Antony Flew Abandons Atheism

For atheists, this shift in Flew's beliefs is highly embarrassing. To have such a prominent atheist accept the case for God's existence is a major blow. To see how major a blow, consider the words of About.com's resident atheist Austin Cline on October 16th, 2004:

"Have you read the news about Antony Flew abandoning atheism? This would be big news because Flew is one of the most prominent atheist philosophers of the 20th century. It would be big news, that is, if it were true."

Cline is spot-on both on Flew's status among atheists and on the significance of his abandonment of atheism. His initial dismissal of the news as wishful thinking by believers ("Is it any wonder that so many nonbelievers look upon religion as little more than wish-fulfillment writ large? It seems as though almost anything even vaguely related to their religion can become infected by the same viral error of logic") was too hasty, however, as Flew has now confirmed.

Some atheists have tried to explain Flew's shift in thinking by his age; Flew is now 81, and so, it has been suggested, is professing belief in God just in case he soon has to give account of his life to his Maker. That is clearly not the case; Flew remains adamant that there is no afterlife-disembodied existence, he maintains (as he has always maintained) is impossible. In any case, Flew is not professing the kind of belief that any religion says will get you into heaven; he still rejects all purported divine revelation, including the Bible, the Koran, and any other example you'd care to mention. There's no way that Flew, suddenly facing his own mortality, is trying to cover his bases just in case God exists. What has happened, it seems, is what he says has happened: he has gone where the evidence leads.

* Steve Beren - Former member of the Socialist Workers Party (United States) who became a Christian conservative politician.

* Anders Borg - Sweden's Minister for Finance.

* Kirk Cameron - an American actor best-known for his role as Mike Seaver on the television situation comedy, Growing Pains, as well as several other television and film appearances as a child actor. Recently, he portrayed the lead roles in the Left Behind film series and in the 2008 drama film, Fireproof.

* Whittaker Chambers - Former Communist turned conservative writer.

* Francis Collins - Geneticist who was an atheist until age 27, but then converted to Christianity.

* Joy Davidman - Poet and wife of C. S. Lewis.

* Avery Dulles - A Jesuit priest, theologian, and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was raised Presbyterian, but was an agnostic before his conversion.

* André Frossard - French journalist who was atheist, but converted to Catholicism in 1935.

* Eugene D. Genovese - Historian who went from Stalinist to conservative.

* Simon Greenleaf - one of the principle founders of Harvard Law School, professor of law at Harvard University and president of the Massachusetts Bible Society.

* Nicky Gumbel - Raised atheist and became an Evangelical Anglican. He is known for his work with the Alpha course.

* Keir Hardie - Raised atheist and became a Christian socialist.

* Anna Haycraft - Raised as a member of Britain's Comtist and atheistic "Church of Humanity", but became a conservative Catholic in adulthood.

* Ammon Hennacy - Initially an atheist labor activist he became a religious pacifist in the Atlanta Penitentiary.

* Ignace Lepp - French psychiatrist whose parents were freethinkers and who joined the Communist party at age fifteen. He broke with the party in 1937 and eventually became a Catholic priest.

* Félix Leseur - Doctor turned priest. His conversion, in part, came by efforts of his wife who was declared a Servant of God by the Catholic Church.

* C. S. Lewis - writer who became an atheist as a young man, later paradoxically describing himself as being "very angry with God for not existing". He returned to Christianity and wrote many books about his faith.

* Gabriel Marcel - A leading Christian existentialist. His upbringing was agnostic.

* Alister McGrath - Biochemist and Christian theologian. Founder of 'Scientific theology' and critic of Richard Dawkins in books like Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life and The Dawkins Delusion.

* Claude McKay - Bisexual Jamaican poet who went from Communism to Catholicism.

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* William J. Murray - Son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair who became a born again preacher.

* Bernard Nathanson - A founder of NARAL Pro-Choice America who dubbed himself a "Jewish atheist", but later became a Pro-life activist who converted to Catholicism.

* Marvin Olasky - Former Marxist turned Christian conservative, he edits the Christian World (magazine).

* Rosalind Picard - Director of the Affective computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab. She was raised atheist, but converted to Christianity in her teens.

* Enoch Powell - Conservative Party (UK) member who converted to Anglicanism.

* George R. Price - Geneticist who became an Evangelical Christian and wrote about the New Testament. Later he moderated his evangelistic tendencies and switched from religious writing to working with the homeless.

* Gerald Priestland - News correspondent who discusses having once been the "school atheist" in Something Understood: An Autobiography. He became a Quaker after an emotional breakdown.

* Anne Rice - best-selling American author of Gothic and religious-themed books.

* Dame Cicely Saunders - Templeton Prize and Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize winning nurse known for palliative care. She converted to Christianity as a young woman.

* Edith Stein - Phenomenologist philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun; declared a saint by John Paul II.

* Peter Steele - Lead singer of Type O Negative.

* Lee Strobel - writer, Christian apologist, a former journalist and megachurch pastor. (For those who don't know, Lee is the man interviewing Flew on this page.)

* Stewart Traill - Founder of the Church of Bible Understanding.

* Fay Weldon - British novelist and feminist.

* A. N. Wilson - Biographer and novelist who entered the theological St Stephen's House, Oxford before proclaiming himself an atheist and writing against religion. He announced his return to Christianity in 2009.

* John C. Wright - Science fiction author, now a Catholic.

* Annie Besant - In 1887 she wrote "Why I don't believe in God", but later became a leading theosophist and worked with Hindu movements.

* John Dobson - Atheist who joined the Hindu Vedanta Society.

* Sita Ram Goel - Marxist and militant atheist in early adulthood, later returned to Hinduism.

* Gabrielle Carey - Australian author of Puberty Blues who was raised atheist but converted to Catholicism and then explored other theologies.

* Antony Flew - Philosopher who has become a non-religious deist.

* Moses Hess - Socialist philosopher and Left Hegelian who first influenced Karl Marx in his criticism of religion, but who later tried to combine the pantheism of Baruch Spinoza with Hegelianism.

* J. Neil Schulman - Libertarian science fiction writer who states he met, or experienced, God and that this ended his atheism. The first such experience would have occurred when he was 35. That stated he remains skeptical of "the church" and does not belong to any religion.

* Dave Sim - Comics writer and anti-feminist. He converted to, or created, his own mixture of Abrahamic religions.

* Ted Turner - Media mogul who has stated that he is no longer an atheist or an agnostic and prays for sick friends because he considers it harmless to do so. At the same time he has not embraced any specific religion.