Anthony Flew comments by Dawkins..

[Jeff Wagg]

Well, I'm not sure what to make of this. Illegal Instruction sent me a link to a site that had this letter from Anthony Flew which states that he has NEVER said that he was no longer an atheist and that the whole affair is a lie.

Does Dawkins need to be updated? Or am I missing something?

Here's the link:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=98

[Troylus]

Great link, Jeff!

I too must admit that I was taken in by the Flew flap. Some fellow at work who knows of my religious disinclinations gleefully sent me a link to some CNN or MSNBC story about Flew's supposed realigned religion and I believed it wholesale. As I recall, it was filled with quotes from Flew himself about how he now thought that the evidence added up in favor of a Designer.

That'll teach me to be more skeptical of those crazy media outlets, won't it!

[IllegalArgument]

Hey Jeff, it's IllegalArgument. No worries. ;)

Glad you enjoyed the link.

[Jeff Wagg]

Dammit, I knew I was going to get that wrong and I was too damn lazy to check it. My apologies. IllegalArgument has a much nicer ring to it!

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That is a statement that Flew made in 2001. Is he reaffirming it now? Apparently so:

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/20041212_en.html

Edited to add: Well, maybe, or something:

http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369

~~ Paul

[Jeff Wagg]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
That is a statement that Flew made in 2001. Is he reaffirming it now? Apparently so:

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/20041212_en.html

Edited to add: Well, maybe, or something:

http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369

~~ Paul

I looked for a date and couldn't find it. After reading the last article from October 2004, I have to agree that Dawkins may be on to something when he says that Flew has "lost it."

[WonderfulWorld]

Anthony Flew
I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations.
Certainly, it is only fair to observe that Aristotle was trying to apply logic to the problem of cosmogeny (as distinct from the stark "revelation" of the creationists), but is Professor Flew hoping that we won't notice that Aristotle's "Prime Mover" is as much a supernatural god as Jerry Falwell's? That a deist god is still a god?

Ignorance is not evidence. The fact that there is much we don't (yet) know is no reason at all to invent supernatural causes. "I don't know, ergo God" is not reasoning, so long as reasoning still involves...reason.

Mike.

[mummymonkey]

Originally posted by Jeff Wagg
Here's the link:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=98 Thanks for that link. Interesting site.

[Jeff Wagg]

Originally posted by mummymonkey
Thanks for that link. Interesting site.

The credit goes to IllegalArgument for the link.

Nice micro-evolutionary avatar you've got there. :)

I'll be spending three hours in a car with a creationist tomorrow..I'm sure those moths will come up in discussion.