Below is a copy of my study notes for the first of two classes that I taught on evidences.  (hss) 

Famous Atheist Now Believes in God (One of World’s Leading Atheists Now Believes In God, More or Less, Based on Scientific Evidence)

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.
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.
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.

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

science

1 : the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
2 a : a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study <the science of theology> b : something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge <have it down to a science>
3 a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : NATURAL SCIENCE
4 : a system or method reconciling practical ends with scientific laws <culinary science>
5 capitalized : CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary - http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=science&x=11&y=15 )

Reasons for studying evidences:

1 Peter 3:15 - But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; NKJV

Keep the young people from being led astray when they go to college.

Convert the lost

Keep from being intimidated…

John Clayton on consequences of not believing in God:

Recently, I was talking to a young man up in Michigan who had been a participant in some of the riots at the University of Michigan. He made the statement to me that he had done these things and I asked him why he had not obeyed the law. He said, "What law?" and I said, "The law of the land the law that God has instituted." He looked at me and laughed and said, "Man, I don't believe in God." I do not believe we can have law and order when we remove the source of the authority to that law and order.

Mainstream Media is constantly teaching evolution, this includes PBS (just about all if not all nature programs will mention evolution at some point during the program).

Attitudes of Scientists:

My high school career was one in which I grew quite rapidly academically. I enjoyed science and decided that I wanted to be a scientist of some kind I entered Indiana University majoring in the field of physical science. It was actually at this point that one of the great changes that occurred in my life took place. I enrolled in a course in astronomy at the feet of one of the great astronomers of our day. In that particular course, we were studying the problem of origins--the creation of matter from nothing. As we discussed this particular subject, we went into all those theories that are in that particular material. We talked about the Big Bang Theory, the Quasistatal Theory, the Continuous

Generation Theory, the Planetessimal Theory, etc. When we got to the conclusion of that discussion, I asked the professor which of the particular theories was the one that is most acceptable and that satisfactorily explains the creation of matter from nothing. He leaned over the desk and looked me straight in the eye and said, "Young man, you need to learn to ask intelligent questions." That rather upset me. I did not appreciate that and I said, "Well, what do you mean?" He said, "This is not a question that a scientist tries to answer. This is a question for the philosopher or theologian, but this is not something that falls into the realm of science." I was very disturbed by that answer. I had always felt that science could ultimately answer all the questions that man had-- that there was nothing that science could not eventually take care of as far as what man might challenge and want to know about--yet this learned man, an expert in his field, said that this was an area that the scientist should not even try to answer--that it was totally beyond the capacity of science to explain and explore. (John Clayton)

Not too long after that, I enrolled in a course in biology at the feet of one of the great primitive life scientists in the country. As we discussed the initial beginning of life upon the earth in that class, we talked about the synthesis of various primitive chemical materials such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). As we discussed this, I once again asked a question related to the one that I had asked previously. I asked this professor what the process was by which the original life--the original living cells upon the earth--came into existence.  How did the structure or generation of DNA occur? Once again, this man said, 'Young man, that is not a question that falls within the realm of science." I guess what was happening to me was the same thing that Lord Kelvin, a very famous British scientist, described in his writings when he made the statement, "If you study science deep enough and long enough it will force you to believe in God." That is what happened to me. I began to realize that science had its limitations--that science, in fact, strongly pointed to other explanations than natural ones to certain questions.

The 1995 official Position Statement of the American National Association of Biology Teachers: The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is effected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.

George Gaylord Simpson: "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind."

Beware of vague terms and shifting definitions: Key terms that are subject to manipulation are science and evolution. Watch out for "bait and switch" tactics, by which you are led to agree with a harmless definition and then the term is used in a very different sense. An example is "You believe in dog breeding, don’t you? Well, did you know that dog breeding is an example of evolution? Now that you know that, and have seen all those breeds of dogs for yourself, you realize that you actually believe in evolution, don’t you?…

Is evolution scientific?

The Law of Biogenesis: This law says that life only comes from life. Life never comes from non-living material. The theory of evolution, by its very nature, and when forced to its logical end, demands that life came from non-life. Evolution requires that, on at least one occasion, life arose spontaneously from non-living matter. The principle of philosophical necessity states: "Something cannot come from nothing, therefore something always was." Something is eternal is it more reasonable to assume:

a. that matter always existed, and that life and intelligence came from lifeless matter, or

b. that mind or intelligence has always existed, and that matter, including living matter, came from this supreme intelligence?

The Laws of Thermodynamics: The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics are two of the most basic and certain laws known to the physical sciences today.

1. The First Law of Thermodynamics says that while matter and energy can be converted from one form to another, the total amount remains unchanged. There is nothing new being created today.

2. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that although the total amount of matter and energy remains the same, some of this energy is constantly being converted to non-reversible heat energy. In other words, energy is constantly becoming less available for use. Thus, the amount of useful energy in the universe is always decreasing, leading to a tendency in all areas toward greater randomness and simplicity. Basically, the universe is wearing out.

3. The theory of Evolution suggests that, instead of a tendency toward greater randomness and simplicity in the universe, there is a tendency toward greater organization and complexity. Eventually every organism becomes a bigger, more complex organism.

Law of science: basic, unchanging principle of nature; a scientifically observed phenomenon which has been subjected to very extensive measurements and experimentation and has repeatedly proved to be invariable throughout the known universe (e.g. the law of gravity, the laws of motion).

The second law of Thermodynamics describes basic principles familiar in everyday life. It is partially a universal law of decay; the ultimate cause of why everything ultimately falls apart and disintegrates over time. Material things are not eternal. Everything appears to change eventually, and chaos increases. Nothing stays as fresh as the day one buys it, clothing becomes faded, threadbare, and ultimately returns to dust. Everything ages and wears out. Even death is a manifestation of this law. The effects of the Second Law are all around, touching everything in the universe.

In more understandable terms, this law observes that the fact that the useable energy in the universe is becoming less and less. Ultimately there would be no available energy left. Stemming from this fact we find that the most probable state for any natural system is one of disorder. All natural systems degenerate when left to themselves.

It is well know that, left to themselves, chemical compounds ultimately break apart into simpler materials; they do not ultimately become more complex. Outside forces can increase order for a time…However, such reversal cannot last forever. Once the force is released, processes return to their natural direction – greater disorder.

Evolution claims that over billions of years everything is basically developing UPWARD, becoming more orderly and complex. However, this basic law of science (2^nd law of Thermodynamics) says the opposite. The pressure is DOWNWARD, toward simplification and disorder.

What actually happens when a dead plant receives energy from the Sun? The internal organization in the plant decreases; it tends to decay and break apart into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.

"Another way of stating the second law is, ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way we can see the second law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order; how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself – and that is what the second law is all about." Isaac Asimov

The Fossil Record: Today the fossil record is cited by most people as providing the greatest support for the theory of evolution. Consider the following:

1. If evolution is true, we would expect to find only the simplest form of life at the base of the fossil record. However, this is not the case. At the very lowest point in the fossil record we find thousands of highly animals and plants. There is no slow increase of animal complexity in the fossil record. The evidence shows that complex life forms have been here along!

2. If evolution is true: the fossil record should contain many transitional forms of animals, that is, animals that are only partially complete, forms of animals. But there are none! All of the fossil remains that have been found are of animals that are fully developed with all the features that distinguish the group of animals to which it belongs.

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