Dr Anthony Flew now believes in God. I'm not sure how to express what a big deal this is. I believe it may represent one of the seven seals of the apocalypse. Soon dogs and cats will begin sleeping with each other and Michael Moore will be publicly repeating the Pledge of Allegiance.
Any halfwit can jump up and down denouncing God, but for a half-century professor Anthony Flew has been considered probably the number one living intellectual proponent of religious skepticism and atheism. If Madalyn Murray O'Hair had ever actually engaged in logical debate about atheism, it would have most likely been Anthony Flew's books she'd have read to bone up.
Now at age 81, Flew says he believes in some kind of God. Basically, over some period of time he's come to accept the "design" argument that says that there's simply too much complexity in DNA for life to have developed without some kind of intelligent guidance.
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. It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose.
That's still a long way from being a Christian, or believing in an afterlife. He would describe himself as a "deist," the same religious generalization prefered by Thomas Jefferson.
I'm not going so far as express positive belief in something that I don't understand like this, but I'm sympathetic to the underlying point. That is, fumbling Darwinian evolution really doesn't seem like a realistic explanation of the complexities of a human DNA.
Not having a good answer of my own does not, however, mean that I'm going to accept anyone else's. I don't know whether this change is a terrific example of someone keeping their mind engaged and willing to consider new arguments and evidence even into old age, or whether it simply indicates senility. I'll assume the former.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Aaman
Ah, the undiscovered country exerts it's terror and appeal once again.
2 - DrPat
There is such a drive to ascribe "design" to the patterns we see in (or sometimes impose on) the world, that even mathematici and statisticians who know there is no greater change for the next flip of the coin to come up heads after a long run of tails, will still bet heads.
I don't think it is so much hedging his bet (as Amman implies), as it his inability to perceive the many other examples of the anti-entropic behavior that is life. It doesn't take a designer.
The monkeys have had plenty of time to generate Hamlet.
3 - JR
That is, fumbling Darwinian evolution really doesn't seem like a realistic explanation of the complexities of a human DNA.
'Cause random chance usually leads to simplicity? Not sure about your reasoning there.
BTW, it's interesting that some of the same people who wouldn't trust nature to blindly evolve human beings trust ungoverned markets to create prosperity and opportunity for all.
4 - Steve S
If an athiest changes his mind, it doesn't lend any more credence to the concept. If one person believes in God or if 1 billion do, the possibilities of 'yes or no' remain the same.
5 - Jim Carruthers
Al should have pointed out one Flew does not a cuckoo's nest make. He's a doctor of Philosophy. Y'know just making things up for the hell of it?
What's next, his theory on the brontosaurus? This isn't science, this is a world renowned expert in the field of creative bullshit.
This isn't science, and no amount of dressing it up in a costume will make it so.
6 - Jim Carruthers
As William Gibson, a son of the south, but now and for some long time part of the frozen chosen, points out on his blog, the major engine behind "creationists" in the States is that they just don't want to accept that different races are related, that we are all one.
Never having experienced this form of insanity first-hand, I always thought it was some sort of a joke.
7 - lee
I've never heard the idea that the 'major engine behind creationists' is that they don't want to accept racial equality...and I've grown up in the 'Bible Belt.' As I recall, the Jesus that most 'creationists' hold to, clearly treated all men and women with equal status and the creationists also believe that mankind was created "in the image of God"--thereby making all men of equal value.
8 - transcendent unity of God
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Their prophets said: “Is there any doubt about God, Creator of the heavens and the earth?”
By declaring through the use of a rhetorical question that there cannot and should not be any doubt about God Almighty, this verse clearly demonstrates the Divine existence and Unity.
O man! You should be aware that there are certain phrases which are commonly used and imply unbelief. The believers also use them, but without realizing their implications. We shall explain three of the most important of them.
The First: “Causes create this.”
The Second: “It forms itself; it comes into existence and later ceases to exist.”
The Third: “It is natural; Nature necessitates and creates it.”
Indeed, since beings exist and this cannot be denied, and since each being comes into existence in a wise and artistic fashion, and since each is not outside time but is being continuously renewed, then, O falsifier of the truth, you are bound to say either that the causes in the world create beings, for example, this animal; that is to say, it comes into existence through the coming together of causes, or that it forms itself, or that its coming into existence is a requirement and necessary effect of Nature, or that it is created through the power of One All-Powerful and All-Glorious. Since reason can find no way apart from these four, if the first three are definitely proved to be impossible, invalid and absurd, the way of Divine Unity, which is the fourth way, will necessarily and self-evidently and without doubt or suspicion, be proved true.
