Famous Atheist Now Believes in God

One of World's Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, More or Less, Based on Scientific Evidence

The Associated Press

Dec. 9, 2004 - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.

At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.

Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives.

"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."

Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.

Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.

There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"

The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.

The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote.

The letter commended arguments in Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God" and "The Wonder of the World" by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.

This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Press.

Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well "that's too bad," Flew said. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."

Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife.

Flew's "name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up," Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew's reversal, "apart from curiosity, I don't think it's like a big deal."

Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.

A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15.

Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.

Another landmark was his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists. [...]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976

So, this man, who for decades spread his poison that there is no God, finally admits that there IS a God, from his Ivory tower, because HE has seen the proof. All along, the proof was not there sufficient to convince and convict him, but now, by his leave, you can all believe there is a God, and he, a diviner of truth in whom you must trust, is the messenger to bring you this news, how you should interpret it, what you should do about it, and how you should not worry about God at all.

Note very carefully how he believes in God, BUT still stubbornly believes that God is "not actively involved in people's lives". This is the same CONCEIT that led him to doubt that God existed at all. He doesnt know what God is or is not, what he is or is not doing on a daily basis, or what the extent of his power is. He has only just accepted that God is real, that he created the entire universe and the first thing that he does is put a limit on what God does!

This is a coward, pure and simple, who thinks secretly that he is the only real object in the universe, and that everything else is a dream unless it is personally seen and experienced by him. A man of pure illusion, self centered, ignorant, narcissistic and frankly, utterly dumb.

All of this has nothing to do with believing in God or not. It has everything to do with wether or not you think that you are the only concious thing alive, the only pair of eyes that constitute proof of any event. THIS is what that story is about - it is about the lack of educated peoples ability to put themselvs in the position of another person, and then to believe what they have been told, when it is told honestly. It is about people who stupidly and blindly refuse to accept the word of another man, beceuse the words dont fit in with their personal internal model of the world. It is about the pure evil of self centeredness a vile disease running rampant throughout the entire western culture and beyond. A disease that retards human progress, beats down anyone who doesnt toe the line, burns people at the stake, forces them out of their jobs censors artists works and generally debases human kind.

Marine Corps deploys Fallujah biometric ID scheme

US forces in Iraq are attempting to tame Fallujah with biometric ID, according to an NBC news report broadcast last week. The returning population of up to 250,000, reporter Richard Engel said on Tom Brokaw's last Nightly News, is to be allowed back in gradually, a few thousand at a time. "They'll be finger printed, given a retina scan and then an ID card, which will only allow them to travel around their homes or to nearby aid centers, which are now being built. The Marines will be authorized to use deadly force against those breaking the rules."

Get an ID card or we'll shoot you - a possible slogan for David Blunkett's ID card marketing campaign? But although that's pretty much the bottom line, the Fallujah effort is particularly interesting as an apparent attempt to use ID to control a large population which is at least uncooperative, possibly hostile, and possibly armed. Bearing these factors in mind it's difficult to see how it can possibly succeed.

The underlying theory of the effort can be identified fairly readily. The US has taken quite a few cues from Israel, which operates intensive ID checks (and massive strikes and punishment demolitions), and has been trying to implement an ID system in Iraq, operating small scale exercises in 'controlled access.' This draws on the 'secure hamlet' approach which was used by the British in South Africa (where we pioneered concentration camps, oops) and in Malaya, where it was at least rather better marketed.

Alex Jones of Prison Planet has a clip of the relevant broadcast, and in 1999 Jones covered a Marine Corps exercise in Oakland, California, where "resistance fighters" were contained in a mock camp and biometrically scanned. This was part of Operation Urban Warrior, an exercise which took place at several US locations and which also involved the UK, Australia, Canada, Holland and France (no, seriously - this was 1999-2000). Another eye-witness account, where the Marine Corps conducts some kind of census of the Chicago sewer system, can be found here.

