Famous Atheist Now Believes in God
At age 81, after decades of insisting 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, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.
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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," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"
This bit is particularly interesting:
"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."
I wonder how Christians will react to having their god described as a "cosmic Saddam Hussein".
2 comments:
I think the guy, being old and a popular Atheist, probably couldn't care what "Christians" would think. I wonder if that attitude is good or bad.
Still, he's free to draw parallels most people would not. He's even got a point; Fear God, Love God. THose are the instructions. Saddam...most dictators, really, use similar tactics..."Fear me, Love me," they demand, and it tends to work, for a while.
Like Saddam, some of God's people are fanatics and will kill you for disagreeing with them. Some reject him entirely. Unlike Saddam, God can't be overthrown.
The key to understanding the parallel is to realize that God came first (Even if you don't believe in God, you have to admit there was a God before there was a Saddam Hussien). Saddam stole God's methods. He wasn't the first to do so. Does anyone recall the "Divine Right of Kings"? Same stuff, different era.
Sam
my theology teacher mentioned this article to the class on friday. flew's belief is most similar to that of a deist's: god created us, but has no intervention in our daily lives. in my opinion, that, although a big step from atheism, is not really that far off from atheism.
anyways, atheism is about empowering the self, so i don't think his conversion will make too big of a ripple in the long run, since his "followers" are individuals in the first place.
still, that headline is really effective isn't it?
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