Antony Flew

[ironhorse]

“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.”

 

“I now believe there is a God…I now think it [the evidence] does point to a creative Intelligence almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together.”

 

“…we have all the evidence we need in our immediate experience and that only a deliberate refusal to “look” is responsible for atheism of any variety.”

 

~ Antony Flew (‘There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.’)

[directionless]

Thanks, I have heard Christians making this argument, but I always dismissed it, so I'm curious. It still seems like a bad argument to me, but I am no expert.

[duderonomy]

Look at how perfectly I, the puddle, fit into this pothole. I am certain it was designed just for me! I don't understand why, but after fifty years of study I have enough evidence to know it must be because Goddidit. 

 

Yawn. 

[sdelsolray]

Flew became a deist, not a Christian.

 

As versed as he was in logical fallacies, his "DNA demonstrates intelligent design" claim is just an argument from incredulity, one of the logical fallacies.  Being a philosopher, it is not surprising that he didn't know jack about biology, organic chemistry or genetics.  And he didn't.  

 

His book, There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, was mostly written by someone else (R. Varghese) when Flew was too old and ill (dementia) to write it himself.

 

Varghese has a checkered past:

 

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/11/04/roy-varghese-and-the-exploitat/

[pratt]

from wiki

 

Antony Garrard Newton Flew (/fluː/; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010)[1][2] was an English[3] philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew was most notable for his work related to the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught at the universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele and Reading, and at York University in Toronto.

 

Quick facts: Antony Garrard Newton Flew, Born ...

For much of his career Flew was known as a strong advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God surfaces. He also criticised the idea of life after death,[4] the free will defence to the problem of evil, and the meaningfulness of the concept of God.[5] In 2003 he was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.[6] However, in 2004 he stated an allegiance to deism, more specifically a belief in the Aristotelian God. He stated that in keeping his lifelong commitment to go where the evidence leads, he now believed in the existence of a god.[7]

 

A book outlining his reasons for changing his position, There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind was written by Flew in collaboration with Roy Abraham Varghese. The book (and Flew's conversion itself) has been the subject of controversy, following an article in The New York Times Magazine alleging that Flew had mentally declined, and that the book was primarily the work of Varghese;[8] Flew himself specifically denied this, stating that the book represented his views, and he acknowledged that due to his age Varghese had done most of the actual work of writing the book.[9]

 

He was also known for the development of the no true Scotsman fallacy, and his debate on retrocausality with Michael Dummett.

[rjn]

He also had this to say about your God:

"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"

 

Yes, it's from wiki, so?

[Shinzon]

Have you read the book ironhorse or you just skimming for quotes?

 

I have read it, enjoyed it in fact, but it at best is a good arguement to be agnostic towards some things. I didnt find it a convincing arguement for more.

[florduh]

Is this any different than the argument from the complexity of the eye?

 

I don't understand how volcanoes work, so when they erupt it must be that the volcano god is angry. I don't understand how an eclipse happens, so it must be the sky god is angry. I don't understand epilepsy, so I can only assume the person having a seizure is possessed by a demon. I don't understand how the eyeball could have just evolved into such a complex organ, therefore it must have been designed by a supernatural entity. I don't understand how DNA works and it's so complex, the only answer is it must have had an intelligent designer.

 

Am I making irrational leaps with these conclusions? Are all these examples essentially the same? Why? Why not?

[♦ ficino ♦]

Anyone can be a deist, as far as I'm concerned. Just stay off my land when you want to come around telling me I have to be a deist. And don't think that  incredulity about genetics, from someone with no academic training in genetics, is going to be convince me of deism.

 

In the meantime, I urge you, Ironhorse, to take up cat worship. We all know that cats think they are our gods and we are their slaves. The cat is a god - because it acts like one. And if you choose to persist in unbelief, Basht will bite you really, really hard.

[rjn]

In the meantime, I urge you, Ironhorse, to take up cat worship. We all know that cats think they are our gods and we are their slaves. The cat is a god - because it acts like one. And if you choose to persist in unbelief, Basht will bite you really, really hard.

 

Hear hear. They're even Gods in space:

 

 

Big up to whoever gets the reference.

[sdelsolray]

Shai-Hulud

[TheRedneckProfessor]

You give us this instead of your skeptical appraisal?