Mr Flew's "pilgrimage of reason" is to be commended.
Some famous geezer once wrote-
Quote:...it is a great error of judgement to have lived for what may fail us.
A Jesuit priest actually.
The necessary hegemony of the atheist's (anti-IDers) ego renders being caught in flagrante delicto with an error of judgement very discomfiting.
Because, in the mass of the population, emotion is a far greater force than reason (see Superbowl tit) and spectacularly reinforced by habit, custom, ceremonies, traditions and human limitations (the historical psuedomorphosis) anti-ID cannot possibly win the argument and those who are in bed with it can never admit it as to do so would undo the very buttons of their being. The moreso the longer they have perpetuated the error. Which is why they must rely on assertions shouted louder and louder, and carefully selected quotes are a form of assertion, and why they refuse to discuss the social consequences of their position preferring instead to indulge themselves by imagining this is an abstract discussion in which people are mere objects.
The absolute horror an anti-IDer has of being caught in an error of judgement runs so deep and is so powerful that recovering him from the error is well nigh impossible and only a fool would attempt it. Its bigotry is built of bricks.
But those not yet fallen into the bottomless abyss of atheism may be served warning by this thread of the dangers of doing so which can be seen in a large number of anti-ID posts.
The continuous and seemingly never ending style-free stupidity of anti-IDers (it is stupid to recommend radical changes to the educational system without reference to the potential consequences) cannot possibly be mistaken by any half-way decent practitioner of the English language or common-sense. I know of no atheist writer I can admire.
Their huddling up together, almost bundling, can only serve to kid themselves that they are not in an error of judgement as also does their highly attenuated use of "evidence" which, as with wande's most judicious choices, is somewhat questionable to say the least.
In any imagined fantasy where the ID side was liquidated anti-IDers would be fighting like cats and dogs. It is only ID that holds them together.
In the pub last night I asked an avowed atheist to describe a society in which his view had triumphed. He hadn't a clue. The thought of it had never entered his head. He thought things would remain just as they are except that there would be more people agreeing with him. I suspect that he has encouraged one of his daughters to abort an unwanted baby and he is thus caught having to defend an error of judgement.
If one kept one's atheism to oneself, as La Mettrie did, and ceased to use it in the service of the ego's control freakery (the correct definition of sadism by the way), one would not risk being caught in a "great error of judgement".
Mr Flew has seemingly bitten the bullet which is why he is to be commended.