THE FIRST WAY
This to imagine that the formation and existence of things, creatures, occurs through the coming together of the causes in the universe. We shall mention only three of its numerous impossibilities.
First Impossibility
Imagine there is a pharmacy in which there are hundreds of jars and phials filled with quite different substances. A living potion and a living remedy are required from those medicaments. So we go to the pharmacy and see that they are to be found there in abundance, yet in great variety. We examine each of the potions and see that the ingredients have been taken in varying but precise amounts from each of the jars and phials, one ounce from this, three from that, seven from the next, and so on. If one ounce too much or too little had been taken, the potion would not have been living and would not have displayed its special quality. Next, we study the living remedy. Again, the ingredients have been taken from the jars in a particular measure so that if even the most minute amount too much or too little had been taken, the remedy would have lost its special property.
Now, although the jars number more than fifty, the ingredients have been taken from each according to measures and amounts that are all different. Is it in any way possible or probable that the phials and jars should have been knocked over by a strange coincidence or sudden gust of wind and that only the precise, though different, amounts that had been taken from each of them should have been spilt, and then arranged themselves and come together to form the remedy?
Similarly, each living being may be likened to the living potion in the comparison, and each plant to a living remedy. For they are composed of matter that has been taken in most precise measure from truly numerous and truly various substances. If these are attributed to causes and the elements and it is claimed, “Causes created these,” it is unreasonable, impossible and absurd a hundred times over, just as it was to claim that the potion in the pharmacy came into existence through the phials being knocked over; by accident.
I n S h o r t : The vital substances in this vast pharmacy of the universe, which are measured on the scales of Divine Determining and Decree of the All-Wise and Pre-Eternal One, can only come into existence through a boundless wisdom, infinite knowledge and all-encompassing will. The unfortunate person who declares that they are the work of blind, deaf and innumerable elements and causes and natures, which stream like floods; and the foolish, delirious person who claims that that wondrous remedy poured itself out when the phials were knocked over and formed itself, are certainly unreasonable and nonsensical. Indeed, such denial and unbelief is a senseless absurdity.
THE SECOND WAY
This is expressed by the phrase “It forms itself.” It too involves many impossibilities and is absurd and impossible in many aspects. We shall explain three examples of these impossibilities.
First Impossibility
O you obstinate denier! Your egotism has made you so stupid that somehow you decide to accept a hundred impossibilities all at once. For you yourself are a being and not some simple substance that is inanimate and unchanging. You are like an extremely well-ordered machine that is constantly being renewed and a wonderful palace that is undergoing continuous change. Particles are working unceasingly in your body. Your body has a connection and mutual relations with the universe, in particular with regard to sustenance and the perpetuation of the species, and the particles that work within it are careful not to spoil that relationship nor to break the connection. In this cautious manner they set about their work, as though taking the whole universe into account. Seeing your relationships within it, they take up their positions accordingly. And you benefit with your external and inner senses in accordance with the wonderful positions that they take.
If you do not accept that the particles in your body are tiny officials in motion in accordance with the law of the Pre-Eternal and All-Powerful One, or that they are an army, or the nibs of the pen of Divine Determining, with each particle as the nib of a pen, or that they are points inscribed by the pen of Power with each particle being a point, then in every particle working in your eye there would have to be an eye such as could see every limb and part of your body as well as the entire universe, with which you are connected. In addition to this, you would have to ascribe to each particle an intelligence equivalent to that of a hundred geniuses, sufficient to know and recognize all your past and your future, and your forbears and descendents, the origins of all the elements of your being, and the sources of all your sustenance.
To attribute the knowledge and consciousness of a thousand Plato’s to a single particle of one such as you who does not possess even a particle’s worth of intelligence in matters of this kind is a crazy superstition a thousand times over!
THE THIRD WAY
“ Nature necessitates it; Nature makes it.” This statement contains many impossibilities. We shall mention three of them by way of examples.
