Talk:Antony Flew/Archive 1

message: Hello Charles.  I appreciate you enforcing Wiki's rules and teaching Harvestdancer the difference between a POV and vandalism. As you can imagine, I don't appreciate the weighty charges.
: I know far better than you the difference between POV and vandalism.  The first few times you add POV into a NPOV article, it's POV.  The fifth or sixth time, it's vandalism..  It's too bad you think your vandalism is mere POV.Harvestdancer 01:17, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't been able to read www.anthonyflew.com, for some reason; I'll see if it is cached by Google. Apart from that, I don't accept the reverts. If that link is relevant as you say, I'll support its inclusion. Charles Matthews 10:03, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I can't get it immediately, but presumably  with discussion about Gary Habermas is what you mean. A suggestion: why not write us something about Habermas? Charles Matthews 10:08, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You can get onto http://www.anthonyflew.com, this domain was registered by a for profit evangelical Christian organisation and simply redirects to the that organisation's webpages, it has nothing what-so-ever to with Antony Flew and is no more than blatant cybersquatting. 81.2.94.107 11:38, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: User 66.91.226.222, also known as Jason Gastrich, your cybersquating page on Flew, with little to no factual content, you link to it from here solely to drive up your hit counter.  And for accuracy's sake he's a DEIST not a THEIST.   There are also three questions slightly lower on this page that you should answer as they are your most common POV pushing vandalizations.  Harvestdancer 04:49, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Pushing Part 2 - Anonymous 66 responds 

message: It seems that User 66 Jason Gastrich has quit the controversy.  I would like to move that this article have the "controversial" tag removed.Harvestdancer 17:55, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, take it down. What's the story with Gastrich? FeloniousMonk 17:55, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I did take it down a month after I posted that he quit.  He quit the day this article was locked.  I could describe Gastrich's psychology, but that would not be relevant to this discussion.  Instead you can do a google search. Google of Gastrich Harvestdancer 18:01, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Controversy as a Whole

message: Edits 1, 2, and 3
Well, you know, professional media also can make mistakes, can have biases, and have at times been caught fabricating. "May be lying" could be leveled at any source, leaving us with nothing but a blank page. I would think something more substantial would be necessary in arguing against a source.
And the story isn't a Fox News story per se. Fox, like ABC and others, picked up the AP story of 9 Dec 2004. The upshot being that edits one through three are from a single source. Labeling material from the one story of 9 Dec 2004 as "current" (as edits 2 and 3 were) is a tad on the misleading side. For example, the HNN interview is dated 22 Dec 2004 and was done in response to the breaking of the AP story and, hence, is more "current."
I think the ordering of FeloniousMonk's last edit follows the chronology well.
Edit 5
(Continuing on with the numbering)
I wanted to raise one that I don't see on the current discussion page. The sentence:
"He made it clear, however, that he did not yet have faith in the God of Abraham."
I find this one problematic. "Not yet" implies we know something of Flew's future and naming a specific god concept implies a destination. But we don't know where Flew is going nor what his future holds. He could revert to atheism, stay a deist, move to Tibet and study with the Dahli Lama, or just get tired of us all, go tend to his garden, and never speak to any of us again.
Edit 6
While I'm at it, I'm also unclear on the reasoning behind the deletion of "The Presumption of Atheism" from the Works section. The essay is one of his works and a rather well known one at that. Though according to Amazon.com, the essay was published as part of a collection as early as 1976 rather than 1984. The 1984 date comes from the essay's inclusion in "God Freedom and Immorality: A Critical Analysis".
Mark K. Bilbo
:To deal just with this one point - nothing should be attributed to it. I compiled a list of Flew's works from the Abebooks online site, which I find is in general a good way. The initial list of 30 or more books I added did not have it, since it wasn't for sale there. I added it later. That's it. Charles Matthews 13:49, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I see, then this was just an artifact of the reverts rather than being an actual "deletion." Chalk up "edit 6" to my misunderstanding. Mark K. Bilbo 16:23, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:   Comments and quibbles 

message: Moved things a bit closer to APA style as discussed here: Wikipedia:Cite_sources. Also, the AP story in the text was cited at Fox but cited at ABC in the "References" section. Regularized the "External links" a bit. Did leave the direct links to the referenced articles in the text but they're still "numbered" which I read is not recommended. Mark K. Bilbo 20:54, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor "references" changes 

message: It seems Flew's name is actually Antony.  All the book covers on Amazon (even the ones listed as being by "Anthony Flew") show that spelling, that's the way it's spelled on the Freedom Association website, and so on.  Given that there are only a couple of dozen pages linking to Ant[h]ony Flew, I propose to move the text here to Antony Flew, and have Anthony Flew as the redirect page.  Are there any objections to this?  --Andrew Norman 15:30, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

