Antony Flew Believes in God?!

Renowned atheist Antony Flew (biography) now believes in the existence of a God. The British philosophy professor has identified himself as a deist, explaining,

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. It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose.

Citing scientific evidence as the reason for his new worldview, he remarked, "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."

While I've been rather skeptical of the "Intelligent Design" theorists, Flew admits having similarities with the movement's emphasis on an intelligent force's involvement in constructing the universe. While not denying Darwinian evolution, Flew doubts that it can explain the origin of life, and thus has ended up at the possibility that some sort of higher power exists.

This represents a huge shift for the 81 year-old man who has been an outspoken atheist since age 15. I'm imagining that his 1966 book, God and Philosphy, will look a bit different when it is updated next year...