First Impossibility
If the art and creativity, which are discerning and wise, to be seen in beings and particularly in animate beings are not attributed to the pen of Divine Determining and Power of the Pre-Eternal Sun, and instead are attributed to Nature and force, which are blind, deaf and unthinking, it becomes necessary that Nature either should have present in everything machines and printing-presses for their creation, or should include in everything power and wisdom enough to create and administer the universe. The reason for this is as follows:
The sun’s manifestations and reflections appear in all small fragments of glass and droplets on the face of the earth. If those miniature, reflected imaginary suns are not ascribed to the sun in the sky, it is necessary to accept the external existence of an actual sun in every tiny fragment of glass smaller than a match-head, which possesses the sun’s qualities and which, though small in size, bears profound meaning; and therefore to accept actual suns to the number of pieces of glass.
In exactly the same way, if beings and animate creatures are not attributed directly to the manifestation of the Pre-Eternal Sun’s Names, it becomes necessary to accept that in each being, and especially animate beings, there lies a nature, a force, or quite simply a god that will sustain an infinite power and will, and knowledge and wisdom. Such an idea is the most absurd and superstitious of all the impossibilities in the universe. It demonstrates that a man who attributes the art of the Creator of the universe to imaginary, insignificant, unconscious Nature is without a doubt less conscious of the truth than an animal.
9 - Antfreeze
Arf..Arf..Awooooo...crinkle...
The sound of a Moonbat baying at the moon causing his tinfoil hat to fall off. I think Carlin got it right, "My invisible friend is bigger than your invisible friend!"
10 - Aaman
42
11 - g tidman
why did it take someone so intelligent so long to recognize a truth so obvious?
12 - Aaman
because he waited till he grew old.
13 - Tarsanth
42, precisley.
I know what I believe in and I have this desire to express it and tell everyone "no, god is a lie. I can prove this because....." but something I have learnt is that no matter how hard you argue with someone, you will never change their opinion on religion. If someone can honestly say they have ever been locked in a debate with a believer or non-believer of religion and one day the other person has said "actually yeah, i do believe with you and agree with what you are saying and now believe/don't believe in religion anymore (i am avoiding the term god deliberatley as it does not pertain to all religions)", then please tell me. I am not saying it can't happen, as my father was persuaded of the impracticalities of religion by my mother long ago, however he was not a strong believer. He believed it because that is what he grew up with, but never really cared for.
Which leads me to my next point: do you choose your religion, or is it chosen for you? I am aware this is a little off-topic but as I'm writing I think (crosses fingers) that I can link it back to the original argument. Lets take four scenarios: four people are born at the same time: one in cenrtal united states, one in england, on in saudi-arabia, and one in japan. To what extent does each one CHOOSE their own religion? They don't, it is chosen for them by virtue of where they are born and their parents. I was born to non-religious parents and thus I myself am inclined to be non-religious. I was, however given the oppurtunity and shown differnet pathways to make my own choices (i have attended religious youth groups, a few though limited church ceremonies, and have read passages from the bible) but how many people are given THAT choice? How many people are born and from the earliest days possible are given those little prayer books to help them learn about god and believe in him because thats what their parents believed in? BILLIONS!
So my point is (finally got to it somehow), how can you prove that religion exists when it is a tale handed down from generation to generation. Its similar to a tale you would tell around a camp-fire, and it is handed down and changed to fit the listening audience. Who started it and why? No one knows. For all we know (and i don't mean to get anyone's backs up here) Jesus could have been a power-hungry guy that found a way to exploit the people. Prove me wrong.
I am aware that a common retort to this is taht it is written in the bible. Someone please tell me that a gaggle of men did not follow jesus around with big books scribbling down every word he said exactly. Yet in the book it quotes him directly. How inteligent were these people? How much knowledge did they really have to base their observations on. I'm sure if a plane flew over head of those writing the books it would be hailed as a sign of a giant witch screaming over head, showing that bad things will follow.
This leads me to my last point, and that is how can you even begin to question modern scientific knowledge with scribbled notes by men who wore rags and sandals and thought that the earth was flat? I believe monty pythons movie the life of brian makes this point perfectly, showing how caught up all these people were in miracles, or in other words things they merely couldn't understand, and how they followed one random person.
Don't read this wrongly though, I am not saying assume all science is right as well all know it isn't. It was once said man couldn't exceed 60 miles per hour. It is currently said you can't brake the speed of light. However pick up any scientific magazine that comes out montly and you will find hundreds of minor and several major break throughs where old laws have been disproven and new ones proven and then disproven and the cycle continues.
