Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:40 am Posts: 25451 Location: 111 Archer Ave.
I saw this while i was browsing the bookstore. I almost picked it up, but i decided to be disciplined and finish the 4 other books i am reading at the moment. anyone read this? looks interesting.
Quote:
From Publishers Weekly British philosopher Flew has long been something of an evangelist for atheism, debating theologians and pastors in front of enormous crowds. In 2004, breathless news reports announced that the nonagenarian had changed his mind. This book tells why. Ironically, his arguments about the absurdity of God-talk launched a revival of philosophical theists, some of whom, like Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, were important in Flew's recent conversion to theism. Breakthroughs in science, especially cosmology, also played a part: if the speed or mass of the electron were off just a little, no life could have evolved on this planet. Perhaps the arrogance of the New Atheists also emboldened him, as Flew taunts them for failing to live up to the greatness of atheists of yore. The book concludes with an appendix by New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright, arguing for the coherence of Christian belief in the resurrection. Flew praises Wright, though he maintains some distance still from orthodox Christianity. The book will be most avidly embraced by traditional theists seeking argumentative ammunition. It sometimes disappoints: quoting other authorities at length, citing religion-friendly scientists for pages at a time and belaboring side issues, like the claim that Einstein was really a religious believer of sorts.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:40 am Posts: 25451 Location: 111 Archer Ave.
simple schoolboy wrote:
He's about to die and has suddenly found religion? ORly?
yeah?
wikipedia wrote:
In December 2004, an interview with Flew conducted by Flew's friend and philosophical adversary Gary Habermas was published in Biola University's Philosophia Christi, with the title Atheist Becomes Theist - Exclusive Interview with Former Atheist Antony Flew. Flew agreed to this title.[1] According to the introduction, Flew informed Habermas in January 2004 that he had become a deist,[1] and the interview took place shortly thereafter. Then the text was amended by both participants over the following months prior to publication. In the article Flew states that he has left his long-standing espousal of atheism by endorsing a deism of the sort that Thomas Jefferson advocated ("While reason, mainly in the form of arguments to design, assures us that there is a God, there is no room either for any supernatural revelation of that God or for any transactions between that God and individual human beings."). Flew states that certain philosophical and scientific considerations had caused him to rethink his lifelong support of atheism.
Flew's conception of God as explained in the interview is limited to the idea of God as a first cause. He rejects the ideas of an afterlife, of God as the source of good (he explicitly states that God has created "a lot of" evil), and of the resurrection of Jesus as an historical fact though he has allowed a short chapter arguing for Christ's resurrection to be added into his latest book. He is particularly hostile to Islam, and says it is "best described in a Marxian way as the uniting and justifying ideology of Arab imperialism."[1]
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
flew seems like a bit of a wackjob to me.
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
Breakthroughs in science, especially cosmology, also played a part: if the speed or mass of the electron were off just a little, no life could have evolved on this planet.
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