Shadowing Practice: The World’s Leading Atheist Admitted: God Exists - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
132 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
In this video I want to look at how the world's leading philosopher changed his mind about God.
2
Professor Anthony Flew is an English philosopher most notable for his work related to the philosophy of religion.
3
During the course of his career he taught at the universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele and Reading and at York University in Toronto.
4
For much of his career Anthony Flew was known as a strong advocate of atheism arguing
5
that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a god surfaces he also criticized the idea of life after death,
6
the free will defense to the problem of evil
7
and the meaningfulness of the concept of god however in 2004 he changed his position he changed his mind
8
and stated that he now believed in the existence of an intelligent creator of the universe shocking his colleagues
9
and fellow atheists in order to further clarify his personal concept
10
of god Anthony Flew openly made an allegiance to deism more specifically a belief in the aristotelian god
11
which he will define in his book in a second and dismissed on many occasions any call to convert to Christianity,
12
Islam or any other religion he stated
13
that in keeping with his lifelong commitment to go wherever the evidence leads he now believed in the existence of a God.
14
I just want to quote some passages from his last book
15
there is no God where the N has been crossed off
16
there is a God how the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind by
17
Anthony Flew and I've read all this book
18
and I want to quote some of the juicier passages from
19
it in chapter 4 entitled a pilgrimage of reason he writes let us begin with a parable imagine
20
that a satellite phone is washed ashore on a remote island inhabited by a tribe
21
that has never had contact with modern civilization the natives play with the numbers on the dial pad
22
and hear different voices upon hitting certain sequences they assume first
23
that it's the device that makes these noises some of the cleverer natives, the scientists of the tribe, assemble an exact replica
24
and hit the numbers again they hear the voices again the conclusion seems obvious to them this particular
25
combination of crystals and metals and chemicals produce what seems like human voices
26
and this means that the voices are simply properties of the device.
27
But the tribal sage by sage flu probably means a philosopher a tribal sage summons the scientists for a discussion.
28
He has thought long and hard on the matter and has reached the following conclusion.
29
the voices coming through the instrument must be coming from people like themselves,
30
people who are living and conscious although speaking in a different language.
31
Instead of assuming that the voices are simply properties of the handset,
32
they should investigate the possibility that through some mysterious communication network they are in touch with other humans.
33
Perhaps further study along these lines could lead to a greater understanding of the world beyond their island.
34
But the scientists simply laugh at the sage and say look
35
when we damage the instrument the voices stop coming
36
so they're obviously nothing more than sounds produced by a unique combination of lithium and printed circuit boards and light emissing diadodes.
37
end of parable in this parable we see how easy it
38
is to let preconceived theories shape the way we view evidence instead of letting the evidence shape our theories.
39
A Copernican leap may thus be prevented by a thousand Ptolemaic epicycles.
40
Defenders of Ptolemy's geocentric model of the solar system resisted Copernicus's
41
heliocentric model by using the concept of epicycles to explain away observations of planetary motion that conflicted with their model.
42
And in this, it seems to me, lies the peculiar danger, the endemic evil of dogmatic atheism.
43
Remember, Flew was himself a dogmatic atheist.
44
Take such utterances as, quote, we should not ask for an explanation of how it is
45
that the world exists it is here and that's all
46
or since we cannot accept a transcendent source of life we choose to believe the impossible
47
that life arose spontaneously by chance for matter
48
or the laws of physics are lawless laws
49
that arise from the void end of discussion these quotes look at first sight like rational arguments
50
that have a special authority because they have a no-nonsense air about them.
51
Of course this is no more sign that they are either rational or arguments.
52
And then the next quote.
53
As for my new position on the classical philosophical debates about God,
54
In this area I was persuaded above all by the philosopher
55
David Conway's argument for God's existence in his book The Recovery of Wisdom from Here to Antiquity in Quest of Sophia.
56
Conway is a distinguished British philosopher at Middlesex University who is equally at home with classical and modern philosophy.
57
The God whose existence is defended by Conway and myself, writes Flew, is the god of Aristotle.
58
Conway writes in sum to the being as a capital B
59
in being to the being whom he considered to be the explanation of the world
60
and its broad form Aristotle ascribed the following attributes immutability immateriality omnipotence omniscience oneness or indivisibility
61
perfect goodness and necessary existence.
62
There is an impressive correspondence between this set of attributes and those traditionally ascribed to God within the Judeo-Christian tradition.
63
It is one
64
that fully justifies us in viewing Aristotle as having had the
65
same divine being in mind as the cause of the world
66
that is the object of worship of these two religions." For some reason Flew doesn't even think about Islam
67
but obviously this applies to Islam as well.
68
So that clarifies his own Flew's own concept of God that he embraced after leaving atheism.
69
And now some of the reasons, the scientific reasons, why he began to embrace theism or belief in God.
70
And he quotes Paul Davis the famous astrophysicist.
71
Paul Davis highlights the same problem he writes he observes that most theories of biogenesis
72
biogenesis is the idea of life just coming about apparently out
73
of nowhere most theories of biogenesis have concentrated on the chemistry of life
74
but life is more than just complex chemical reactions the cell also is an information storing processing
75
and replicating system we need to explain the origin of this system of this information
76
and the way in which the information processing machinery came to exist.
77
He emphasizes the fact that the gene is nothing but a set of coded instructions with a precise recipe for manufacturing proteins.
78
Most important these genetic instructions are not the kind of information you find in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics,
79
rather they constitute semantic information, in other words they have a specific meaning.
80
These instructions can be effective only in a molecular environment capable of interpreting the meaning in the genetic code.
81
The origin question of biogenesis rises to the top at this point.
