Well that's kind of Ironic. First Cause is a theory of Determinism which negates Free-will. Free-will is a mythology of religion. Without free-will a soul is not possible and thus negates the existance of an after-life and God.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
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.
Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives.
"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."
Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.
Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.
There 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.
Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"
The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.
The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote.
The letter commended arguments in Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God" and "The Wonder of the World" by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.
This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Books.
Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well "that's too bad," Flew said. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."
Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic http://www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife.
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."
Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.
A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15.
Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.
Another landmark was his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.
i am overwhelmed by this man's conviction. sounds to me he's having a bet each way.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Well that's kind of Ironic. First Cause is a theory of Determinism which negates Free-will. Free-will is a mythology of religion. Without free-will a soul is not possible and thus negates the existance of an after-life and God.
I thought the solution to the first cause issue was a very first event, also known as god for some people. I understand that determinism = no free will, but it doesn't necessarily mean no free-will = no god, just not the one christians speak about.
I thought the solution to the first cause issue was a very first event, also known as god for some people. I understand that determinism = no free will, but it doesn't necessarily mean no free-will = no god, just not the one christians speak about.
Well, I don't understand how a God can exist without free-will and if the Christians can be wrong about all their convictions, then chances are the whole concept of God is wrong.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Well, I don't understand how a God can exist without free-will and if the Christians can be wrong about all their convictions, then chances are the whole concept of God is wrong.
who says you need free will for a god? we could all be fun little windup toys... like more flexible gi joes some giant abstract bearded man is fucking around with.
who says you need free will for a god? we could all be fun little windup toys... like more flexible gi joes some giant abstract bearded man is fucking around with.
That's possible, but then everything preached about God is wrong. That implies to me that there in-fact is no God. The possibility just doesn't seem like a good enough reason to believe a God does really exist.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Well, I don't understand how a God can exist without free-will and if the Christians can be wrong about all their convictions, then chances are the whole concept of God is wrong.
This makes no sense. I can totally see how free will can exist without god. If god isn't there directing his minions they are left to make decisions of their own volition.
I can also see how free will could exist with god. Perhaps god requires people to make proper choices here for whatever reward there is afterward.
Choice doesn't require or exclude the existance of a god and vice versa.
"I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
This makes no sense. I can totally see how free will can exist without god. If god isn't there directing his minions they are left to make decisions of their own volition.
I can also see how free will could exist with god. Perhaps god requires people to make proper choices here for whatever reward there is afterward.
Choice doesn't require or exclude the existance of a god and vice versa.
Umm, well free-will by definition is volition reaching beyond divinity and physical determinents. So if we don't have that, then our fates are sealed by the course of nature and/or God's will. So the concept of Sin is really bullshit, because we don't have the free-will to choose Sin. So, essentially, all wrong-doing is then God's will, which is contradictory to biblical teachings.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Well, I don't understand how a God can exist without free-will and if the Christians can be wrong about all their convictions, then chances are the whole concept of God is wrong.
There are some religious groups who do not believe in free will but do believe in God, there always have been and there always will be. Free will (for the christians I mean) is a powerful argument against the criticism found in the first post and serves a purpose in the christian religion. That doens't make it true. And if christians are wrong, it doens't make God go away.
Look at buddhism for example, they love determinism, in fact (I might be mistaken here) it looks a lot like Karma. And Buddhists don't really believe in free will, they believe in cause-effect actions with a large number of possibilities.
Comments
Seriously! If you believed something your entire life and converted others to it, at least stand by it.
-Enoch Powell
Well that's kind of Ironic. First Cause is a theory of Determinism which negates Free-will. Free-will is a mythology of religion. Without free-will a soul is not possible and thus negates the existance of an after-life and God.
i am overwhelmed by this man's conviction. sounds to me he's having a bet each way.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I thought the solution to the first cause issue was a very first event, also known as god for some people. I understand that determinism = no free will, but it doesn't necessarily mean no free-will = no god, just not the one christians speak about.
Well, I don't understand how a God can exist without free-will and if the Christians can be wrong about all their convictions, then chances are the whole concept of God is wrong.
who says you need free will for a god? we could all be fun little windup toys... like more flexible gi joes some giant abstract bearded man is fucking around with.
That's possible, but then everything preached about God is wrong. That implies to me that there in-fact is no God. The possibility just doesn't seem like a good enough reason to believe a God does really exist.
This makes no sense. I can totally see how free will can exist without god. If god isn't there directing his minions they are left to make decisions of their own volition.
I can also see how free will could exist with god. Perhaps god requires people to make proper choices here for whatever reward there is afterward.
Choice doesn't require or exclude the existance of a god and vice versa.
Umm, well free-will by definition is volition reaching beyond divinity and physical determinents. So if we don't have that, then our fates are sealed by the course of nature and/or God's will. So the concept of Sin is really bullshit, because we don't have the free-will to choose Sin. So, essentially, all wrong-doing is then God's will, which is contradictory to biblical teachings.
And I'm an agnostic. I don't follow any religion. I refuse to pigeon-hole myself into either one or another belief.
But when push comes to a shove, I do cry out to something. Whether or not that something chooses to listen, well......I've got no proof either way.
There are some religious groups who do not believe in free will but do believe in God, there always have been and there always will be. Free will (for the christians I mean) is a powerful argument against the criticism found in the first post and serves a purpose in the christian religion. That doens't make it true. And if christians are wrong, it doens't make God go away.
Look at buddhism for example, they love determinism, in fact (I might be mistaken here) it looks a lot like Karma. And Buddhists don't really believe in free will, they believe in cause-effect actions with a large number of possibilities.