Posted on 12/10/2004 7:08:12 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nynewsday.com ...
Yup. How long was it that it took God to mold Abraham into the man He wanted him to be? Forty years IIRC.
BTW, on issues of evidence and the Bible, I highly recommend Chuck Missler's COSMIC CODES. (Although it touches on ELS, the highly popularized Bible Codes, it's not an ELS book at all.) It examines the structure of the Bible, the way it so perfectly meshes and dovetails across the sixty-six books, scribed by over forty writers over a 2000-year span. Missler is brilliant, though a bit wordy at times, and this aspect of the Bible will stun you. The evidence of its divinity is overwhelming in its underlying mathematics, prophecy, etc.
MM
btw
my Latin is a bit rusty.
Could you translate your tagline for me?
It really bugs your sox off that Flew finally found atheism to be absurd, doesn't it?
"Good, now how do you know who your mother is ?"
How can we ever really KNOW anything? We can't. But my mother's claim to me is not devoid of evidence. I share the right amount of DNA with her for one.
Look at flowers. Accident would have created bland, simple designs. ...Actually, blind accident would have created total chaos - and hence a maximum diversity of forms!Look at the birds, insects, small animals - each unique and specific for their needs. Accident would have created only a few with very basic needs.
Look in the eyes of dogs and family pets. Why would they have been made by accident? ...
Just look at any aspect of life around you and compare what accident would have provided - something simple, bland, with few variations. But what do you see - each totally created for its purpose, with millions of variations of design with each for a purpose for that creature.
Again - the work of an Artist who loves the world.
Evolution, OTOH, is driven by both chance, via mutations & just plain accident, and natural selection, which is quite determined. It's this combination of pure chance and lawful, predictable selection that works synergistically to create such beauty that fills the world around us.
The world is filled with creatures, objects, & relationships that show a combination of order and chaos. It's the order that gives the world comprehensibility & structure. But it's the chaos & randomness that gives us its surprises. We humans appreciate both.
Do you have a DNA test or are you taking someone's word for it that she is your mother ?
Maybe, but I sure wouldn't call their morals a "beacon for humanity"
But they are not dangerous ones.
MActivist Christians harm me, for certain, but it is not their belief in a virgin birth that does it. It is their desire to CONTROL me that does.
So then, tell me again how Christians are a shining beacon.
This insight into Darwin adheres also to many who follow him. For them, we are imago elaphe rather than imago dei, and therein lies a wrong path taken.We believe we're made in the image of an elephant?
Personally I'm imago humaniumnumumii (or however you'd spell it).
"Do you have a DNA test or are you taking someone's word for it that she is your mother ?"
Just taking someone's word for it right now. A test could be done if I really wanted to be sure. She certainly functions well as my mother, so I doubt the need will arise.
Because he came to make ALL religion obsolete, and DID...
Atheists more or less could care less.. BUT the...
(You know)...
"So then, tell me again how Christians are a shining beacon."
They have a lot of good morals. A lot of things you SHOULD do to be a happy, healthy, productive member of society. Those are the shiny beacon things.
It is when they say that I MUST do what they say that is the issue.
You seem confused. Atheism is absurd in my mind. I don't even know who Flew is, or for that matter, who you are. I can't ever remember posting to you.
Except for their being more witnesses to Jesus's life than there are to your birth, it is no less rational for someone to accept the testimony of the witnesses to Jesus than it is to accept the testimony of your mother. In fact, you as a skeptic require less evidence of your mother's claim.
Testimony from multiple witnesses is far stronger evidence than a vision or an event that only one person sees. Like what you described you wanted for evidence, it could be the result of mental illness. But when many people witness the same thing, the likelihood that it happened is greater.
He is still going to hell, but for you to downplay this, a former athiest saying science supports God, is inaccurate.
He essentially went from atheist to deist.
This is big since of his scientific claim, but he still will be in hell.
You really do not understand Christianity. None of us believe that we have a "lot of good morals". We are poor sinners who are hopeless without Jesus. Either that or we are masters of self deception that requires us to think of ourselves as worms. Personally, I would design a better self deception than one where I'm a hopeless sinner.
My mom was born in Scotland, moved when she was little. Lived in Chipperfield (now a ghost town). Dad's parents were Scandinavian (Norsk on father's side, Svensk on mother's side), but he was born in Saskatchewan, lived in Bickleigh (near Rosetown).
His parents moved from Minnesota to Sask. to homestead, too.
When I was there we lived mostly in Saskatoon.
My tagline reads, roughly,
Death to all people, God knows his own.
Or: Kill them all and let God sort them out (slang)
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