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I became interested in Flew's alleged "conversion" to an abstract God because he based his decision on scientific reasoning.

(Fred) Yeah, that is the allegation that has the evidentialist crowd slapping high fives. If only us Christians would present reasonable, undeniable evidence for God, in this case, supposed "scientific evidence" that will draw no other conclusion than some creator made it, then it should be enough to get the apologetic ball rolling toward the person making a salvific faith decision. However, with Flew, all that this supposed evidence did was to "affirm" some, as you wrote, abstract "god" in his mind. The typical misconception among most run-of-the-mill, and dare I say naive, theists, is that if a Christian presents all of the "scientific evidence that, according to the theist, is undeniable proof of God, it will most certainly convince the atheists of the world to belief in the Christian God. The truth of the matter is that all anti-theists have consider the alleged evidence. In fact, they study the same evidence the Christian believer does. However, they will only interpret it to fit their world-view. For instance, the late Sir Francis Crick, who was instrumental in discovering DNA, believed the DNA was designed and was evidence of, not God, but super evolved aliens who seeded our planet millions of years ago to kick start evolution. He believed in a "god" of sorts, they were just aliens. The foolishness of evidentialist Christians is the notion that proof of God automatically leads an unbelieving person to the Christian God. Such is not the case.

Fred
www.fredsbibletalk.com

"Ah, sitting - the great leveler of men. From the mightest of pharaohs to the lowest of peasants, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" M. Burns