Atheist defects ! Man the barricades !

Hmmmm, Fresco. Sounds as though Anthony "flew over the cuckoo's Nest", but I believe that he is on to something, really.

Can you explain to me exactly what a ninth configuration is supposed to signify?

Why is this important ... or even interesting ?

There are Christians who become atheists and Atheists who become Christians all the time.

I know many atheists who were converted to Christianity. I was a Christian who left the faith to become agnostic. I know Christians who became Moslem.

So what was the point?

ebrown, everything is interesting and important, even the NEA.<smile>

Seriously, I think that this is the time of year when all take a look at our beliefs and try and sort them out. Like your Einstein quote, incidentally.

In a way this is more interesting than it would be if an ordinary person had been converted. A conversion is overwhelmingly emotional, a kind of giving over of yourself to something you can't see or prove. For Anthony Flew, it represents a scientist's view of something he has examined thoroughly in his career, it isn't an epiphany of religious hysteria. It is a thoughtful theory of why the world works as it does, how it came into being and what was the force that caused such an incomprehensibly complex universe.

To me, when thoughts of the origin of the universe are discussed by scientists, especially those using quantum theory, the surreal theories are no more amazing than some super human intelligence that was playing a game, with consequences that were exqusitely beautiful and some that were ugly and tragic. Call it god or quantum theory--who knows what the real name might be.

I'll remain a curious agnostic.

(Letty,

I take you mean the movie of that name which I havn't yet seen. I'll perhaps get back to you on that)

ebrown_p

I agree with Diane. Flew is not just anybody. It may be that his age mitigates against an understanding of "complexity theory" and associated fields in mathematics and chemistry which have been utilised in explanations of "the nature and origin of life" (See for example Kauffman "At Home in the Universe" 1995). However irrespective of such technical issues I am surprised that he would be content with a potential infinite regress involving the "the origin of God".

As ebrown has pointed out, there are rock solid atheists and there are atheists who can be disuaded. Just like the religious. I feel that people who believe in a disinterested intelligence directing the universe are not truly divorced from the notion of a bearded old human-looking god that does magic tricks.

Some say we are nothing more than a complex code running on a super computer in a parrallel universe. If the theory is true, then who or what is the programmer?

There must be a god(s), the earth could not get this f*ucked up by itself. Then again-------.mankind is an industrious sort.

Dyslexia,

Flew's "God" doesn't interfere with "his creation".

No matter what Anthony Flew called himself earlier...it was obvious from what he said that he was an agnostic guessing that there were no gods.

Now...his guessing seems to have changed...and he is an agnostic guessing that a "god" of some kind was involved in "intelligent design" of the universe.

Nearly as I can tell...there is a lot less change than people are making of it.

Sarah

That point of view is not very far from Aristotle.
To Aristotle, God would be the programmer. But when he finished the programing, he left the room and never came back.

Those who despise the Christian God and then say that a spark of intelligence had to at least begin everything are in accord with the Christian God after all.

Anyone ascribing intelligence to the forming of the universe is ascribing a human trait and therefore only different by degrees from Christians.

It doesn't really matter what we think collectively; it matters what we think individually.

Fresco, I'm not as concerned with the movie, The Ninth Configuration (read the book, too) but with the expression. Has it something to do with the gene and DNA? Was it Blatty's way of explaining creation?

Some bits from interview with Prof Flew in The Sunday Times.Dec19.

"...he has confessed to being unable to keep up with the literature."

I asked the postman and he confessed the same.

"According to Flew,the video is proving a money spinner.'I've got some shares in it.Varghese thinks it's going to make a profit.All the fuss is based on the video.'"

These philosophers eh?What can anybody say.
He's obviously taking Voltaire's line

spendius

While i fully disagree with Anthony Flew's stated new view of the need for an external intelligence to guide complexity, i have every respect for his decision to state his change of philosophical 'position' on the subject.

(Perhaps the side effect of a bout with Anthony Flu,) this new outlook has no evidential basis, and is, like any allusion to 'intelligence' as the 'solution' to the question of the origin of life, from inanimate ingredients on this planet, a sortie down a meaningless road.

Professor Flew is merely, and impressively following the practice of a lifetime, in going publicly where his powers of deduction are taking him.

[this is not a point for the 'creationists' over the 'chance/chaos' team; since life is not a debate to be won, but a fascinating question to be examined!]

I'm an atheist, an' by God, i ain'ta gonna change ! ! !

The article says he's a philosopher, not a scientist. While one can be both, I don't get the impression that Flew was particularly qualified to deduce the implications of complexity in the Universe.

In addition, Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives.

"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.

Unlike Christian literalism, Deism faces no conflict with nature.

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