The influence of Antony Flew.

[GrandizerII]

So a brain disorder is the primary reason behind Flew converting from one intellectual and rational worldview to another intellectual and rational worldview?

Do we even have documented evidence that he was suffering from dementia at the time of conversion? I hear a lot of claims regarding that, but I'd like to see some evidence.

I have read but can't access the original NYT article (because I'm not willing to pay money to a right wing publisher) on Flew and the authorial origin of the book where he "converted" but read the wikipedia article and especially note 11 to find a link to it.  It is clear from Mark Oppenheimer's article and his conversations with Flew that he a) didn't write the book b) never read the book and c) no longer had the mental capacity to remember much of his philosophical work.

The book where in Flew "declared" his "conversion" is essentially a compendium of the PRATTs recited ad nauseum by fundagelicals and not the work of a serious scientific or philosophical thinker.

He didn't write the book, true, but then again, no one is denying this. Whether he never read the book and "no longer had the mental capacity to remember much of his philosophical work" is based on an observation made by Oppenheimer. Who knows if he made the correct observation, but just taking Oppenheimer's word for it while disregarding Flew's insistence that the book reflects his [Flew's] views is a bit iffy.

Anyway, I'm not so naive to think there was no way that some manipulation could've occurred with regards to the writing, editing, and publishing of the book. But there is no real reason to think this had any bearing on Flew's conversion to deism, nor does this support the claim that was made in your earlier post. Flew had been clear on several occasions that he had become a deist in his last years, providing intellectual reasons for his conversion. This is hardly indicative of someone having dementia (even if he did, after all, have dementia at the time).