Although most of the links from the Urban Warrior homepage have ceased to function, it makes it clear that the Marine Corps' training pre-Iraq was for rather different conditions, anticipating only "mid-intensity combat operation in an urban environment against a backdrop of civil unrest, [with the mission to] restore order." A 100-strong contingent from the UK's elite Comacchio Group (now the Fleet Protection Group Royal Marines, which guards the UK's nuclear capability against sundry threats, including demonstrators, was present at the Oakland operation, which was intended to simulate combat in urban areas, dealing with both an 'enemy' and a civilian population.

The plan underlying Fallujah's ID scheme and phased return may be an effort to stop it reverting to a hostile no-go area for security forces, but it's doubtful that this could entirely work. It won't be possible to stop arms and insurgents who haven't been issued with ID from infiltrating an area of this size, nor (once they have) will it be feasible to operate intensive ID checks that could maintain a 'clean' population. By keeping sufficient forces there and keeping a tight lid on the movement of the inhabitants it may be possible to stop Fallujah from blowing up again, but that isn't of major significance against the backdrop of the rest of Iraq, and most of the things governments anticipate they could do with biometric ID in a peaceful society aren't going to be particularly relevant.

At the moment, however, the biometric factor has a relevance in terms of producing some kind of local census backed up by a difficult to forge ID that can be tied to the individual. In areas that have been secured, it will be possible to do a local check on the ID, but that clearly only applies in secured areas where the population has submitted to the ID programme. And as the marines are not going to be able to secure, Fallujah-style, the whole of Iraq, it's difficult to see this one as anything other than a weird experiment without any obvious long-term pay-off. (Thanks to Garland and Cryptogon for drawing this one to our attention). [...]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/09/fallujah_biometric_id/

This is the coralling and mass branding of individuals, pure and simple.

It is as sad as it is interesting that FINALLY people are starting to take Alex Jones and the like seriously. They have been reporting on the long term plans of ..."the bad guys" for years, and have been routinely ridiculed. Now its not so funny is it, because everything they have been saying is true, and only a cosmic revelation will be able to stop it all, such is its momentum.

You may have voted blue, but were you aware that every day, you unknowingly help dump millions of dollars into the conservative warchest? Simply by buying products and services from companies which heavily donate to conservatives, we have been defeating our own interests as liberals and progressives on a daily basis.

Our collective buying power WILL make a difference, and we WILL be heard.

Refer to our FAQ page for further information!

The only solution is partition.

This means that an entry in the ID card database in relation to this service
might appear against the individual's name, even though an ID card has not
been presented for checking. Eventually, the idea is that "the ID card
scheme could provide the infrastructure for a one-stop shop for people to
notify changes of personal details".

Finally, the private sector, especially in relation to the provision of
financial services and employment, is likely to be encouraged to use the
card. The assessment states that the Government would "work closely with
private sector organisations to ensure that the [ID card] scheme develops
along lines which will meet their business requirements". This means that
links to records of private sector service use are very likely to appear in
the registrable facts associated with an individual.

Dr. Pounder, Editor of Pinsent Masons' Data Protection and Privacy Practice,
welcomed the new openness of Government in relation to the database. He
said: "it has been obvious that the efficiency of public service delivery
has underpinned much of the ID card debate, yet this database has hardly
been mentioned in public consultation documents about the card".

Dr. Pounder continued: "Now we should be able to have a public debate as to
whether the data protection principles should fully apply to the database of
registrable facts, whether disclosures from the database to the authorities
should be subject to a test of prejudice as it is in the Data Protection
Act, or indeed whether the police and security services should have secret
access to an audit trail which is likely to describe all the key public and
private sector used by each individual resident in the UK."

• people refuse to register their children into the proposed numbering system
• people refuse to register themselvs with the proposed ID card system

Mr Kerik was nominated by President Bush just a week ago

The man chosen by President George W Bush to take over as the new US homeland security secretary has withdrawn his nomination.

Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police chief, was chosen a week ago to head the department created after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

His role in their aftermath transformed him into a symbol of strength.

The pull-out came after Mr Kerik uncovered tax and immigration problems relating to his employment of a nanny.

"I uncovered information that now leads me to question the immigration status of a person who had been in my employ as a housekeeper and nanny," he said in a statement.

"It has also been brought to my attention that for a period of time, during such employment, required tax payments and related filings had not been made."
[...]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
Politics and humans just don't mix.

Ex-Stasi Spy Chief Markus Wolf Hired By Homeland Security?

Prison Planet | December 6 2004

Political analyst Al Martin, who has in the past proven accurate in getting ahead of the news curve, is reporting that Homeland Security have hired former Stasi head, the 'Silver Fox' Markus Wolf.

Martin states,

"Wolf is the man that effectively built the East German state intelligence operation’s internal directorate," Martin continues. "He turned half the population into informants. That is his specialty, is taking a population, constructing the various state divisions, mechanisms of control, in order to organize informants within the population. That is his real specialty. And that is precisely, as Primakov has intimated, why Wolf is being brought in. The regime knows that once all of Patriot II is in law and they begin working on Patriot III, they will then begin to establish the internal mechanism to coordinate, as an official function of state, a system of informants. Wolf’s speciality was to turn East Germany into the greatest and most efficient informant state ever created." [...]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/061204wolfhired.htm

Business as usual.

After the end of WW2, the americans kidnapped Wernher Von Braun and all the German scientists they could find, so that america could use their "know how". Now, after the fall of the Soviet Union, america has, at its liesure, hired the architects of the most brutal and efficient of all police states to guide them in the creation of their own 21st century police state.

You may not wake up now!

US adopts National ID: Homeland Security Now In charge of Regulations for all US States Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates

Jonathan Wheeler | December 10 2004

In a chilling act more reminiscent of the now defunct Soviet Union or the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler, the United States Congress passed legislation yesterday that requires the States to surrender their regulatory rights over driver’s licenses and birth certificates to The Department of Homeland Security.

The massive US Intelligence Reform Bill weighed in at over 3,000 pages and though unread by individual Members of either the House or Senate nevertheless passed all of the legislative hurdles needed in order to become law.

President Bush lobbied hard for these provisions, only objecting when Senator Sensenbrenner attempted to require these same provisions for illegal aliens but which the President opposed. This provision was dropped from the final bill.

Beginning in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security will issue new uniformity regulations to the States requiring that all Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates meet minimal Federal Standards with regard to US citizen information, including biometric security provisions.

Added to currently existing Federal Laws and Supreme Court rulings American citizens when born will be issued a Social Security Number that will be included on their Birth Certificates, along with DNA biometric markers. All birth certificates will also be registered in a Federal Government database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. No child will be allowed enrollment to schools or be entitled to either State of Federal Government benefits programs without first presenting a certified Homeland Security registered Birth Certificate.

[...]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/101204nationalid.htm

Thats what happens when people pass laws without reading them first.

Computer Q&A: IBM sale raises copyright issues

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Against a backdrop of concern about outsourcing -- or movement of jobs overseas -- IBM announces that the company is selling its PC division to Beijing-based Lenovo. The move blows a huge hole in the corporate technology landscape.

With the sale, IBM looks to be giving up the PC market. The company whose decades-old motto is "Think" and who spawned such truisms as "Nobody ever got fired for buying from IBM" is no longer the must-have solution for corporate America. A longtime international company, IBM in recent years also has become synonymous with one of the biggest marketing gaffes in history, when it retained a tiny company to write the operating system for its original IBM PC, but didn't restrict that company from selling it to other PC vendors. That company, Microsoft, parleyed its DOS operating system into a billion-dollar worldwide monopoly.

