..The Evidential approach of Socrates, Anthony Flew, and Einstein

Sorry I am a day late on my blog post for this week!

Until very recently, Antony Flew was recognized as the world's leading philosophical atheist. He recently said in an interview," My life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads". Relentlessly pursuing the evidence, Flew let go of this atheistic beliefs at age 81, publicly embracing the view that there is a God-an Intelligent Designer-behind the creation of the universe. When asked if there was something specific that had prompted such a dramatic change in his views, he said, "Einstein felt that there must be intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical world. If that is a sound argument, the integrated complexity of the organic world is just inordinately greater-all the creatures are complicated pieces of design. So an argument that is important about the physical world is immeasurably stronger when applied to the biological world". Evidently neither Einstein nor Flew, two of the brightest minds of the past century, had any sense that good science or the 'Evidential' approach was limited to the realm of the natural.

(Mark Mittelberg ,with quotes by Antony Flew)

In the Words of Socrates......

A quote from Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

To keep the ideas of the ancient philosophers going, Mark Mittelberg says in a book he has written that in the debates the early Greek philosophers engaged in over truth, some would tell the audience at the beginning of the debate that the best thing that could happen would be for the opposing debater to win. The reasoning was that in the process, the first debater and his supporters would be helped to better see, understand, and accept truth. Discussions conducted with this mind-set were "not a contest between opponents but a cooperative search for truth and understanding".

[Mark Mittelberg-Choosing your Faith, and quoting Napoleon Hill-Think & Grow Rich]

Just a Thoughts creation

From the definition of the word 'thought' in the dictionary: 'the process of thinking; reflection; power of reasoning; intellect, idea, concept, opinions'. The purpose of this blog is an exchange of ideas. To get you to think outside the box of your experience or natural thought process, or maybe agree with the statements and add your two cents worth. It is primarily a discussion of God and how that relates to the world we live in, or at times just a general thought that struck me as one worth repeating. Some of you may have a relationship with God, and some of you may not. Some of you may have traditional ideas of God, and some of you very unconventional ideas about his existence. I don't claim to have all the answers or even be particularly noteworthy in my opinions, but I read a lot of others who are. Every Monday I will post a thought that made an important statement to me from something I've recently read. If you have a comment, positive or negative, or just in general, you are invited to post it on this site. You are welcome to challenge my ideas and perceptions and offer your own.

This header is longer than my normal posts will be since it is an intro. Most of my weekly posts will be short sentences or paragraphs.

Here is today's Just a Thought:
"One of our goals in life should be to accept as many true thoughts as possible and deny as many lies as possible". JP Moreland