Its a point. Why do people keep quoting his over-worded diatribe. What, if anything, has Fry done in society that is of any real benefit to anyone?

Blurting out big words on twitter about the wrongs of the world yet he appears to have done nothing productive be it theorectical solutions or actual ones.

I read a column somewhere in which the writer quoted Fry as being the stupid person’s idea of what an intelligent person is like. With all of his "followers" it does seem to be the case. Granted he's not the only celebity that needs to be put back into their box, but for someone supposedly so clever and insightful, he doesn't half spout a load of ball sacks.

 

You make valid observations and yes there is much wrong in the world. BUT that's nothing new, dystopian or cause for impending doom. There has always been woe and suffering in the world.
Look at the events in history that caused untold death, misery and suffering. Civilisations wiped out, disease and famine rife. Things could be better but they could be a lot worse. It depends if your glass is half full or half empty.

 

Fry has charisma. He is witty, articulate and knowledgeable. I enjoy his watching him on tv and listening to his repartee. He has overcome great personal turmoil and battled demons that may have finished lesser men. Does that qualify him as a saint or great social commentator? No, but he has my respect.

 

I like Fry. His best 'performance' was with the late, great Christopher Hitchens at an Intelligence Squared debate:


Quite brilliant.

 

Untold death, misery and suffering? Civilisations wiped out, disease and famine rife? Could things really be worse than these examples? Sorry to trivialise but I bet those on the wrong end of this lot had very empty glasses! And their faith in a God would have been severely tested too.

 

You misunderstand my point. I am stating that these things have happened on a much greater scale in the past.

 

I'd say Hitchens delivered quite a performance too.
Ann Widdecombe's rebuttal was quite impressive.

 

Hitchens was the best in the business.

 

Do you think so? How far back in the past? The two world wars? Korea? Vietnam and its shocking aftermath in Cambodia with a 2 million genocide? Iraq? The so-called Arab Spring that eventually spawned Isis? The current persecution of Christians in parts of Africa and the Middle East? It still goes on.
Having spent a large slice of my military life involved in some of this unpleasantness I probably have a very different view of reality compared with someone who enjoys a safe-ish western european lifestyle. But it wasn't so long ago that, like all military personnel, I used to check all around and under my car before getting in it and starting it. That was in the the UK. And I truly believe that if God exists, he gave up on us long ago.

 

If I was god I would have ended this all a long time ago. There is too much injustice in the world for him to remain silent.

 

what is quite useful in discussions like these

is to attempt to grasp the size of the problem

http://scaleofuniverse.com/#observable

simply move along, from left to right

I think that to believe anyone responsible for that, gets irritated by what type of sausage a person eats, or indeed whether he coverts his neighbours wife is a lunatic quite frankly

 

That does put you firmly in your place.
Does anyone else looking at something like this feel a sense of despair knowing that you'll never see it?

 

briefly, yes - then you realise that a mobile tyre fitter is coming in the afternoon and you have to rearrange the cars on the drive

and you need to collect your son from a Clarinet lesson at 5.30

 

Well that's you definitely in your place

 

yes, quite exciting!!!!

 

Allowing evil to exist is evil in itself, so God is evil.

Free will is a cop out so the people who want to control the masses can say "oh, God is love, but you are/they are evil" and try to ge them to follow God (but really be following them).

If God made man, then it would have been simple to make it so he could not be evil. He could even have free will, to an extent, but just not be evil. Much like Asimov's 3 robotic laws! What is rally distasteful, is that by giving man free will (and therefore the ability to be evil), he then punishes them for it. It's like saying to your kids "ok, you can do whatever you want" and then saying "ok, for that minor transgression, you will suffer eternal punishment", and you hadn't even warned them or told them what constitutes good or evil so they coud at least make an informed choice.

So, God created evil, God is evil. Or, as I prefer to believe, there is no God, people do evil things because all species are selfish and wish to thrive, and humans are just better at it. Lions killing all the cubs in a pride that are not theirs is a prime example of this.

Which is more likely?

 

Challenging opener!

You've successfully anticipated my response to the charge that "God is evil" for "allowing evil". As a theist and moreover as a protestant Christian I subscribe to the position that a personal God granted His creation free will. I agree that wicked men abuse this doctrine and manipulate the credulous in to following themselves rather than giving the glory to the Lord - the pulpit is the Devil's playground.

You're talking about God creating automata and you're endorsing the idea that God should be, as Hitchens puts it, a great celestial dictator. Well, I'm glad I have complete free will and I'm glad He isn't a dictator.

I'm of the opinion that there is a moral absolute, a law written on our hearts and that at times we choose to rebel against that law. Jesus clearly lays out his commandments in the New Testament and should one of His children disobey (sin), but subsequently and sincerely repent, then that sinner will be forgiven.

We're to fight our animal instincts. I don't want to live in a society where the law of the jungle has primacy and I don't want to bow down to 'the selfish gene'. For me, the goal of humanity should be to become Christ-like.

I've come to reason that God created the universe, that He is good, and that through His son, we too can be good.

 

But he is a dictator, as he demands your obedience, otherwise you're gonna get it bad, forever! Hitler and Stalin didn't necessarily get involved in the day to day lives of millions of people, but step out of line.....



