For the past half century, the leading atheist in the world was philosopher Anthony Flew. He wrote over 30 philosophical works laying the intellectual groundwork for nonbelief. He debated Christian apologists. He was widely cited in atheist literature and at atheist conventions. What distinguished Flew was how comprehensive and fully-developed his atheist philosophy was. Other philosophers, such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, espoused atheist beliefs but those beliefs were incidental to their philosophy. Atheism was Flew's philosophy. HIs works such as Theology and Falsification and The Presumption of Atheism were considered classics of theist thought.
Then Anthony Flew became a believer, and his book There Is A God describes his intellectual journey. Go ahead and order this book, along with my new book, What's So Great About Christianity. Together the two books represent what atheism has always dreaded: historically based, philosophically rich, scientifically fluent, logically reasoned refutations of atheism.
Flew says he has a lifelong commitment to going "where the evidence leads." And now, he calmly says, the evidence leads to theism. His own past writings have been exposed as a "relic." Flew writes, "My discovery of the divine has proceeded on a purely natural level, without any reference to supernatural phenomena...It has had no connection with any of the revealed religions. Nor do I claim to have had any personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or miraculous. My discovery of the divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith."
Flew's argument for God combines science and philosophy, and I'll let you discover it for yourself in his book. What I enjoyed was the way he uses simple analogies to expose atheist illogic. For instance, leading atheists seek to prove that the mind is no more than the brain. If the brain is destroyed, they say, we can't use our minds. Therefore there is nothing to minds excerpt circuits and neurons. Flew gives the example of a child raised on a remote island who finds a satellite phone. Voices come out of the machine. The child recognizes these voices as human and is thrilled by the discovery that she has found a way to interact with other humans. Perhaps there is life outside the island! Then the elders of the tribe (if I may embellish Flew's account, let's call them Big Chief Dawkins, Grand Pooh Bah Dennett, and Witch Doctor Pinker) scorn the child and say, "Look, when we damage the instrument, the voices stop. So they're obviously nothing more than sounds produced by the unique combination of metals and circuit boards. Forget about learning about other humans. From all the evidence we have, we are the only living creatures on earth. So go back to making sandcastles." Who are the real dummies here?
Anthony Flew has been banished from the atheist community. Anthologies have been reprinted removing his essays. Atheist websites condemn him as an apostate. (Atheist toleration does not extend to former atheists.) He doesn't even make the case for Christianity, as I do. But Anthony flew out of the atheist cuckoo's nest, leaving anger and confusion among the unbelievers. And now Flew tells us why he rejects atheism. The atheist monopoly on public debate is over: the theists are striking back.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 23)
1. Atheistic monopoly on public debate? What reality-inverted planet are you on, sir?
Anthony Flew's well-publicized change of view is years old news. He didn't exactly hide his light under a bushel. Why bring it up now other than as a commercial exercise?
Steve at 9:25AM on Oct 10th 2007
2. So what? I had a friend in high school that 'found' god just about every week - then went back to getting high as usual. If he has found some spiritual awakening and it makes him happy, then congrats to him.
It is incredibly easy in this culture to be wrapped in the warm embrace of a God idea, and the community and universal beliefs of a church structure are appealing to those who are alone, lost, confused, or were raised under a particular denomination.
I am surprised there is such an active 'atheist' culture; I think a lot of their pointed, outspoken critics (Dawkins, who is a fantastic writer) feel the need to make their opinions public simply because it is so far outside the norm. The majority of people are at least noddingly accepting of the organized religion that permeates our culture, if not rabidly zealous. Let those who don't really need it live in peace, would you?
EO at 9:33AM on Oct 10th 2007
3. Old news. Obviously, D'Idiot needs to hitch his snake oil wagon to another horse in order to get anyone to pay attention.
If Flew is happy wrapping himself in the comfort of the Jesus Myth and the Fairy Tale God, then may it bring him security. But just because he fears a non-existent hell/afterlife doesn't mean it's any more real than Shangri-La or Santa's home at the North Pole.
Tim at 9:46AM on Oct 10th 2007
4. Wow--as if this proves anything.
Hey Dinesh: if that proves there is a god, then Dan Barker's deconversion proves there is no god. MORON!
Dinesh: just give up. You have nothing but the same old refuted-to-death apologetics ala McDowell and Zacharaias. Especially stupid is your belief that the mind is something more than the brain. When a person is lobotomized (say, by believing a silly myth about virgin births and crap like that), the person's personality changes. IDIOT!
As for "atheistic monopoly on public debate"--talk about a blatant lie. I guess Josh McDowell, CS Lewis, the pope, etc etc. do not exist, right? MORON! LIAR!