IBM has long given up the lead in PCs to its rivals, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. But Big Blue, as IBM has long been known, is still the leader in the corporate technology arena. While big companies are more likely to purchase PCs from other vendors, IBM has continued to use its PC line as part of womb-to-tomb solutions for its customers. Yet the sale to Lenovo may take away that huge advantage.

Over the next five years, Lenovo will still be using IBM's trademarks, including the highly recognized "ThinkPad" laptop brand; but we can expect that to disappear over time, much the way the IBM brand disappeared when the company spun off its Lexington, Ky., printer division into Lexmark. For several years the company sold printers with both the Lexmark and IBM brands, and later dropped the IBM imprint. Few printer buyers today associate IBM with Lexmark printers. [...]

The more the west is squeezed, the more technologies, entrepreneurs, monies, and businesses slip through their fingers.

#!/usr/bin/perl


                                            $x=chr(0x20);sub
                                   P{print@_}$D=qq(/X\\);sub
                      S{substr($_[0],$_[1],$_[2])=$_[3]};sub
        i{$n=1;$L++;$X=40-($Y=2);$V=0.01;$S=4}$Z=sqrt(2);sub
         d{$t="X$_[0]X";$t=~s/X/$x/g;map{S($o,$_,15,"*"x15)}
         (822,980);S($o,901,15,"*".$t."*");}$Z=1/$Z;/./;sub
         l{system('stty',($_[0]?"":"-").'cbreak',($_[0]?"-"
         :"").'echo');$_[0]&&P("\e[H\eJ")}$A=(("$x"x78)."".
         "\n")x23;$b=[[[3,3,3,3,0],',,,||'],[[3,3,3,3,0],''
         .'..x//'],[[3,3,0,7,0],q(`====')],[[3,3,0,3,6],"x"
         .'xx\\\\//``'],[[3,3,0,3,3],q/||||||''/],[[3,3,0,6
         ,3],q,././//'',],[[3,3,0,7,0],'===`=='],[[3,3,3,3,
          0],',,.\\\\']];$E="LXEXVXEXLX";$y=32767;$z=96;sub
          v{$V*=0.85;$i=$S%4?($S<4?1:-1):0;$j=($S-2)%4?(($S
          -2)%8<4?1:-1):0;$t=$S%1?$Z:1;$V+=$j*($j<0?0.0200:
          0.05-0.01*($S%1));$X+=$i*$t*$V;$Y+=$j*$t*$V};;sub
          o{for$k(0..$_[0]->[0]->[0]-1){for$l(1..$_[0]->[0
          ]->[1]){($_[0]->[2]->[$l-1]&(2**$k))&&$_[1]+$k<=
          77&&$_[1]+$k>=0&&$_[2]+$l-$_[0]->[0]->[1]>=0&&($
           O->[$_[2]+$l-$_[0]->[0]->[1]]->[$_[1]+$k]=1)}}}
           $B="CXRXAXSXHX!";$z=16385;$a=[[[3,4,2,7,7,2],""
           ."X.X$D$D.|",[0,0,2,2]],[[3,2,2,7],'(_)(_)',[0,
           7]],[[6,4,12,30,63,12],"///\\////XX\\|/____\\_"
           .".||",[0,0,12,12]],[[15,06,$y,$y,$y,$z,$z,$z],
           ".".("_"x13).".|XFXIXNXIXSXHX||".("_"x13).q,|,.
           ("|".("X"x13)."|")x3,[0,0,0,0,0,$z]]];/mbm/;sub
            C{($k,$l)=(int($X),int$Y);($k<0||$k>77)&&$c++;
            for$i(0..2){for$j(0..2){($$b[$S][0][2+$j]&(02
            **$i))&&$l-$j>=00&&$$O[$l+1-$j][$k+$i]&&$c++}
            }$c&&d($B)};$W="keys_are_j_and_k.q-_quit";sub
             R{$o=$A;$l=($_[1]-4<0)?0:($_[1]+19>@$C)?@$C-
             23:$_[1]-4;for$j(0..$#$C){$$C[$j+$l]||next;;
             for$i(0..$#{$$C[$l+$j]}){$$C[$j+$l][$i]&&r($
             i,$j,$$C[$j+$l][$i])}$j+$l-$_[1]||r($_[0],$j
             ,$b->[$S])}}sub#V{return(int(rand(482)));};;
             r{($g,$h)=@_;$f=$_[2][0][1];while($h>=0&&$f
             >0){$f--;for$e(0..$_[2][0][00]-1){if($h<=22
             &&$e+$g>=0&&$e+$g<=77&&((2**$e)&$_[2][0][2+
