Posted on 01/10/2005 2:47:28 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Antony Flew, the 81-year-old British philosophy professor who taught at Oxford and other leading universities, became an atheist at age 15. Throughout his long career he argued—including in debates with an atheist-turned-Christian named C. S. Lewis—that there was a “presumption of atheism,” that is, the existence of a creator could not be proved.
But he’s now been forced to face the evidence. It comes from the Intelligent Design movement, led by Dr. Phillip Johnson and particularly the work of Michael Behe, the Lehigh biochemist who has proven the “irreducible complexity” of the human cell structure. Though eighty-one years old, Flew has not let his thinking fossilize, but has faithfully followed his own dictum to “go where the evidence leads.”
Christian philosophy professor Gary Habermas of Liberty University conducted an interview with Flew that will be published in the winter issue of Philosophia Christi, the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and Biola University. Flew told Habermas that a pivotal point in his thinking was when he realized two major flaws in the various theories of how nature might have created itself. First, he recognized that evolutionary theory has no reasonable explanation for “the first emergence of living from non-living matter”—that is, the origin of life. Second, even if a living cell or primitive animal had somehow assembled itself from non-living chemicals, he reasoned it would have no ability to reproduce.
Flew told Habermas, “This is the creature, the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”
Flew has, thus, become a Deist—that is, he acknowledges God as creator but not as a personal deity. In his opinion, “There is no room either for any supernatural revelation of that God or any transactions between that God and individual human beings.” In fact, he told a group last May that he considers both the Christian God and the Islamic God to be “omnipotent Oriental despots—cosmic Saddam Husseins.”
But a crack is beginning to develop in his opinion that God hasn’t spoken through Scripture. When he reads the first chapter of Genesis, Flew says he’s impressed that a book written thousands of years ago harmonizes with twenty-first-century science. “That this biblical account might be scientifically accurate,” says Flew, “raises the possibility that it is revelation.” A book containing factual statements that no human knew about at the time of writing seems to argue that the authors must have had coaching from the Creator.
The evidence is there for all who will look, as his one-time adversary C. S. Lewis discovered, and as more and more thinking intellectuals are discovering today. So it is that Antony Flew, perhaps the most famous philosopher of atheism, is just a step or two away from the kingdom.
Trust me, you have no clue what you're talking about.
A working mind over 50 with a lifetime of experience and learning behind it operates on a lot more than fear.
In fact, I can confidently say that fear is the smallest ingredient. A good human being embraces the end without fear, in spite of his uncertainties.
Are you absolutely certain of that?
Yes.
I have never been in a hole. Why do creationists always go to personal attack? Answer: Because no science is available to them.
I think you have misperceived the scientific definitions of microevolution and macroevolution. You can't use creationist definitions and make a coherent argument. Macro is accumulation of allele changes sufficient to produce speciation. Speciation is defined by science.
I am no expert on horse linage, but it is clear that horses have speciated over millions of years, your apparent claim to the contrary notwithstanding.
Yes, ID is creation science with a new name.
OK, show us a speciation event that you know God influenced?
The atheists distort theology the same way creationists distort science. They are both wrong.
Your inability even to admit your assumptions is indeed a "hole".
Why do creationists always go to personal attack?
Why do you assume that I'm a "creationist?" And does not your use of the term consitute a persobal attack? And for that matter, when you use the term "creationist," what does it mean?
Answer: Because no science is available to them.
If you construe the application of logic to the comments you've made to be "a personal attack," then I suspect your motivations have less to do with "science" than with personal opinion.
But as the let's start fresh. Please refer back to post #230 and answer the questions I've posed.
ID is based on the same misinterpretation of Scripture creation science is.
You can demonstrate ID is science if you could show one peer reviewed paper in a reputable scientific journal by an ID proponent that refutes evolution.
(Don't include ID proponent papers that support evolution.)
"A cell doesn't have the genes needed to produce even a simple nodal chord, nor does a fish have the genes to produce legs. "
Heeheehee Now here is a budding biologist! LOL
First, admit that you are a creationist.
If you are a scientist that knows evolution is a fact, I have no need to debate you.
I don't have to, since I have not made the "God did it" argument. I have simply pointed out that a "rational theist" such as yourself has no logical grounds for ruling out the possibility that God could do such a thing. And yet you have done so, apparently on a global basis -- which represents a very significant assumption on your part, about the way the world runs. Can you not simply acknowledge that assumption?
What I have done, is argue for the efficacy of intelligent design as a valid hypothesis. On that score, I can show you many instances of intelligent design: the dogs and cats in your neighborhood, the wheat in your bread, and various genetic manipulations being some that should be immediately familiar to you.
The true fact of this sort of intelligent design points out a weakness in the question you've posed. We know, because we've done it, that human intelligence explains significant characteristics of many familiar life forms. And yet I doubt that you could pose a scientific test to detect this human involvement, because the paradigm within which you're working is based on an assumption of natural processes, not processes guided by intelligent agents.
It would be folly to argue against the presence of natural processes in the development of life -- that would indeed be to blind myself to the evidence. However, the data before us demonstrate that, for at least as long as there have been humans, that natural processes are not the only factor at play in the development of life -- intelligent agents have had an influence as well.
So you're faced with a problem: you have a theory that does not explain -- indeed, assumes away -- something we know to be true: that intelligent agents can and have influenced the development of life on Earth. It's a weakness in your hypothesis. I'd go so far as to call it an unacknowledged bias.
First, admit that you are a creationist.
What do you mean by "creationist?"
If you are a scientist that knows evolution is a fact, I have no need to debate you.
What do you mean by "evolution?"
"However, the data before us demonstrate that, for at least as long as there have been humans, that natural processes are not the only factor at play in the development of life -- intelligent agents have had an influence as well. "
Of course you will give us evidence for this "assumption"?
"Flew has, thus, become a Deist—that is, he acknowledges God as creator but not as a personal deity."
But belief in Him is still refused?
How strange.
The Screwtape Letters live on and as feasible as ever!
I didn't think you knew what evolution meant. No creationist does.
Evolution is the change in allele frequency in populations over time.
Creationism is the rejection of the above, plus "literal" belief in Bible passages in Genesis. Generally these interpretations are devoid of common sense and understanding of realities that scientific discoveries dictate. They also are weak from the standpoints of exegesis and theology of Christian belief. Creationism inserts Creation into the Theory of Evolution when it is not actually there.
Now, really, shubi. A "rational" person like yourself should know better to ask such a silly question.
You know that the Golden Retriever down the street was not a product of natural selection, but rather a product of human-guided breeding. You know that the wheat in your morning toast did not arise by chance, but was almost certainly a strain developed by researchers at an American university. You know that the corn in your Tostitos was most likely gentically modified for insect and disease resistance. You're no doubt aware of the large and growing field of genetic engineering.
Can you not simply admit that these are but a very few examples of how intelligent agents have influenced the development of life on Earth?
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