Posted on 01/11/2005 1:17:16 PM PST by jennyp
Update (January 2005)
Antony Flew has retracted one of his recent assertions. In a letter to me dated 29 December 2004, Flew concedes:
I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction.
He blames his error on being "misled" by Richard Dawkins because Dawkins "has never been reported as referring to any promising work on the production of a theory of the development of living matter," even though this is false (e.g. Richard Dawkins and L. D. Hurst, "Evolutionary Chemistry: Life in a Test Tube," Nature 360(6399): pp. 25-26, 5 November 1992) and hardly relevant: it was Flew's responsibility to check the state of the field (there are several books by actual protobiologists published in just the last five years), rather than wait for the chance possibility that one particular evolutionist would write on the subject. Now that he has done what he was supposed to do in the first place, he has retracted his false statement about the current state of protobiological science.
Flew also makes another admission: "I have been mistaught by Gerald Schroeder." He says "it was precisely because he appeared to be so well qualified as a physicist (which I am not) that I was never inclined to question what he said about physics." Apart from his unreasonable plan of trusting a physicist on the subject of biochemistry (after all, the relevant field is biochemistry, not physics--yet it would seem Flew does not recognize the difference), this attitude seems to pervade Flew's method of truthseeking, of looking to a single author for authoritative information and never checking their claims (or, as in the case of Dawkins, presumed lack of claims). As Flew admitted to me, and to Stuart Wavell of the London Times, and Duncan Crary of the Humanist Network News, he has not made any effort to check up on the current state of things in any relevant field (see "No Longer Atheist, Flew Stands by 'Presumption of Atheism'" and "In the Beginning There Was Something"). Flew has thus abandoned the very standards of inquiry that led the rest of us to atheism. It would seem the only way to God is to jettison responsible scholarship.
Despite all this, Flew has not retracted his belief in God, as far as I can tell. But in response to theists citing him in their favor, Flew strangely calls his "recent very modest defection from my previous unbelief" a "more radical form of unbelief," and implies that the concept of God might actually be self-refuting, for "surely there is material here for a new and more fundamental challenge to the very conception of God as an omnipotent spirit," but, Flew says, "I am just too old at the age of nearly 82 to initiate and conduct a major and super radical controversy about the conceivability of the putative concept of God as a spirit." This would appear to be his excuse for everything: he won't investigate the evidence because it's too hard. Yet he will declare beliefs in the absence of proper inquiry. Theists would do well to drop the example of Flew. Because his willfully sloppy scholarship can only help to make belief look ridiculous.
Well, you confirm my " it surely establishes that morality is based on a "point of view"". And Joseph Stalin was a human, thus my point stands. Plus you have now introduced "principles of behavior" which along with "human nature" are concepts you have left undefined.
Now Jenny, that is not what I said and you know it. Why is it when an argument gets too difficult, your side resorts to deliberate distortion? Sure, the vast difference between man and his supposed closest relative is a problem for evolutionists. Why not just admit it rather than pretend it isn't there. Better yet, fall back on the old faithful, "Someday science will tell us...."?
Real evolutionists, at least those of us not on the far left, see man as a machine with free will.
OK, that's telling. Only evolutionists not on the far left are real evolutionists. But no, your leaders do not allow for free will. If you accept the premise, you must accept the conclusions.
The philosophical implications of naturalism are troubling both to naturalists and non naturalists. One of the more absurd implications is the absence of free will:
Don't forget that Dawkins calls us survival machines and sophisticated robots.
Nature Magazine (May 8,2003), in an article entitled, The Buck Stops Here claims that free will is a subjective illusion.
Daniel Dennett claims that humans are zombies without consciousness (Consciousness Explained, 1992).
It is also worth noting that any worldview that puts more effort into denying reality than explaining it really isn't something to take seriously.
And here's one compliments of Gary:
He writes in his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis:
Crick, Francis Harry Compton
<sigh> Sadly, that describes your posts here precisely!
I won't hold that against you since, as Francis Crick explained, you really couldn't help it.
This is just a trial post. I am using Amiweb browser on an Amiga emulation.
I miss my old Amiga 1000. It seems to work, but it sure is different. I guess I got too used to the MSloth stuff.
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