             $f])){$t=substr($_[2][1],$f*$_[2][0][0]+$e,
             1);$t=~s/X/$x/g;S($o,79*$h+$e+$g,1,$t)}}--$
             h}}sub#f{$S++;$e=$j+$$b[$S][0];$f=$i+2}sub
              L{l(1);&i;for(;!$d;++$v>999?$v=0:do{/./;(
              select$_=chr(1),"","",0)[0]||next;sysread
              STDIN,$_,1}){$S=($S+(/j/?1:/k/?-1:0))%8;;
              /q/&&($d=1);$n&&p();&v;R(int($X),int$Y);$
              n&&B();&C;P("\e[;H$o");$n&&($n--,sleep(2)
              );$c&&($d++,sleep(2));int$Y==@$C&&(i,($L-
              10||$d++),sleep(2))}l()}sub#k{$_[0]+9}sub
              p{$t=int(sqrt($L)*45);$C=[];$O=[];;for$i(0
             ..$t){push(@$C,[]);push(@$O,[])}for$i(0..(40
             *$L)){$$C[U($t)][U(78)]=$$a[U(3)]}$$C[-2][U(20)
            +20]=$$a[3];for$j(0..$t){for$i(0..$#{$$C[$j]}){$$C
            [$j]->[$i]&&o($C->[$j]->[$i],$i,$j);}}}/#######/;sub
            B{d($E.$L)}sub#_{$W=$W.qq.\n_-_downhill__racer_-\n\n.}
            U{int(rand($_[0]))};L()#______________________________##
             #______________________________________________________###
             #_________________________________________________________###
              #_____________D_O_W_N_H_I_L_L___R_A_C_E_R___________________##
               #____________________________________________________________#
                ####__________by__mbm__Christmas_2004________________________#
                    #######__________________________________________________#
                          ###_______Happy_Christmas,_Perlmongers____________##
                             ###__________________________________________##
                                ##_____j_-_clockwise__________________####
                                  ###__k_-_anticlockwise__________####
                                     ########_q_-_quit_____#######
                                             ##############
                                             

This is
LONDON
08/12/04 - News and city section

Population rise fastest in ethnic minorities
By Ben Leapman Home Affairs Correspondent, Evening Standard

Ethnic minority groups accounted for nearly three quarters of Britain's population growth between 1991 and 2001.

Black and Asian groups grew by 1.6 million, compared with an increase of 600,000 in the white population, a London School of Economics analysis of census data reveals today.

The fastest-growing category was Black African, which more than doubled from 212,000 to 485,000. Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Chinese groups also saw rapid growth.

The total UK population rose four per cent and 73 per cent of this growth was among ethnic minority groups, the study says.

The increase in the number of people from different ethnic backgrounds and countries is "one of the most significant changes in Britain during the 1990s", the report says.

Ethnic populations grew in virtually every local council area, including those with very few black and Asian residents at the start of the Nineties.

The report, by Professor Anne Power and Dr Ruth Lupton of the LSE's Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, also confirms Britain's growing North-South divide, with all the larger cities and conurbations except London suffering decline. [...]

Evening Standard

This song iscomes to mind....

Gainin' on ya!