So what I am trying to say is that though you can never (ok, most of the time)change someones mind about what they believe in, you can try to open it up to question themselves on whether what they believe in is their own choice or someone elses. The answer is 42, but what is the question?
14 - bhw
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?
15 - Steve S
Religion is indoctrinated into the mind at a very young age, when the child first goes to Sunday School. They are told how things are, so they have no reason to question otherwise.
Unfortunately, more and more kids are not going to Sunday School, which is why religion has a need to now attempt to push their belief (creationism, intelligent design, etc.) into the public school system. Gotta indoctrinate those kids somehow.
You have a good point about religion being taught based on where you grow up. By the rules of most religions, you can only get salvation if you follow that religion. By this principle, your eternal salvation depends on where you are born.
While I agree that it would be best for a person to be able to decide what they believe, rather than blindly accepting, history and the current world show us that is not an option. So what that leaves us with is the paramount need to convince these people that they can believe whatever they want, however blindly they want, but that it is wrong to attempt to get others to live life their way too.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working that way either.
16 - Al Barger
The noteworthy thing about Dr Flew's semi-conversion is that his belief seems to be as rationally based as could possibly be imagined. Eighty one year old lifelong academic Flew has not simply been programmed into belief by his mommy and daddy, nor backed into by some societal pressure.
It seems to be as purely a well informed and carefully thought out a way of getting there as could have happened.
17 - bhw
Or he could just be panicking because he's getting pretty old. He's trying to keep the back door to the afterlife -- the fun one -- open.
18 - Al Barger
No. He's not signing up with any religious group, and specifically again mocks the tyrant gods of Christians and Muslims.
Doesn't sound like he's trying to suck up to some big guy with a beard. He really seems to have seen what look to him like footprints of higher intelligence that he can't deny.
19 - bhw
Give him time. I predict that it's just the first step onto the slippery slope of religious conversion, if he lives another couple of years.
I'm not criticizing. In fact, I think it's a good plan. Whoop it up for 80 years, just until your mortality can't be denied, and then start rethinking things and giving that higher being idea further consideration. Eek into the conversion s-l-o-w-l-y so nobody suspects you're just covering your bases or that you're tossing away a lifetime of skepticism and work, and instead thinks you've just drawn a new conclusion based on a lifetime of evidence gathering.
Seems to be working.
20 - Al Barger
BHW, you're basically positing that Flew really deep down has always believed in God, and I'm telling you that ain't the case. That would be perhaps the most readily understandable explanation, but does not at all seem to comply with the facts here.
21 - bhw
Oh no, I know he didn't believe in god. But he wouldn't be the first person to get spooked at the prospect of death and nothingness. I know I'm stretching what he's saying now.
22 - Shark
I've got him beat: I was an agnostic -- and I now believe in the god who made God.
(Update: I'm currently wrestling with the concept of the God who made the god who made God. I'll get back to you when this one is resolved...)
23 - JR
It seems to be as purely a well informed and carefully thought out a way of getting there as could have happened.
But he doesn't seem that well informed. At least not as well informed as this guy.
Or are you saying that any more "informed and thought out way" would led to a different conclusion?
24 - CW
This isn't a death-bed conversion. He's not playing Pascal's wager. He has made it clear that he still doesn't believe in an afterlife.
All he has said is that he can't accept that DNA arose by the chance mixing of chemicals. (He still believes in macro evolution once the initial basic organisms came into being.)
From this he supposes that an intelligence of some kind was behind the creation of DNA. And he has chosen to call this intelligence "God". But it is not God as most religions would define the term.
I suspect he still has time to change his mind back to being an atheist once a sufficient biological theory is available. (In fact there might already be a suitable theory - he confesses that he has not kept up with the literature, so he wouldn't know.)
At any rate, I'm sure he will sell plenty of books in the meantime, on the basis of this stunt.
25 - Jim Carruthers
Can I point out again, Flew is a philosopher who is claiming he understands science, and is adjusting his mystic mumbo-jumbo on the basis of his cracked and sorry mis-understanding of what science is about. If he declaimed about his discovery of perpetual motion, would you give him even the time of day? I think not. and Good Day, Sir!