elyettoner wrote:There is evidence for a creator god and even in favour of that god being the Yahweh of the Bible. But as with evidence for everything, it can be interpreted in different ways, in which case someone's always right and someone's always wrong. Often, but not always, the outcome is determined on both sides of the debate by the belief already held by the one looking at the evidence, but this is not always the case. I'm sure Anthony Flew, for example, who may have been described by Dawkins (without evidence, funnily enough) as senile (perhaps because he defected? Doesn't do Dawkins' campaign much good), decided there was a god because of evidence, not just on a whim. Equally so, Christians have also stopped believing in the God of the Bible because of evidence.
Despite this being an obvious appeal to authority I feel that the 'old' Flew needs some defending.
Anthony Flew, let it be known, has converted from atheism to a form of deism. What was the non-whimsical piece of evidence that swayed him? The argument from design.
Yes that's right, Paley's watchmaker argument that was obliterated almost 200 years ago and is disregarded by any half-witted theologist, was that which sold Flew. Nevermind any points about cosmic "fine tuning", nevermind about the uncaused cause. Nope it was the most simplistic creationist argument that did it for him. Did he tell us of his conversion in his own words? No, his "confession" was ghost written for him by none other than famed christian apologist Roy Abraham Varghese.
Since his confession Flew also, apparently, petitioned Tony Blair to have intelligent design taught in schools. Does this really sound like a man of sound mind? The same man who gave us the "No true Scotsman" fallacy is now petitioning to have magic taught in schools? Madness.
A nice piece on this fishy story in the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magaz ... .html?_r=1
