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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Antony Flew on The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, was a best-selling book. The title pretty much explains it.

In the December, 2008 issue of First Things, Antony Flew, who recently converted from atheism to deism, and is mentioned in The God Delusion, responds, in a page or two, to Dawkins. Two things that he says struck me.

First, Flew says that Dawkins is a bigot -- that is, one who is intolerant of other beliefs.

Second, Flew writes that Dawkins is, as a consequence of his bigotry, guilty of an academic sin:
"But an academic attacking some ideological position that he believes to be mistaken must, of course, attack that position in its strongest form." Flew argues that Dawkins has not done that -- he has misrepresented the case for God.

Thanks for reading.

2 comments:

Pilgrim said...

I skimmed Flew's book about his conversion to theism. It was very interesting. He has intellectual integrity.

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks. I didn't read the book, but I think he thinks of himself as a deist, not a theist. (I'm not sure I understand the difference.) And Dawkins thinks that, rather than integrity, Flew has senility. Oh, well. Dawkins isn't getting any younger, either. (Nor am I.)