thought of the day.415

Following the Argument Wherever it Leads

Excerpt from a tribute about Antony Flew, 1923–2010

“As a species our hunger for answers is insatiable. So desperate are we to understand the universe around us that for untold centuries we have refused to accept any “gap” in that understanding. Unexplained phenomena are the spawning grounds for ghost stories, sea monsters, grassy knolls, and a Divine Mind.

Antony Flew understood this as well as anyone. He devoted a lifetime of vigorous intellectual argument against presuming God. Today we are asked to accept that he has changed his mind. With asterisks in hand, we accept.

Could we make a cogent argument “pointing to” his age and capacity as factors that might mitigate a change of this magnitude? We could. Are there uncertainties that could warrant a tenable challenge to the motives of those individuals surrounding Flew, with regard to his “conversion” and the curiously construction and authorship of the book? There are. Should the publishers bear any responsibility for preventing misperceptions concerning the disclosure of would-be ghostwriters? They should.

There is little hope of ever reconciling the Antony Flew of 87 years with the Antony Flew of 27 years. Did he change his mind, or did his mind change him?

History will record Antony Flew as a deist; Annis Flew confirmed that for us all. History, I fear, becomes an unwitting conspirator, forever defiled.

With so many varied aspects to this story, it is easy to forget that which matters most. Antony Garrard Newton Flew, philosopher, professor, author, atheist pioneer, and devoted husband, is now gone. For more than 60 years this thinker, this man of great intellect, marched to a different drum and followed the argument. We owe him much.

The last of the old guard, Professor Flew’s festschrift deserves to be written with admiration and respect for a distinguished philosopher. As Annis said to me, her accent reminiscent of British Royalty and her voice never wavering, “I am so very proud to have known him.”

~ Kenneth Grubbs

thought of the day.414

Christians I have spoken with have suggested atheism leads to Stalinesque mass murder. That it requires belief in God to be good. But unlike Christianity whose scriptures reveal a God who commits, condones, or commands ecocide, genocide, infanticide, murder, rape, slavery, destruction of property, torture, and so on, atheism is simply the lack of belief in such a wicked character. Seems praising such a character as holy and perfect is much more likely to lead to similar acts.

thought of the day.413

“There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

thought of the day.412

While conversing about the believer’s trauma of abandoning the practice of praying to a deity, my friend Stephen Marley noted the benefits of a “Transition from begging for guidance or favors from a mythological hero to an act of pure introspection and a positive appreciation for the realities of life.” This seems far healthier, more honest and nobler than fooling ourselves into thinking we have the ear of an invisible King of the Universe anxious to use his omnipotence to answer our petitions.