What I’m reading: The preface to “There is a God” by Antony Flew

I began reading There is a God” today. It’s a book by Antony Flew about his “conversion” to theism. I thought I might post a little about what I think. So far I have simply read the preface written by Roy Abraham Varghese. (pictured)

The preface seems to break down into 4 general catigories.

1. Who is Anotny Flew – Varghese goes over the Corpus of Works by Flew, and comments on his original systematic contributions to atheism. These I will let you read about HERE

2. The “Arian Heresy” – Logical Positivism. Varghese talks about the rise and fall of Logical Positivism. This he only goes over briefly.

3. Then he goes into some general problems with the “new atheists.” I have listed a summery of them below. It seems like a good list of issues to talk about. I would love to hear comments on these accusations. I have not read any of the “New Atheists” yet myself.

A list of criticisms of the “New Atheists”
a. A Simplification of Intelligent Design
b. Law abiding, life supporting, and Rational universe
c. They do not address the issues surrounding the rise and fall of Logical Positivism
d. They, ironically, read like fundamentalist preachers!
e. They fail to address the origins of consciousness in a significant way
f. They ignore the new arguments made by philosophical theism

4. Finally He Criticizes Richard Dawkins specifically for white-washing history to eliminate the theism of the historical and current scientific community. He then accuses him of elevating himself from a scribe who popularizes science for the broader public, to a priest who dictates what is acceptable belief in the realm of meta physics. This I thought was one of the more insightful parts of the preface. I generally have a lot of suspicion when experts in one area (in Dawkin’s Case Biology) start to preach about an area outside of their field (like religion).

So far it has been a lot of fun, I will keep you up to date as the book continues!

As an aside today I finished reading a little graphic novel called “The Stuff of Life“…

It was really cool!