I Liked the Old Atheists Better

William Dembski

Philosopher Antony Flew used to be the most prominent atheist in the English-speaking world. In the last decade, however, that has changed.

Unlike Flew, who has always been civil and insightful, a new breed of atheists, who are crass and unruly, has supplanted him, notably, Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins. Also, Flew is no longer an atheist.

Flew’s newfound belief in God and his assessment of today’s neo-atheism are both described in his delightful new book (coauthored with Roy Varghese), There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

More here.

Posted by admin on Thursday, November 8, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Filed under Apologetics, Atheism, Creation / Evolution / Intelligent Design, Philosophy · Tagged with

Comments

5 Responses to “I Liked the Old Atheists Better”

Pau hana says:

November 11, 2007 at 10:40 am

Antony Flew appears not to be a co-author of “his” book “There Is a God.” Flew doesn’t even know what is is most of the book. See http://www.talkreason.org/articles/flew.cfm
admin says:

November 11, 2007 at 7:29 pm

Reply to Pau hana from an associate:

Perakh, also in his dotage, is writing anti-theistic books.

Flew was a leading philosopher, while the likes of Harris and Hitchens are rank amateurs with a loud voice.

But since he is no longer an atheist, it must be because he’s senile.

A lot of Perakh’s criticisms of Schroeder are irrelevant nit-picks, and in another case he whinged about the way people transliterated Hebrew characters (that was actually standard, but Perakh was ignorant).
Pau hana says:

November 12, 2007 at 5:43 am

Mark Perakh speaks and writes for himself; we can judge his state of mind directly. But these days we hear from Antony Flew only through others.

Flew might or might not have been senile when he inched across the border from outright atheism to the vaguest form of deism. The claim is that, according to Perakh’s evidence, Flew does not even remember the contents of the latest book he has supposedly written. Therefore, we cannot depend upon the book to represent his present views.

Post Notam: The above reply was from “an associate.” An associate of whom, please?
admin says:

November 12, 2007 at 7:25 am

An associate of ours.

Antony Flew and HarperCollins Respond to the New York Times article:

Here is Antony Flew’s response to the claim, made in the NY Times magazine article, that he did not write the book (from a press release issued by the publisher 11/7/2007):

“My name is on the book and it represents exactly my opinions. I would not have a book issued in my name that I do not 100 percent agree with. I needed someone to do the actual writing because I’m 84 and that was Roy Varghese’s role. The idea that someone manipulated me because I’m old is exactly wrong. I may be old but it is hard to manipulate me. This is my book and it represents my thinking.”

Harper One deputy publisher Mark Tauber adds,

“We stand behind this book. Roy Varghese took Tony’s thoughts and put them in publishable form. This is not an unusual practice.”

Tauber adds,

“Unfortunately, the NYT Magazine writer generalized from Flew’s aphasia to senility–which is far from accurate. Additionally, the NYT writer completely skipped the philosophical content of the book, dismissing Tony’s arguments for God’s existence in one word, calling it ‘pseudoscience’ and so insulting both Tony and anyone persuaded that these arguments might be true.”
Pau hana says:

November 13, 2007 at 8:36 am

Thank you, Associate of Yours, for the citation. Because of the way in which a number of people have attempted to extrapolate Flew’s views beyond what even he says they are, however, I shall remain somewhat susapicious.