Thursday, July 30, 2009

THERE IS A GOD

This is the title of a recent book by Antony Flew. It is subtitled, “How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind.” Even though the father of Mr. Flew was a Methodist minister, he has been an atheist for most of his adult life. He authored several books stating the case for atheism and has debated many theists over the years. In 2004 he announced that he now believed in God. With all of the recent well-publicized books promoting atheism and attacking a belief in God, it is encouraging to read this book.

The main premise of this book is that the author has followed the evidence wherever it led. When Flew announced his change of belief he said,
“What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It … looked to me like the work of intelligence.”

He tells how the British National Council of Arts conducted an experiment by putting 6 monkeys in cage with a computer. “After one month of hammering away at, the monkeys produced 50 typed pages – but not a single word.” So then what’s the chance of the monkeys producing a Shakespearean sonnet of 488 letters? 1 in 10 to the 690th power (1 followed by 690 0s). If instead of monkeys you turned the entire universe into computer chips and had them able to spin out 488 trials a million times a second, the number of trials you would get since the beginning of time would be 10 to the 90th power. “You would never get a sonnet by chance.”
And yet some believe that a human mind got here by chance.

I also liked the chapter, “Did the universe know we were coming?” He imagines entering a hotel room on your vacation and everything is set to your likes – your favorite song is playing; your favorite painting is hanging there; your favorite snacks and beverages are there; all the grooming products that you use are in the bathroom; and even the TV is turned to your favorite channel. With each new discovery you are more inclined to believe that someone knew you were coming.
This illustrates how the laws of physics in our universe and the conditions on Earth are just right for life. If they were changed just a little, then life wouldn’t be possible. Since many atheists understand this, there is now a theory that there are many universes. We just happen to be in the one that is conducive for life. It is interesting that they are more willing to believe in an infinite number of universes than believe in one God.

Antony Flew believes in evolution and hasn’t become a Christian. But I still like seeing my faith confirmed. When I was a pastor, I liked to teach some apologetics. With our faith being assaulted so much by the modern culture; it helps to see that it makes sense to believe in God.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for more thoughtful reasons to believe.

    Sandy

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  2. I've had my eye on that book. I think I'll buy it based on your recommendation.

    Tim Lewis

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  3. Good stuff.

    Tim Osborn

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