Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Playing with Fire?

Newsweek reports a noteworthy religious trend taking place on YouTube:
"...more than 400 mostly young people who have joined a campaign by the Web site BlasphemyChallenge.com to stake their souls against the existence of God."
I like the next line:
"That, of course, is the ultimate no-win wager, as the 17th-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal calculated—it can't be settled until you're dead, and if you lose, you go to hell."
For those eager to take up the BlasphemyChallenge and submit a YouTube video "denying the existence of the Holy Spirit," (Mark 3:28-29), take a Pascal moment and check out the thinking of philosopher Dr. Antony Flew.

Flew was a long time atheist, but changed his mind and became a deist. While he does not believe in the Christian view of God--a personal deity who revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ--he now accepts an Aristotle view of God.

In an extensive interview with Biola professor Dr. Gary Habermas, Flew explains why:
"It seems to me that Richard Dawkins constantly overlooks the fact that Darwin himself, in the fourteenth chapter of The Origin of the Species, pointed out that his whole argument began with a being which already possessed reproductive powers. This is the creature...which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design."
Will the lifelong thinking of an intellectual giant like Flew dissuade some from taking up BlasphemyChallenge? Hopefully, but I doubt it. Atheists will always be among us. Which is why G. K. Chesteron declares:
"If there were no God, there would be no atheists."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would you come on our radio show to discuss god belief with us? If so send a message through our contact form on our website.

For the record if there was no god, everyone would be atheist.

littleriverlon said...

Sucker bet----

Yep.. Betting against heaven ( and even hell) is a fool's wager either way. If you are right, you'll never know it. If you are wrong, you will most certainly know it.
If I didn't know in my heart, the certainty of glory and being with my Lord, it would still behuve me to bet on it being true. Even if I ended up being wrong, I would (as logic suggests) never know it. So, why not bet on Christ? There is nothing to lose if you do---and everything to gain.

Living the Biblios said...

Brian-

Thanks for visiting.

If you're really looking for a discussion on "god belief," why not contact Gary Habermas at Biola University?