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Antony Flew: The Existence And Belief Of God - Term Papers

Antony Flew: The Existence And Belief Of God



How can I start this paper? Hmmmm…..??? Let's begin with the parable. Antony
Flew starts off his speech by telling the audience this story of two explorers
that accidentally came upon a garden in a jungle. In this garden, there were
many beautiful flowers and weeds. One explorer says, "some gardener must tend
this plot". While the other disagrees, "there is no gardener". So, these two
explorers tried to figure out who was right and who was wrong. They waited the
whole night, but no gardener was ever seen. Then the "Believer" said that there
must be a gardener, that he "is an invisible gardener". He tried everything he
could to convince to the "Sceptic" that he was right, ...

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The "Sceptic" says there is no gardener, just as an atheist
denies the existence God. The "Believer" says there is a gardener, like a
theist telling everyone that God exists. The "Believer" tries to prove that
there was a planter, who planted the seeds for the flowers to grow. This
planter takes care of them, a parallelism to God supposedly taking care of "us".

Flew talks about assertions. He states that "what starts as an
assertion, that something exists…may be reduced step by step to an altogether
different status". He uses the example of how if one man were to talk about
sexual behavior, "another man prefers to talk of Aphrodite". They don't seem to
make sense. How can one confuse the idea of a sexual behavior with Aphrodite?
He also points out the fact that "a fine brash hypothesis may be killed by
inches, the death of a thousand qualifications". A good example of this is
when he said that "God loves us as a father loves his children". He states ...

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What he meant is
that if one asserts something then one must deny something. He then goes on by
saying that, "anything which would count against the assertion, or which would
induce the speaker to withdraw it and to admit that it had been mistaken, must
be part of the meaning of the negation of that assertion….and if there is
nothing which a putative assertion denies then there is nothing which it asserts
either; and so it is not really and assertion." What does he mean by this? He
proposes that if an assertion must be continuously qualified in the face of
evidence that counts against it, then the assertion is meaningless. For example,
the "Sceptic" asking the "Believer", ...

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Antony Flew: The Existence And Belief Of God. (2006, January 22). Retrieved March 29, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Antony-Flew-The-Existence-Belief-God/40026
"Antony Flew: The Existence And Belief Of God." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 22 Jan. 2006. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Antony-Flew-The-Existence-Belief-God/40026>
"Antony Flew: The Existence And Belief Of God." Essayworld.com. January 22, 2006. Accessed March 29, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Antony-Flew-The-Existence-Belief-God/40026.
"Antony Flew: The Existence And Belief Of God." Essayworld.com. January 22, 2006. Accessed March 29, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Antony-Flew-The-Existence-Belief-God/40026.
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PAPER DETAILS
Added: 1/22/2006 12:45:40 PM
Category: Miscellaneous
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1776
Pages: 7

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