If Antony Flew Believes In God, Isn't That Good Enough?

[Blog of Reason]

Discussion thread for the blog entry "If Antony Flew Believes In God, Isn't That Good Enough?" by Th1sWasATriumph.

Permalink: http://blog.leagueofreason.org.uk/reason/if-antony-flew-believes-in-god-isnt-that-good-enough/

 

[Marcus]

Conversions are no more useful as arguments than personal revelations to people who aren't me. They demonstrate nothing. The reasons that the people give for conversions might sway me, but if they did, then these arguments would have swayed me regardless of who else had been convinced by them.

 

[DeistPaladin]

Beyond the obvious retort of "appeal to authority"...

Flew is a deist, not a Christian.
Einstein was a pantheist, not a Christian.

 

[ninja_lord666]

...the thing is to get fundamentalists to realise that if our version is meaningless, so is theirs.

Yeah, nice sentiment, but it's not going to work. The theists will rebuke 'our version' saying it's meaningless, and then right after in the same breath find a way to 'prove' that Einstein believing in God isn't meaningless. I guarantee you that's what will happen.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

Beyond the obvious retort of "appeal to authority"...

Flew is a deist, not a Christian.
Einstein was a pantheist, not a Christian.

You'll notice I was careful not to mention denomination. Just God in general. Why assume I was talking about Christianity? Pretty sure I made no mention of any specific religion.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

Yeah, nice sentiment, but it's not going to work. The theists will rebuke 'our version' saying it's meaningless, and then right after in the same breath find a way to 'prove' that Einstein believing in God isn't meaningless. I guarantee you that's what will happen.

To be fair, practically no good argument is guaranteed against fundies, because they have their faith. However, it's both satisfying and useful to be able to press them on something in such a manner. Even if it doesn't change their minds, it will show others who may be reading or hearing the exchange exactly how fractured the fundie mindset is.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Yeah, since it isn't a popularity contest, the argument is crap. But, considering that there are people who think William Lane Craig is a brilliant philosopher, it isn't surprising that they believe Antony Flew is a trump card.

 

[.V.]

Its always seemed weird to me that people arguing for a God would ever think that someone important who converted to theism had any relevance on the facts.

Belief, or lack there of, really means absolutely jack shit. Personal opinion has never had any relevance on something being true or false. When I hear reasoning like that, the first thing I say back is "Who cares what that person thinks. Did he or she have a valid argument for explaining their reasons for converting?"

If there ever was good reasons, I would be all ears. But there wasn't and isn't a good case for belief in any supernatural deity.

What do they call that one again? Appeal to authority or something? Logical fallacies ftl.

 

[DeistPaladin]

You'll notice I was careful not to mention denomination. Just God in general. Why assume I was talking about Christianity? Pretty sure I made no mention of any specific religion.

I was referring to retorts that could be offered against their arguments. Notice how I led off with identifying their argument as "appeal to authority".

EDIT TO ADD: I re-read my post and realized it was not clear who I was arguing against. My bad. I was arguing against them, not you. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[Gravity Lense]

Hello there.... ummm Mr Triumph

You know.. .. I had a look around for a while at all the posts on video's such as Pat Condell, all the Creationist stuff and Conscious Universe style offerings, of which all certainly enlightened my awareness of what Is and what Maybe...

However, I found myself wanting to reach into my 21" widescreen monitor and throttle all the fundamentalist reposts against the anti-theist ideology that has positioned itself on the proverbial "information 'front-line' " that is YouTube et al, such was the banal and insipid statements therein .. and what would really make my blood boil was their unfailing use of the word 'RETARD' ... all they seemed to wind up saying is, "you must be a f***ing retard with your c*** stuffed half way up your.... " etc etc etc.. .. as we determinedly backed them into a corner of Reason

I quickly came to the decision that I was wasting my time on the front line, battling it out in the literary trenches, and needed to rethink as to how any one person's energies can be directed in more useful way

(I have to go now but will add some more to this if I may... thanks)

Gravity Lense