I have never been comfortable with this notion. To me it seems a rather cynical way for the people who made all this up to do whatever they want, repent and get away with it. How would you feel about implementing this model in to our justice system, for example?

But whatever you think, granting/designing, whatever free will and then punishing people for it is deeply unpleasant.


But the animal instinct is far more powerful than our minds. Three billion years of instinct beats 100,000 years of consciousness any day. We can overcome it for short bursts, but in the end, like gravity, those instincts won't go away. That's why we still have kids, wars, ridiculous courting rituals etc.


I struggle with this. You are obviously an intelligent guy, or very well educated (or both!), so surely you can see that you believe this stuff because you were born here, but if you had been born in China, you would be a Buddhist, in Iran, you would be a Muslim, Japan Shinto etc etc. It's not as if they all have the same model, so you could say "yes, well we all worship one God by a different name", so it's clear that humans have simply evolved their belief systems independently, they are in effect, the first science, nothing more. But, unlike science, they cannot, or refuse to, update their models as better data has come in.

 

It's hard to accept your conflation of Hitler, Stalin and Jesus of Nazareth. In my view, the proposition that His character is comparable is an absurd one. Christ says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me". He gives people the choice to accept that truth (as I see it) or reject it and of course in His sovereignty He knows which choice will be made. The price for failing to accept Jesus as saviour is an eternity in hell. I'm happy to discuss the notion of hell further if you wish, but for starters imagine an eternity separated from God.

Secular law deals with earthly misdemeanours; the commandments of Christ and His authority to forgive sin is spiritual. Christ was a secularist as illustrated by His command to "render unto Caesar...". The Kingdom of Heaven is and will be a kind of Christian anarchy. There will be no need for punitive punishment in a world inhabited by sons and daughters of God. Leo Tolstoy wrote extensively on this should you or anyone else wish to explore the notion further.

Christ forgives those who sincerely ask for forgiveness. We're all sinners, it's just that some of us are sinners saved.

We are to evolve towards Christ consciousness. If you're backing nihilism you have a grim future. What are we without hope?

As we enter an age of globalisation and owing to the universal nature of the internet, the good news of the gospel is becoming widely available. Again, humans are free to choose their beliefs, and place their faith in whatever set they think and feel is right. I've been elected to be in Christ and for that I'll be eternally grateful.

 

Stephen Fry was interviewed by Colin Patterson on the BBC this morning.
This topic was brought up. Fry said his use of the word God was a general term regarding an 'all-powerful being' rather than specifically relating to Christianity. So this would include Allah and all the others.

 

I wonder if it made the Christianity followers feel a bit better, and other faiths a bit worse.

 

Personally if i was religious I doubt Frys comments would have made any difference to my existance. They aren't particularly noteworthy.

 

We see that on this thread, Neil.

 

Que? I must be having a slow moment 'cus i can't get my head around what you mean by that.

 

What would bother me most were I an 'active' Christian is the way that over the last twenty-ish years there has been an active drive by Government to accomodate other faiths (predominantly Islam) to the detriment of Christianity. Calling it positive discrimination wouldn't be too extreme, although very little positive has actually come out of it. Yet more political correctness ultimately.
I'm not an 'active' Christian or even much of a christian at all so I just see it as undermining the framework of our society.

 

On this thread, religious people aren't really affected by what Stephen Fry has said. They're going to stay religious or God believing, or even both, no matter what.

Filling pages with 'for' and 'against' arguments could be taken as either the continuation of their existential crisis, or it's possible that they're out of the crisis mode but they are now enhancing their existence and providing further justification for it (may it be 'for' or against'), because it makes them feel more in control. Control is not always a negative thing.

 

What framework is being undermined and by what action from the government?

 

It' still "my way or the highway". I am an atheist, I would go to hell. I can think of many people who are believers who, by what you are saying, will go to heaven, but certainly are no t as deserving.

So, it seems that being good isn't enough, you have to effectively pay for salvation.



Humanity has plenty of hope without the need for a deity or afterlife.

You cannot deny that your location has influenced this though. If you had been an atheist in another country, its highly likely that the cultural influences you had grown up with would have made you a born again [insert religion here], internet or not.

 

As a Christian I've come to reason that God is sovereign and as such He will judge who will and who will not join Him in The Kingdom. I accept that there are bad Christians and good non-Christians and I further accept that this presents an ethical question: where's the justice? James says this:

2:14-26

"What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."

So James says that one's works are of co-import if not in conflict with the doctrine of sola fide (faith alone). I've yet to resolve my position on this. What isn't in dispute (Biblically) is that the atheist, irrespective of his or her works, will not enter the Kingdom. The unbeliever will go to hell. Again, what hell is can be discussed and discussed.

We're all sinners and Christ died on the cross for our sins. We don't pay for salvation, Christ has paid that debt already.

The humanity you speak of sounds to me like social Darwinism. We're conscious of consciousness and as such, as I said earlier, we can evolve towards a Christ-like consciousness of selflessness and charity and forgiveness. We don't need to blow out somebody else's candle in order to make our own burn brighter!

I accept that I was culturally Christian prior to my conversion, but I would assert that evidence of Christ's lordship is written on the hearts of all men and can be found in creation.

 

James is clearly extremely intelligent,as are others on this thread

Just referring back to my surgeon I mentioned who said the rest is up to God


There must be something else.there must be