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Dec. 18, 2004 A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half- century has changed his mind. He now believes in God — more or less — based on scientific evidence. At 81, after decades of insisting that belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super- intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Mr. Flew said. Mr. Flew said he is best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, who believed God was not actively involved in people's lives. (A "deist" is a polite word for over educated unbeliever) "I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian - He's got that right! - and far and away from the God of Islam because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. What are the odds that the "god" of Islam and Mr. Flew's "more or less god" are quite possibly gods of a feather attempting to fool us together? "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose." All of you actual persons out there who are "beings A. WITHOUT intelligence and B. WITHOUT purpose", raise your hands. Well Mr. Flew, I do not see one hand. Of course intelligence and purpose is involved except in the hallowed halls of atheism and evolution which clings to the formula that Nobody TIMES Nothing EQUALS Everything. Mr. Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis. I have yet to hear of anyone making a "Godly mark" going up against C.S. Lewis. I can hear Mr. Lewis even now lecturing the young errant Flew. Over the years, Mr. Flew has proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates. (Could the UNIVERSE be considered as "evidence" Mr. Flew or is that too obvious?) As a matter of fact Mr. Flew, speaking of "evidence", what about your hero Charles Darwin who said: "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection - EVOLUTION, for those of you at Life's Happy Hour - seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." "Absurd" was the word Mr. Darwin used, Mr. Flew, when referring to your sacred cow, evolution. "Absurd!" Mr. Darwin couldn't even believe his own silly (non)"scientific" contentions Mr. Flew. Now you too are doubting them? For me that just may come under the heading of progress. "There was no one moment of change, but a gradual conclusion over recent months" Flew claimed. Could this be just reaching the age of "81" and advancing toward the end of life's trail with the potential of facing one's "non- maker" maybe? Mr. Flew, is pictured as a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife. No rush Mr. Flew, you are a mere 81. The rich man of Luke 16 may have some insight for you sir. He too thought himself invincible and independent of God's obvious creation. Mr. Flew goes on, "yet biologists' investigation of DNA has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce [life], that intelligence must have been involved," Mr. Flew says in the new video "Has Science Discovered God?" DNA has become an insurmountable mountain for these bogus skeptics. But, could we just have accidentally stumbled upon the real purpose for this slow "transition" from "no God" to Mr. Flew's ethereal somewhat potential "more or less higher power"? Maybe the desire to sell a video is behind this "transition"? You think? Say it ain't so Mr. Flew. That DNA stuff has become like fox holes for the (repentant) soldiers. DNA makes one think about the absurdity of "accidental natural selection". The video was drawn from a New York discussion in May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Mr. Flew; Mr. Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews. Now there is a high profile group of Bible Dumpers! The first hint of Mr. Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote. "Inordinately difficult"? Is that anything like Darwin's "absurd in the highest degree" related to his natural selection or your own "super-intelligence" being "the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature"? I think we are maybe making progress. First Darwin doubted. Now Flew is doubting also? Do I hear their pet, self-serving evolutionary formula of "Nobody TIMES Nothing EQUALS Everything" taking a very long sabbatical? The letter commended arguments in Mr. Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God" and "The Wonder of the World" by Mr. Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman. Could it be that Schroeder and Varghese have not been listening? This week, Mr. Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Press. Now not just a video but a new book also? No problem Mr. Flew, I am a pure capitalist. Sell it. Make the bucks. Maybe Mr. Flew wishes to cash in, knowing the gullibility of the evolutionists before abandoning completely his more and more disgraced and irrational theory of evolution. Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well "that's too bad," Mr. Flew said. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads." That is great advice. "Follow the evidence." What are the chances that the "evidence" would come from the Word of God and result in Godly conclusions relative to the Creator, the Savior, and the Lord? Or would that be a tad radical? After all sir, who should know more about "God and Philosophy" then the eternal philosopher God Himself? The creator of the brain. The creator of the brain wave. The creator of thought. But, we progress. Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Mr. Flew on an atheistic Website. Mr. Carrier assured atheists that Mr. Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife. A "minimal God" is movement from "no God" in what direction Mr. Carrier? Is "minimal" more then none Mr. Carrier? Mr. Flew's "name and stature are big" Richard went on and on and on, hoping that his leader was still in his atheistic camp. So was the rich man of Luke 16 "big" but he was willing to trade it ALL for just a drop of water to cool his tongue after only moments in Hades, Mr. Carrier. