want to force his views under word of law onto others. I may not appreciate the wisecracks he may occasionally make, but he is not going to be petitioning the government to outlaw a religion any time soon because he is internally consistent to his own Libertarianism, unlike that fraud Maher who claims to be “Libertarian” but it nothing but a big government authoritarian control freak.

And that I can respect.


23 posted on 02/23/2014 4:24:34 PM PST by GraceG
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To: GraceG

Well said.


24 posted on 02/23/2014 4:27:05 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham

Not to mention you can have respect for someone and not agree with a single thing they say.

“Only a fool goes to battle without a decent respect for the enemy” (I think it was Sun Tzu who said that)


25 posted on 02/23/2014 4:33:21 PM PST by GraceG
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To: Misterioso

As for the atheist...his first thought after realizing he wasn’t injured...”thank God I wasn’t injured....oh wait!”


26 posted on 02/23/2014 4:35:23 PM PST by mdmathis6 (American Christians can help America best by remembering that we are Heaven's citizens first!)
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To: GraceG

Yes, I agree with that. Things have changed. We as a nation have rarely been so bitterly divided.


27 posted on 02/23/2014 4:38:23 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: GraceG; trisham

I sent a note to the mods that if you check this clown inforum you’ll see he’s been resurrecting several religion-related threads from a year or two ago.

This while he apparently just signed up today.

Sounds to me like a poor sore loser who got zotted some while ago and came back today to pose and mock.

Oh-—I just checked...he’s been shown from the building and back to his tomb....


28 posted on 02/23/2014 4:38:51 PM PST by Fightin Whitey
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To: Fightin Whitey

[ Sounds to me like a poor sore loser who got zotted some while ago and came back today to pose and mock.

Oh-—I just checked...he’s been shown from the building and back to his tomb.... ]

I really have to wonder if such people are just disturbed or if they are being paid to go into forums and try to stir up dissent amongst the members of said boards????


29 posted on 02/23/2014 4:43:09 PM PST by GraceG
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To: GraceG

Don’t know...

But you handled him with notable grace!


30 posted on 02/23/2014 5:06:42 PM PST by Fightin Whitey
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To: mdmathis6
Don't mind if I snicker. ☺
31 posted on 02/23/2014 8:01:37 PM PST by Misterioso ("There are two potential violators of man's rights: the criminals and the government." Ayn Rand)
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