{"id":968,"date":"2010-04-16T09:26:38","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T14:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=968"},"modified":"2010-04-16T18:47:45","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T23:47:45","slug":"the-deathbed-de-conversion-of-anthony-flew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=968","title":{"rendered":"The Deathbed De-Conversion of Antony Flew"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was in grad school, I was already a vocal atheist and was pretty knowledgeable about the greater atheist community. One day a fundamentalist Christian friend of mine was excited to tell me that the most famous atheist in the world had just converted to Christianity. Antony Flew was so famous that I had never heard of him.<\/p>\n

On April 8th of this year the most famous (and possibly only) ex-atheist died. To me, Flew\u2019s fame came more when he announced that the vague higher power concept of a creator deity can\u2019t be ruled out and so some kind of god might exist. Christians immediately took Flew\u2019s statement as a declaration of his conversion to Christianity.<\/p>\n

Flew found out that Christians were claiming that he had converted to Christianity and wrote a short response titled, \u201cSorry to Disappoint, but I’m Still an Atheist!\u201d The title says it all, but there were still a few Christians who remained undeterred. Postmodern Philosopher Gary Habermas, Physicist Gerald Schroeder, and others flew to Flew\u2019s side to make the case that God is real.<\/p>\n

In 2007, the book titled, \u201cThere is a God\u201d reached bookshelves all over the world. The book was authored by Antony Flew\u2026 sort of. The book was actually written by ghost writer Roy Abraham Varghese because Flew was starting to literally lose his mind.<\/p>\n

Flew was now in his mid-80s, didn\u2019t know much about the internet, started to show signs of senility and memory loss, and was being bombarded by Christian intellectuals who were feeding him inaccurate information which he did not have the ability to fact check.<\/p>\n

Richard Carrier, long time friend to Flew had been in snail mail correspondence with him. Carrier is a member of the Jesus Project and a well known atheist. According to an article in HumanistLife<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cFlew wrote back to say he had been mistaken in trusting his Christian correspondents; that Schroeder and his modern-science-is-Genesis theory obviously wasn\u2019t up to date, and that he would withdraw the forthcoming introduction to a new edition of one of his books.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He continues to say,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statement which I most regret making during the last few months was the one about Habermas\u2019s book on the alleged resurrection of Jesus bar Joseph. I completely forgot Hume\u2019s to my mind decisive argument against all evidence for the miraculous. A sign of physical decline.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another long time atheist friend of Flew\u2019s, Mark Oppenheimer visited Flew to get a sense of his mental stability:<\/p>\n

In \u201cThere Is a God,\u201d Flew quotes extensively from a conversation he had with Leftow, a professor at Oxford. So I asked Flew, \u201cDo you know Brian Leftow?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know the work of the philosopher John Leslie?\u201d Leslie is discussed extensively in the book.<\/p>\n

Flew paused, seeming unsure. \u201cI think he\u2019s quite good.\u201d But he said he did not remember the specifics of Leslie\u2019s work http:\/\/rxtadalafil.com\/<\/a>.
\n\u201cHave you ever run across the philosopher Paul Davies?\u201d In his book, Flew calls Paul Davies \u201carguably the most influential contemporary expositor of modern science.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid this is a spectacle of my not remembering!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 As he himself conceded, he had not written his book.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really Roy [Varghese]\u2019s doing,\u201d he said, before I had even figured out a polite way to ask. \u201cHe showed it to me, and I said O.K. I\u2019m too old for this kind of work!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Antony Flew was 87 when he died and had never accepted Jesus in his heart as his lord and savior. The story of Antony Flew is not one of an atheist converting to Christianity, but rather the tragic story of how the brightest minds in Christianity conspired to take advantage of an old atheist who was losing his mind. While this hasn\u2019t been confirmed, it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if Antony Flew\u2019s last words were, \u201cThere is no God\u2026 Oh my.\u201d
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