Knight_of_BAAWA at 9:50AM on Oct 10th 2007
5. The satellite-phone analogy might sound convincing... until you actually study neurology.
Consider aphasia. One type, Broca's aphasia, seems to fit the naive model. Sufferers are generally able to understand the speech of others, but have great difficulty speaking themselves. But then there's Wernicke's Aphasia. Victims can speak fluently, but comprehension is gone. They speak in what has been termed "word salad"; a stream of meaningless gibberish. If you put two patients next to each other, they may have an entire conversation of nonsense... and they won't realize it. Sufferers of Wernicke's aphasia not only don't understand language, they don't understand *that* they don't understand. Despite being unable to communicate verbally, they usually seem entirely untroubled by it, or, indeed, to even notice something's missing.
Damage to the brain doesn't just damage 'mechanical' capacities, it damages *awareness*, and it does so in fundamental ways. (What if damage to the satellite phone didn't just make the voices stop, but made them spout "word salad"?)
What exactly is it that the soul is supposed to do... that isn't eliminated by one form of brain damage or another? Why isn't Occam's Razor justified here?
If you'd like to learn more, try actually reading a book by Daniel Dennett, or any book by Oliver Sacks (a neurologist who writes like he swallowed a poet), or (for a really challenging but enjoyable read) "Goedel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter.
Ray Ingles at 10:08AM on Oct 10th 2007
6. Do you pay AOL for ad space promoting your loser book? Should I get a discount on my subscription for your continual "free" buy my book pleas?
RMWiersema at 10:19AM on Oct 10th 2007
7. I find it interesting that so many of the people who oppose the thesis suggested by Flew and D'Souza rely heavily on logical fallacies (ad hominem attacks, straw man, and red herring, false analogy, to name just a few) to make their points. Where's the rational debate? Or did logic go the way of civil discourse?
Maggie at 10:34AM on Oct 10th 2007
8. Obviously no one is buying your crappy book or you could bastain from doing the blog ads about it.
Jimmy Hoffa at 10:46AM on Oct 10th 2007
9. Dinesh:
Though I do not always agree with you, I must admit that your blogs, as well as your books, make sense and are well reasoned. I'm addicted to this blog and am looking forward to reading your new book.
kulari94 at 10:48AM on Oct 10th 2007
10. I ask you, humbly, if there were a God, wouldn't it be obvious?
gd at 10:51AM on Oct 10th 2007
11. Dinesh, if Anthony Flew now believes God, that is irrelevant to whether I'm warranted in believing in God. You may have committed the fallacy of an appeal to authority. I don't think Flew has access to important information that I don't about whether God exists, so I'm not reliant on him to make warranted inferences about whether God exists. It is not as if we are trying to whether there are other planets in the universe, and Flew has access to high-power telescopes that I don’t.
And even if Flew does have access to important information that I don't on the subject of whether God exists, experts often are wrong. Duane Gish has a PhD in paleontology, and he claims that planet earth is about 6,000 years old. So, that an expert claims X does not, by itself, enable me to determine that X is true.
Moreover, there are people who would seem to have at least as much expertise as Flew on the matter of whether God exists who don't believe in God. Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, is an example. Richard Feynman is another. I suspect that most professional philosophers are atheists or agnostics. Most that I know are.
Wes at 10:55AM on Oct 10th 2007
12. I SEE THE EVIL OF THOSE THAT "DONT" BELIEVE! SOME OF WHICH "SAY" THEY DO!
BUT ARE REALLY ATHEISTS INSIDE, AND IT THEN MAKES ME THANK GOD "I BELIEVE!!!
MEL at 10:56AM on Oct 10th 2007
13. Yes Maggie, where did the rational debate go? Dinesh's constant lies prevent a rational discourse from him.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 11:14AM on Oct 10th 2007
14. That the divine is everpresent implies neither a personal God nor an eternal individual consciousness. Neuroscience does not imply materialism. There is a reason why "religion" is ultimately about personal decision - in a rational world with rational people, that is.
Stuart Steinman at 11:16AM on Oct 10th 2007
15. quote FROM ABOVE: "For the past half century, the leading atheist in the world was philosopher Anthony Flew. ...He debated Christian apologists..."
Flew's bad legacy of atheism was to promote his "situation ethics" which eager students put into practice as some of the rationale for the 1960's sexual revolution...that whole mess which damaged persons & their young...
i.e. I remember reading some of his "Situation Ethics" a bit after the sexual revolution started...His philosophy (as I remember) reduced moral choices to "whatever fits the situation".
As I know from my own self, it's easy to cook up a "situation ethic" to justify any behavior which formerly (under the 10 commandments for instance) would have been called piggish and selfish and disrespectful of others.
I hope Mr. Flew continues to follow "where the evidence leads" as he may NOW lead some lost souls out of the postmodern wilderness....
vikingmother at 11:34AM on Oct 10th 2007