message: Anthony Flew -> Antony Flew - the latter is the correct spelling of his name, but at the moment the correct spelling is a redirect page pointing to the incorrect spelling!  Because of recent controversy, it is important that the talk page (which includes an archived section) is also moved.  --Andrew Norman 15:45, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
*Support, obviously.  --  ajn</span> (talk) 14:22, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Add any additional comments
I have edited the archive link so that it includes the full path. So that if the page and talk page are moved the archive page can still be found. Philip Baird Shearer 11:25, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move

message: ::Add any additional comments
I have edited the archive link so that it includes the full path. So that if the page and talk page are moved the archive page can still be found. Philip Baird Shearer 11:25, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: Good job with the rewrite.  I still think it is relevant to make a wikilink to Intelligent Design, but I'm holding off making edits until my copy of "God and Philosophy" arrives from amazon.  David Bergan 15:07, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: FM's Rewrite

message: This link quotes Flew as saying, "Anyone who should happen to want to know what I myself now believe will have to wait until the publication, promised for early 2005, by Prometheus of Amherst, NY of the final edition of my God and Philosophy with a new introduction of it as ‘an historical relic’."  And so I held off until my copy of the book came in the mail.  I've scrutinized the intro and find no definitive answer to the question of Flew's current belief.  In fact, the new introduction (which the editor said was re-written 4 times, after a substantial peer-review each time) basically avoids the question altogether.  For the most part it is written in the form: "The successor book to God and Philosophy will have to take into consideration A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J."  It seriously lists ten "new" concepts, ideas, and scientific advances that happened since the original edition in 1966.  
*A novel definition of "God" by Richard Swinburne
*The Church of England's change in doctrine on the eternal punishment of Hell
*The question of whether time began with the one big bang
*The question of multiple universes
*The fine-tuning argument
*The question of whether there is a naturalistic account for the development of living matter from non-living matter
*The question of whether there is a naturalistic account for non-reproducing living matter developing into a living creature capable of reproduction
*The book The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God by Roy Abraham Varghese (and something about a concept of an Intelligent Orderer in that book)
*An extension of an Aristotelian/Deist concept of God that can be reached through natural theology, which was developed by David Conway
*The radically new and comprehensive case for the existence of the Christian God by Swinburne in the book Is There a God?.
But each one is addressed in a very detached third-person perspective.  Nowhere does he make a first-person "I believe" statement and so we only have a record of the things he finds thought-provoking rather than a list of the things that persuades him one way or the other.
And so... FeloniousMonk, you were right.  Thanks for your patience.  Contrary to the interviews and such in December 2004, Flew isn't very clear-cut on his position.  I wanted to give the gist of the new introduction so that everyone had an idea what it said without having to buy the book.  If anyone thinks any of this is article-worthy, drop me a line and I can give you direct quotes.  David Bergan 02:01, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've incorporated this information.  --  ajn</span> (talk) 10:35, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Final verdict

message: In response to DavidBergen's insistence on citing Flew as a recent convert to ID (his own self-admitted bias toward ID being completely irrelevant to that I'm sure) and to his amazement at what he portrays as my thinking that ID is irrelevant to this article, I'll say the following:
Yes, in the Habermas interview Flew endorsed ID when he claimed "a deity or a 'super-intelligence' [is] the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature." No one disputes that he said that. 
BUT, two months later Flew said "I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction." to Richard Carrier. Flew blamed his error on Richard Dawkins, and compounded his first error again in misunderstanding what Dawkins had published. 
So, considering that Flew's endorsement of ID is almost immediately retracted, there's no reason to cite that Flew found ID compelling, if even for a short time. 
Leading ID proponents have a historical pattern of overstating and inflating their ranks by claiming even the merest hint of sympathy toward ID as an endorsement. Wikipedia articles are not the place for minor ID proponents to grind their ideological axes. There is no compelling reason to accommodate in this article those whose contributions revolve solely around promoting ID as a concept. FeloniousMonk 22:23, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not going to argue either way, because it is a trivial point.  But I would just like to reiterate that this should be an article about Flew and his beliefs, not a battleground for pro/anti ID debate (I'm very firmly in the anti camp, like you).  --  ajn</span> (talk) 23:05, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'm neither pro- nor anti- ID. What I'm firmly against is POV content and those who'd treat wikipedia as a vehicle for promoting their particular pet cause. FeloniousMonk 07:12, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm neither pro nor anti ID, either.  I'm pro-truth, and if ID is bunk, it's bunk.  But if the ontological argument gets a wikilink from Flew (when he is repulsed by it), then an Intelligent Design wikilink is very reasonable considering it was much more significant in his thoughts... even though he ended up being unconvinced.  David Bergan 15:49, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Both you and I know that your statement above is disingenuous at best. You're contributions to the 'pedia have been almost exclusively pro-ID, as even a cursory review of your contribution list proves. Though I see you have removed your cite of ID from your Talk page recently, I see you're now offering to assist other pro-ID editors . Do I need to provide the edit diffs to show that your claim to being not pro-ID is disingenuous, or are you going to be honest with us and retract this claim? FeloniousMonk 16:51, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why are you opposing a wikilink to ID when there is a link to the ontological argument?  David Bergan 21:18, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Citing ID in this article