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up," Mr. Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Mr. Flew's reversal, he said, "Apart from curiosity, I don't think it's like a big deal." Mr. Flew told the Associated Press that his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts that it can explain the ultimate origins of life. Maybe you missed it earlier Mr. Carrier when I mentioned that not even Darwin believed his own self- serving origin concoctions - I sighted one of them. Now I ask you, in which hallowed hall of higher hypocrisy have you heard this Darwinian doubt taught that I just brought you? Certainly not in your public schools. And Mr. Carrier, there is NO explanation for the "ultimate origins of life" within disgraced evolution. Don't believe me. Refer to the first paragraph of this article where your leader Flew said:"A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature." A Methodist minister's son, Mr. Flew became an atheist at 15. Methodism - hold your ears John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and MaMa Wesley - has long ago jettisoned the God who IS, the God who CAME to earth, and the God who wrote THE Book. THE Book, in Methodism, is not what it once was, THE final authority. Methodism has become nothing more then a social center that sells pumpkins at Halloween and trees at the Wonderful Winter Solace, formerly known in normal circles as Christmas. Early in his career, Flew argued that skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything. Early in his career he was wrong. Late in his career he is still wrong. For a half a century I bought into Mr. Flew's foolishness. It was convenient. I subscribed to Mr. Flew's cunningly devised fables. I embraced Mr. Flew's engaging fodder. I "felt" intellectually advanced. The Apostle Paul - maybe the most intellectually complete human package that ever lived - faced just this same challenge of intellectual snobbery and individual superiority in his day and his answer then and my answer now is the same: "For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." (1 CO 1:22- 24) One day, by God's grace, by His mercy, and through His written, eternal, and flawless Word, I found what Mr. Flew gives no evidence of receiving, eternal salvation. I found what Mr. Flew remains light years removed (yet potentially a simple decision of faith away from) eternal life through Jesus Christ, the Creator, Savior, the Messiah, the Lord, and the soon coming King of Kings. Is Professor Flew Molting or Melting? Not even close. His "new" message is as old as The Garden of Eden when the father of lies - Flew's father - began his earthly seduction and enlisted others like Flew to be his messengers. What Mr. Flew offers now is just slick Marketing of the same old eternally damming feel-good Mush as the serpent presented to gullible Eve, to lazy Adam, and to you and me if we are not aware of THE Book. It takes a ton of faith to believe Flew. It takes faith the size of a Mustard Seed to believe God. It takes a second birth from above, though, to believe and embrace 1. God IS! 2. He CAME to earth! 3. He wrote THE Book! Have you been born again? Have you embraced the God that IS, the God that CAME to earth, and the God who wrote THE Book of books? Have you too concluded that "a super- intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature?" His name is Jesus Christ; God, Savior, and Author of THE Book. "Before Abraham was, I AM" He said. Give full consideration to him today, right this moment please. If I can help to introduce Him to you it would be my pleasure. ------------ About the author: In a world with information increasingly slanted toward personal, organizational, and national gain, only one issue exists as a motivation for Chef Mike's thinking and writing and it is truth. "What is truth?" Pilate asked. Truth is "whatever (and exclusively what) God says; directly or by implication related to all subjects". Chef Mike says Tradition is good but Truth Trumps Tradition! THREE foundational presuppositions (starting points of thought in pursuit of truth) should design our conclusions: 1. God IS! The Existence of a Creator is DEMANDED by His creation. Could anything be more obvious? What do YOU possess that just accidentally assembled itself? 2. He CAME to earth! Had He not come personally, we would all have a case against God. He handled it completely and conclusively. 3. He wrote THE Book! The Book He wrote is flawless. The Book He wrote (through men) is "The Owner's Manual". After these THREE starting points of thought, everything in life has an answer. The answers are not guaranteed to be easy (or even palatable) answers but everything has an available Godly answer. Every subject that can come up, under all circumstances, at all times, with no exceptions, must trace potential answers back to these THREE starting points of thought, which God has authorized, to be a Godly answer. All persons, all organizations, and all nations have potential answers based on these THREE foundational presuppositions. A. R. Mike Maikowski - Chef Mike - writes from a common man's perspective even though he is degreed twice in The Bible and in Christian Education. He has worked in radio, in television, in entertainment, and since 1959 in the Food Service Industry as a Chef, an Entrepreneur, and a Director of Operations. Chef Mike speaks with this unique, broad background yet truth, the unbridled facts, no matter what the subject, is his only pursuit. Pull up a chair to the Chef's Kitchen Table, Help Yourself, Think About It, and Pass It Around. Chef Mike www.ChefMikesKitchen.com Tampa Email: armike@tampabay.rr.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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