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Antony Flew

14 quotes

“What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or the existence of, God?”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Theology and Falsification, 1950
“I would never regard Islam with anything but horror and fear because it is fundamentally committed to conquering the world for Islam.”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Did the Resurrection Happen?: A Conversation with Gary Habermas and Antony Flew (2009), p. 88
“[Still an atheist at the time] For Heaven's sake...sorry, perhaps I should have said something else.”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Craig Vs Flew, University of Wisconsin, 1st January 1998
“The God Delusion by the atheist writer Richard Dawkins, is remarkable in the first place for having achieved some sort of record by selling over a million copies. But what is much more remarkable than that economic achievement is that the contents – or rather lack of contents – of this book show Dawkins himself to have become what he and his fellow secularists typically believe to be an impossibility: namely, a secularist bigot. (Helpfully, my copy of The Oxford Dictionary defines a bigot as ‘an obstinate or intolerant adherent of a point of view’).”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A less important point which needs to be made in this piece is that although the index of The God Delusion notes six references to Deism it provides no definition of the word ‘deism’. This enables Dawkins in his references to Deism to suggest that Deists are a miscellany of believers in this and that. The truth, which Dawkins ought to have learned before this book went to the printers, is that Deists believe in the existence of a God but not the God of any revelation. In fact the first notable public appearance of the notion of Deism was in the American Revolution.”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Koran calls for belief and consequent obedience. It is, surely, calculated to inspire fear, indeed abject terror, rather than love.”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Terrors of Islam", Atheist Notes No. 6, 2004, ISBN 1856372928
“Do I sincerely want to be right?" Subtitle from first edition”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[N]o man who is indifferent to argument and to evidence can claim to be concerned for truth. Abriham Lincoln was profoundly right when he wrote, chiding the editor of a Springfield newspaper: ‘It is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.’ 1.18”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]o the extent that I make claims to knowledge without ensuring that I am indeed in a position to know, I must prejudice my claims both to sincerity and to ingenuousness. 8.8”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For whenever and wherever I tolerate self-contradiction, then and there I make it evident, either that I do not care at all about the truth, or that at any rate I do care about something else more. 1.19”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Holders of a contradiction indicate that:] "Either they are being in some way disingenuous, or else they are not fully masters of the meanings of all the words which they have uttered." 1.11”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In general, any argument which is either difficult or contentious should be examined closely in writing. It is altogether too easy --even when, which is not always the case, the intentions of all concerned are impeccable-- for the swiftness and the fleetingness of the spoken word to deceive the mind. And, just because what is not recorded is not recorded, everyone's ground may shift without anyone's noticing it. 2.22”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So let us write down into our copy books two of the maxims of that great French aphorist, the Marquis de Vauvenargues: 'Obscurity is the kingdom of error'; and, 'For the philosopher clarity is a matter of good faith.' 5.12”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The term 'fundamentalist', which was coined in 1920, derives from the title of a series of tracts - The Fundamentals - published in the United States from 1910 to 1915. It has since been implicitly defined as meaning a person who believes that, since The Bible is the Word of God, every proposition in it must be true; a belief which, notoriously, is taken to commit fundamentalist Christians to defending the historicity of the accounts of the creation of the Universe given in the first two chapters of Genesis. On this understanding a fully believing Christian does not have to be fundamentalist. Instead it is both necessary and sufficient to accept the Apostles' and/or The Nicene Creed. In Islam, however, the situation is altogether different. For, whereas only a very small proportion of all the propositions contained in the Old and New Testaments are presented as statements made directly by God in any of the three persons of the Trinity, The Koran consists entirely and exclusively of what are alleged to be revelations from Allah (God). Therefore, with regard to The Koran, all Muslims must be as such fundamentalists; and anyone denying anything asserted in The Koran ceases, ipso facto, to be properly accounted a Muslim. Those whom the media call fundamentalists would therefore better be described as revivalists. This conceptual truth not only places a tight limitation upon the possibilities of developmental change within Islam, as opposed to the tacit or open abandonment of one or more of its original particular claims, but also opens up the theoretical possibility of falsifying the Islamic system as a whole by presenting some known fact which is inconsistent with a Koranic assertion.”
Antony Flew (1923–2010) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Turning away from Mecca (The Salisbury Review, Spring 1996) quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.