Antony Flew's Bizarre
Pontifications on Christianity
Antony Flew, a first class thinker and atheist let
himself down by writing There is a God. But at least he still does not
give us a God like the Christian one!
Flew touched in the head?
Flew has been suspected of suffering from some mental weakness in his old age
for changing his mind about God. Certainly he says now there is a God and makes
no effort to deal with the problems that surround God. The notion of a God
making a universe by merely commanding it to exist and who is not using any
power to make the universe needs to be seen as more ridiculous than any witch
turning a toad into a prince. Flew just fell into the Christian way which is
making complicated and intelligent looking arguments but ignoring anything that
successfully debunks the argument. Most Christians cherry-pick the faith and all
Christians cherry-pick the truth.
When you turn to page 185 you see how Flew speaks of Christianity as the one
religion that deserves the most respect and honour even if it is false does not
sound like the rational Antony Flew. This is an insult to secular humanism and
to every religion on earth and especially coming from somebody that is not a
Christian!
Flew surely knows that this faith is based on the lies of gospel writers who
mutilated and twisted Old Testament texts to make it seem they miraculously
predicted Jesus so that we should know he was the Son of God and the Messiah.
Surely he knows Christians to this day tell lies to maintain the undeserved
prestige of their Jesus. Jesus called his mother woman at a wedding when she
asked him to help for the wine had run out. He snapped that the problem had
nothing to do with him. Christians say that he was not being disrespectful for
he was calling her woman in terms of the promise of God in Genesis that Woman
would mother the saviour. So they turn it into an honour not a cold piece of
disrespect. Their answer is very implausible. It is like saying that when
somebody calls his mother a fucker that it is not fucker he meant but fucker in
some other language that means, "Parent who I adore." They say his snap was the
truth and it only looks like a snap for the author of the gospel only picked out
certain things of what happened and were said that day. The best answer is to
take him as rude. Christians would be doing that if it were the Muslim prophet
Muhammad in the story not Jesus. They have no business saying they know Jesus
never sinned or was rude when that is a possible interpretation of the event.
Are they psychic? The simplest understanding is that he was rude. Once you
disregard the obvious interpretation and the simplest you go off the track. You
end up being about bias and prejudice rather than faith.
How can Flew think that a religion based on a Jesus who said that loving God is
the greatest commandment and the second greatest is love of neighbour as oneself
deserves special praise? The way God is put first certainly is no better than
the twisted idea, love others not yourself or love your neighbour more than
yourself. It implies that the worst thing that Jack the Ripper did was not in
his killing the women but in how he defied God to do it! The God concept is why
religion of God is so intolerant and bigoted and has led to so much blood shed.
It warps people. If you expect people to love you as much as they love
themselves your life will be full of disappointment and anger. Jesus wants you
to feel as much pain as others do when they are bereaved or suffer for if you
love others as yourself you will suffer as they suffer. Had Jesus not intended
that he would have commanded, "Respect others and be always there to cheerfully
help them" which would take away the burdensomeness.
Nutty bishop
Flew's letting the nutty Anglican bishop of Durham, Wright, write Appendix B for
the book is bizarre. The chapter uses terribly weak arguments to verify the
Jesus resurrection accounts in the New Testament.
Flew's Deism
On the bright side, Flew's God is more of a deistic God. You could believe in a
deist God and still agree with the principle that man has to decide what is best
for us not religion or God as much as an atheist or humanist would.
Flew is a Deist not a Theist. A Deist believes in a God who makes all things but
who does not do miracles, give revelations or answer prayer. A Theist believes
in a God who does all these things. Deism is more rational than theism. Theism
has the stupid idea that God loves us though he hides himself and that this is
good for us for it requires us to have faith and not knowledge. If God is love
that means it must be bad for us to know that love. That of course is crazy. And
a God who is concerned that religious charlatans are saying, "God is hiding the
truth from us to test us. Believe what he has told us to tell you. Just have
faith" will not and cannot hide.
For Christianity Today to award Flew's book and promote it and for Christians to
be boasting that Flew agrees with them on God is scandalous. He does not. The
God of Deism is not the God of Jesus Christ. Flew does say at the end of the
book that God might give revelation for God is all-powerful. Many Deists have
said and say the same but they hold there is no convincing evidence that any
religion is really based on what God has revealed. And when God has not spoken
in the countless centuries man has been around he will not speak now. Flew has
let himself be turned into a banner for a faith when he is not a proper banner
at all. The Christian faith is lying and giving false impressions about him.
CONCLUSION
One could probably be happier with Flew if he had stuck to promoting deism. But
the endorsement of Christianity by dreadful individuals who dress up speculation
and lies as gospel truth shows he was letting himself be manipulated.
GOD, THE FAILED HYPOTHESIS, HOW SCIENCE SHOWS THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST, Victor J
Stenger, Prometheus Books, New York, 2008
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, Edited by Michael Martin, Cambridge
University Press, New York, 2007
THE LANGUAGE OF BELIEF, A SCIENTIST PRESENTS EVIDENCE FOR BELIEF, Francis S
Collins, Free Press, New York ,2006