message: The interview with Joan Bakewell is well worth reading, if only as a portrait of a man who now admits there is no evidence for his belief, but clings to it nonetheless.  I think it's clear from the interview why the new introduction to his book is so non-committal - "Well the really long introduction which I wrote for this book did express my own incredulity about this [DNA having a natural origin]. The new one that will go in points to what has in fact been done, and indicates that my incredulity has stopped in the face of the evidence." --  ajn</span> (talk) 22:50, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bakewell interview 

message: Argument: "No atheist believes in the existence of God"
Reply: "But Antony Flew, a world renowned Atheist, says he can accept a form of Deism"
Rebuttal: "Ah yes, but no true atheist believes in the existence of God"
--One Salient Oversight 11:29, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Levity from a lurker 

message: I'd like to propose the following paragraph as a replacement for the intro sentence.
::Professor Antony Garrard Newton Flew (born February 11 1923) is a British philosopher. Though he recently (December 2004) became a deist, he is known principally as a supporter of libertarianism and atheism.
I know with the recent Gastrich wars this may be a sensitive subject, but I'm hoping we can consider the paragraph on its own merits. (And I'm also hoping I don't get flamed to a crispy critter for suggesting it. :D ) Justin Eiler 01:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Accurate and balanced.  I approve. David Bergan 06:16, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think it explains why so much of the article is given up to that relatively trivial belief - I'd suggest "Known principally as a staunch supporter of libertarianism and atheism, controversy arose in late 2004 when he announced a belief in deism."  Or something like that - it could do with polishing.  He was fairly important in Oxford-school philosophy (I've just read Ernest Gellner's Words and Things, and Flew is probably the most-mentioned name after Wittgenstein, Ryle and Austin).  The article puts more weight on the deism than it deserves in the context of Flew's whole career, and the reason it's unbalanced is because of the recent controversy.  Flew doesn't seem to think the "conversion" is a big deal at all, it's other people's interpretations which have caused the fuss, and I think that needs to be mentioned too.  --ajn (talk) 07:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll certainly agree that the "conversion" is quite overblown in the main article, but this gives a balanced and accurate view of the events without ... well, to be perfectly blunt, without giving an "excuse" for folks to try to twist the facts. The user who made the suggestion originally (User:Aristotle1990) makes a more complete argument for the change on his talk page, but fundamentally even though it was a minor change of view in Flew's eyes, folks are going to make a big deal of it. I thought it was better to have it clearly stated that Flew was a "sort-of" Deist than have folks running around saying "Antony Flew converted, and Wikipedia says so." Justin Eiler 14:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deism in the intro (let's do it ''right'' this time). 

message: The removal of the names of those Flew was associated with denies the article the fuller detail of his life. Sussexman 07:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nobody's objecting to the inclusion of mention of Flew's associates.  As I say above, the story of his involvement with various fringe groups on the far right needs to be expanded.  What is a problem is your spamming details of one dinner fifteen years ago, on this article and others, as if that particular meal is somehow significant in itself.  It was an event which I suspect even a full-length biography of Flew would perhaps mention as a footnote - he'll have attended hundreds of such dinners throughout his career.  --ajn (talk) 11:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps Sussexman was the chef?Homey 14:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's all very Pooterish.  Flew was involved with Alfred Sherman in various political organisations, and it would be interesting to have the details of that relationship, but saying that they both attended a dinner with the Lord and Lady Mayoress at the Mansion House is pointless trivia.  --ajn (talk) 16:24, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletions of collegues

message: From our first paragraph: "Though he in December 2004 expressed deist opinions, he is known principally as a supporter of libertarianism and atheism." 
If libertarianism is not in fact a big part of the Flew story, this sentence should be changed. If he is indeed "known principally" for his support of libertarianism (as well as atheism), shouldn't that be an important part of the article?
The reader following up the libertarian lead will, I grant, find some association with something called the Libertarian Alliance, but also this: "Flew has a long history of involvement in conservative politics. In the late 1980s he became an active vice-president of the Western Goals Institute, a pressure group opposed to immigration and free trade, and supportive of apartheid." "Conservative" is not at all synonymous with "libertarian." Opposition to immigration and free trade, and support for apartheid, are not libertarian positions; most right-wing libertarians would oppose all three positions (with perhaps some reservations about unrestricted immigration into existing welfare states), most left-wing libertarians would oppose at least the first and third positions, and would probably qualify any opposition they had to the second. I know of no flavor of even self-defined libertarianism that would embrace all three positions, or even two out of three. They would generally be considered anti-libertarian positions. So what gives?
Has Flew modified early reactionary and conservative views to a more mainstream libertariansim? I have no idea, and am not attempting to inject original research here. I merely speak for the reader who never heard of Flew before encountering this article, is given some expectation that his alleged libertarianism will be a prominent part of the article, and has that expectation completely thwarted.  66.241.73.241 08:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What about the libertarianism?