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Design arguments converted atheist Anthony Flew to theism (Talk.Origins)

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Response Article
This article (Design arguments converted atheist Anthony Flew to theism (Talk.Origins)) is a response to a rebuttal of a creationist claim published by Talk.Origins Archive under the title Index to Creationist Claims.


Claim CA115_1: Design arguments have caused philosopher Antony Flew to renounce 66 years of atheism and admit that the universe is created. Specifically, he was convinced by the complexity of life and the improbability of abiogenesis.

Source: Yahya, Harun. n.d. The scientific world is turning to God. http://www.harunyahya.com/articles/70scientific_world.html

CreationWiki response:

Talk Origins is correct that Flew only went as far as Deism, which is hardly biblical Christianity.

It is also true that some Creationists are all too eager to jump on the slightest hint of weakness on the other side, when it would be wiser to wait on events.

(Talk.Origins quotes in blue)

Flew's one and only piece of relevant evidence for accepting a deistic god was the apparent improbability of a naturalistic origin for life (Carrier 2004). Flew, by his own admission, had not kept up with the relevant science and was mistaught by Gerald Schroeder, a physicist and Jewish theologian (e.g., Schroeder 2001). He later conceded, "I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction" (Carrier 2005). Thus Flew's conversion is, by Flew's own admission, baseless.

Yahya's article seems to have been written in 2004, to judge by the dated references. He could hardly know about a future event.

From the latest available information, Flew seems to be floundering. This is a likely consequence of not being whole-hearted. (Consider Matthew 12:43-45.)


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