The Turning of an Atheist

[Helios Panoptes]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

November 2007 article suggesting that Antony Flew no longer writes his own material and might be suffering from senility.

[Macrobius]

This is interesting only from the extent to which the NYT, a publication with an undeserved and in recent years patently falsifiable reputation, is willing to go to impeach the witness. Indeed, the whole piece is as indecent as Sotag's reflections on the bombing of Serbia, and will appeal to precisely the same vulgarity and crowd. (http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Sontag.html)

Surely, however, the attempted ad hominem will fail here -- if the arguments are rational they will stand on their own as the arguments of a philosopher, the failing memory of the man afterwards counting for nothing.

As for badgering an old man in this fashion, does it not have [insert ethnic] sensibility all over it? What trash. It bespeaks sheer panic, desperation, and misanthropy, deployed in the name of 'Reason'.

[Helios Panoptes]

It is a tad peculiar when an aging scholar changes his lifelong position, is persuaded by mailings from a stranger to abandon his new position, as Flew was convinced by Carrier according to the article, then shortly thereafter returns to it. It's also a bit strange when someone does not know the content of his own book (which was written recently) and cannot define some of its key, basic terms.

Arguments stand on their own merits, regardless of the conditions under which they were formulated and the arguer propounding them. However, this is not about evaluating the arguments. Rather, Flew was paraded around as an example of an atheist who became a theist because that is where his reason led him. This was seen as a symbolic victory of sorts. If the man is dazed and confused, it blunts the significance of his conversion.

[Hartmann von Aue]

Well, there's still controversy about Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists and their deathbeds, or at least their used to be, if the historian's guild has made up their mind.

Something like this is going to involve controversy regarding facts.

Although I don't know what it proves if someone changes their mind.

Except perhaps that religion is a question that man isn't going to "shake off."

[delete]

When you can get celebrated for your views, we run the danger that the ones that is able to formulate it the best, is not the ones with the deepest convictions. I don't say that is the case here, but it is a posibility, as the marxist had official atheism as a creed.

One example could be all the "patriots" that appear when it is beneficial to sound the war drum.

[delete]

Well, there's still controversy about Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists and their deathbeds, or at least their used to be, if the historian's guild has made up their mind.

Something like this is going to involve controversy regarding facts.

Although I don't know what it proves if someone changes their mind.

Except perhaps that religion is a question that man isn't going to "shake off."

I think the belief in God is genetical, and that some races are hardwired to have a lot of religious feelings, and are thus able to feel God, while others are born without this ability, and thus have no non drug induced religious experiences what so ever.

Man is a monkey, so my guess is that after-rationalisations, where the individual creates a story to explain a feeling he has, so that he can understand it, is more common than people who actually think logically of what is posible or not, based on the fact that he understands that he has a limited ability.

What is also probable, is that the religious feelings might increase with age, as other hormone induced feelings subdue in intensity.