One 'Flew' out of the Cuckoos Nest

[jase]

How do people feel about Antony Flew's reversal regarding the existence of God?

[vhawk01]

He basically believes in the God of Einstein and Spinoza right? Meh, hardly a win for the theists.

[Splendour]

Flew arrived at his theistic conclusion from new developments in DNA research. Flew says "What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements together. The enormous complexity by which the results were achieved look to me like the work of intelligence."

In an interview with Gary Habermas Flew also noted this:

HABERMAS: So of the major theistic arguments, such as the cosmological, teleological, moral, and ontological, the only really impressive ones that you take to be decisive are the scientific forms of teleology?

FLEW: Absolutely. It seems to me that Richard Dawkins constantly overlooks the fact that Darwin himself, in the fourteenth chapter of The Origin of Species, pointed out that his whole argument began with a being which already possessed reproductive powers. This is the creature the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. 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.

[TomCowley]

What a dumbass. To believe in god because "DNA is complex" and not because "The whole freaking universe we live in actually exists" is straight up retarded.

[Splendour]

[ QUOTE ]
What a dumbass. To believe in god because "DNA is complex" and not because "The whole freaking universe we live in actually exists" is straight up retarded.

[/ QUOTE ]


You got a point there Tom. I guess everyone has a different standard of evidence, but Flew's point was that there has been a significant change in the evidence pointing to a creator rather than away from it and a lot of that evidence has come since certain prominent Atheist philosphers have passed away and I guess he finds the new evidence more persuasive. I believe even Darwin was an agnostic, though, he started out as a theist.

[Subfallen]

I don't trust anyone who spends a career on the philosophy of religion. It smacks of intellectual cowardice and self-loathing.