82
The problem of how meaningful
83
or semantic information can emerge spontaneously from a collection of mindless molecules subject to blind
84
and purposeless forces presents a deep conceptual challenge.
85
Here's the end of that quote.
86
So you can see some of the reasons why flu in the light of modern science abandoned atheism.
87
And the last quote here because there are so many is again to do with the origin of life.
88
So how do we account for the origin of life?
89
Professor Flew asks.
90
The Nobel Prize winning physiologist George Wilde once famously argued that we choose to believe the impossible,
91
that life arose spontaneously by chance.
92
Now of course this what flu himself believe this is what
93
atheists believe this Nürburgring prize-winning scientist says in later years however he concluded
94
that a pre-existing mind which he posits as the matrix of physical reality composed the physical universe
95
that breeds life then he quotes the Nobel Prize winning professor who says as follows how is it
96
that with so many other apparent options we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus or properties
97
that breeds life? it has occurred to me lately, I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities,
98
that both questions might be brought into some degree of congruence this is with the assumption
99
that mind rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the
100
evolution of life has existed always as the matrix the source
101
and condition of physical reality that the stuff of
102
which physical reality is constructed is mind stuff it is mind
103
that has composed a physical universe that breeds life
104
so eventually evolves creatures that know
105
and create science art technology making creatures that's the end quote there and And then Flew says,
106
this too is my conclusion.
107
The only satisfactory explanation for the origin of such end directing,
108
self replicating life as we see on Earth is an infinitely intelligent mind with a capital M.
109
And of course, we call that mind God. So there we go.
110
That's the book.
111
is very interesting his arguments are based he says his whole
112
position has not really changed he only goes where the evidence leads
113
so he says
114
that in his earlier career he didn't see any good evidence for the existence of god he says
115
but now with the advent of discovery of dna
116
and the role of genes and producing proteins
117
and this uh the semantic nature of of genes requiring a meaningful understanding of the whole process of producing genes
118
and life this goes way beyond atheism and this suggests intelligence it suggests mind
119
and thus it suggests god not just the DNA
120
but a whole host of other scientific discoveries lead professor Flew to abandon atheism
121
and embrace this belief in god
122
so i think this is a great story a great story of a man who had the courage to admit
123
that he was wrong here's a man who was the world's
124
most notorious atheist he spent decades arguing against believers in god
125
ridiculing their beliefs refuting them philosophically he came to believe
126
that was wrong in fact god does exist
127
because the evidence he says led him to believe that
128
so there we go that's the the story of how the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind
129
and to my knowledge he never actually converted to any other
130
religion i think he was warming towards the christian faith given his own cultural background
131
but i don't think he ever converted to any other religion
132
and let's hope let's pray that he is he found a merciful god who accepted him into paradise till next time
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
C1What the First Christians Really Believed Will Surprise You
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
The Most Overlooked Qur'anic Verse About Human Origins!
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C11
Allah Loves Those the World Overlooks — And the Bible Says Something Amazingly Similar
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
Who Was the First Muslim in America?
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C11
How Bible Scholars Challenged my Christian Faith
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C13
Not Adam Smith? The Forgotten Economic Genius of Ibn Khaldun
IELTS PrepBusiness EnglishUniversity Students
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
C11
625 sentences
Richard Dawkins vs. Mehdi Hasan
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C14
158 sentences
The PHILOSOPHER Who Solved The MEANING of LIFE? Leo Tolstoy
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C12
233 sentences
Are we WRONG about most FAMOUS LINGUISTICS experiment??
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
C14
28 sentences
"The world wants to turn you away from God..." | Paul Washer
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C15
29 sentences
NT Wright on Jordan Peterson: "I have never met him, but..."
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C1252 sentences
Mes arguments philosophiques préférés
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
C12
264 sentences
why I believe in God
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C19
65 sentences
Benedict Cumberbatch reads Kurt Vonnegut's letter to the future
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C14
27 sentences
Atheist Professor Says No Evidence for God — John Lennox's Response Is Brilliant
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C1133 sentences
Hegel: Philosophy of world history and spirit
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
C12
36 sentences
Stephen Fry on God | The Meaning Of Life | RTÉ One
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C11
18 sentences
249. 世の中に存在する「2種類の愚か者」ON English｜言葉と物語
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
Speaking Goals for This Clip
This video targets advanced fluency by focusing on critical thinking expression and narrative structure. You’ll practice explaining complex ideas—like philosophical shifts and parables—while maintaining clarity. It’s ideal for IELTS speaking practice, as it helps you organize arguments, use analogies, and discuss abstract concepts, all key skills for high band scores.
Phrase Bank
- "presuppose atheism until empirical evidence surfaces"
- "lifelong commitment to go wherever the evidence leads"
- "preconceived theories shape the way we view evidence"
- "Copernican leap may thus be prevented by a thousand Ptolemaic epicycles"
- "no-nonsense air about them"
These phrases are reusable in debates, essays, or casual discussions about logic, belief, or scientific reasoning.
Fix Your Weak Spots
The video’s formal tone and complex sentence structures challenge pronunciation and rhythm. Focus on stressing key terms like "empirical," "aristotelian," and "heliocentric" to avoid miscommunication. Use a shadowing site to mimic the speaker’s pacing—pausing after long clauses and emphasizing contrast words like "instead of" or "however." Shadow speech practice here will also help with intonation in persuasive narratives, such as the parable of the satellite phone. For IELTS, mastering this rhythm ensures your speech flows naturally, even when discussing dense topics. Tools like shadowspeaks can help you compare your delivery to the original, refining your pronunciation of multi-syllabic words and improving overall fluency.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been crossed · I've read · has never had |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was known · has been crossed · is washed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · man who had · man who was |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.