MOVING TO THE FRONT from 12/15/04: The plot thickens...read on!
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Many people by now have e-mailed me links to the various stories about the embrace of belief in God by English philosopher and longtime atheist Antony Flew, who is now in his early 80s. Here is one interview in which Flew explains his change of belief, attributing it to the "scientific" [sic] evidence for Intelligent Design. I haven't posted this, because there really isn't much to say. His understanding of the putative "science" is not, shall we say, robust, and old age, as we know, takes its toll on people in many different ways. This is more an embarrassment for Flew than some triumph for creationism. But so many folks have e-mailed me about it, I figured I should post something.
Sad.
UPDATE: Gilbert Harman (Philosophy, Princeton) observes: "What's interesting is that there are no headlines about famous believers who become atheists, or anyway I don't remember such headlines..." Nor do I.
Meanwhile, various readers point out that Flew may not have renounced atheism, as this somewhat strange, and tepid, affirmation of it suggests. But that just heightens the import of Professor Harman's question: why is it that an alleged embrace of theism by an atheist is deemed so newsworthy, while the converse (which must surely happen) is not?
AND ANOTHER UPDATE: Len Cleavlin writes:
In your post on this subject you cited the "infamous" Rationalist International Bulletin #137, which cites the "Sorry to Disappoint, But I'm Still An Atheist" essay from The Secular Web. That "Sorry to Disappoint" essay is from August of 2001, and is probably not completely indicative of Flew's current views (see the actual webpage, which notes that.
A better indicator of Flew's current views is this summary of Richard Carrier's correspondence with Flew [scroll down to December 2004 Updates].
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