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Stephen Fry on confronting god after death

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Comments

  • #932
    Donkey Oaty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,533 ✭✭✭Donkey Oaty


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    a lot of what he comes out with is nonsense

    His gushing about his work colleagues is nonsense, but his thoughts on education, religion, society, zoos, dugs, mental health, are well-crafted contributions by any standards.

    Examples, my good man. That's what we need from you.


  • #933
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 24,773 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    WTF are you on about. The word "fundamentalist" has been used for years to describe any number of theist extremists.
    When does the Maximo Grumpy Leotard Standard English Dictionary come out with this new definition?
    Pathetic.

    The word is almost exclusively used nowadays when referring to the crimes of the likes of ISIS etc.


  • #934
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    Damn square.
    Because god doesn't exist.

    Again, you are also missing the concept of free will.

    Lets say a corporation dumps a carcinogenic in a local drinking water supply to save costs on dumping it elsewhere. And a child gets cancer from it.

    Who is to blame here?


  • #935
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,069 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    The word is almost exclusively used nowadays when referring to the crimes of the likes of ISIS etc.
    And the squirming starts immediately. "likes of"? "etc." You said is WAS a reference to ISIS, correct?
    Are you claiming you lied or were incorrect the first time?


  • #936
    Donkey Oaty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,533 ✭✭✭Donkey Oaty


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    OK, I can see you need a bit of work. Right here goes.

    Most people accept bone cancer has got nothing to do with "god". Correct?

    You need to address that to somebody who believes that God is responsible for everything in world.

    But I agree, if we can put it in the same category as stained-glass windows.


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  • #937
    Eutow
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,197 ✭✭✭Eutow


    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    Nice attempt at trying to tie Irish Catholics in with the animals in ISIS by using the term "fundamentalist". The word has no place in relation to me. I don't even mention religion except in reply to others on boards.


    I mentioned Catholic because you are one, no other reason.


    What do you expect me to think when I read this:
    hynesie08 wrote: »
    Nox, do you still believe that all religions other than Catholicism are "wrong" and that kids should have it forced on them in school?

    If so you prove everything Stephen Fry said to be right.

    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    Pretty much yes.


  • #938
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    Donkey Oaty wrote: »
    His gushing about his work colleagues is nonsense, but his thoughts on education, religion, society, zoos, dugs, mental health, are well-crafted contributions by any standards.

    Examples, my good man. That's what we need from you.

    To be honest, I find him to be a pound shop Oscar Wilde, and most of what he says and does is inspired by Wilde. I find him to be unoriginal. I also think at best he's eccentric. But an intellectual that I would have time for, no. I don't believe his formal education was that much and he learned most of what he knows from reading popular books.


  • #939
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,069 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    Again, you are also missing the concept of free will.

    Lets say a corporation dumps a carcinogenic in a local drinking water supply to save costs on dumping it elsewhere. And a child gets cancer from it.

    Who is to blame here?
    Since there still is no god I think I'll go with man on this one.
    How am I doing?


  • #940
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,069 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    To be honest, I find him to be a pound shop Oscar Wilde, and most of what he says and does is inspired by Wilde. I find him to be unoriginal. I also think at best he's eccentric. But an intellectual that I would have time for, no. I don't believe his formal education was that much and he learned most of what he knows from reading popular books.
    But nothing you can specifically say he was incorrect about I notice.
    Which was what you originally proposed.


  • #941
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    Since there still is no god I think I'll go with man on this one.
    How am I doing?

    You are getting there.

    So most cancers are environmental, genetic, behavioural. So we are agreed if a god did or didn't exist, he still isn't responsible for most if not all cancers. Correct?


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  • #942
    byrneg28
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭byrneg28


    bb87 wrote: »
    Typical Fry, his unwillingness to explore what Genesis has to say as to why there is such suffering and evil, highlights his wilful ignorance and dishonesty.

    He will deny Satan exists as an active evil force in the world, whilst perfectly describing his existence in the world. Why does Fry see more of Satan than God? Says a lot about him, really.

    Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God. Maybe Fry better stop lusting after young men and let go of this bitterness clearly revealed in this clip. Then he will see more of the one true God.

    This man needs prayers..

    "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist"

    Maybe Stephen fry is Satan??


  • #943
    Donkey Oaty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,533 ✭✭✭Donkey Oaty


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    To be honest, I find him to be a pound shop Oscar Wilde, and most of what he says and does is inspired by Wilde. I find him to be unoriginal. I also think at best he's eccentric. But an intellectual that I would have time for, no. I don't believe his formal education was that much and he learned most of what he knows from reading popular books.

    He's not an academic, nor is he a scientist.

    But the truth is, in terms of celebrity, I would say he's actually bigger than Oscar Wilde was.


  • #944
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    But nothing you can specifically say he was incorrect about I notice.
    Which was what you originally proposed.

    If I wanted to hear an intellectual speak, the last person I would listen to is Fry. So yes, I have very little familiarity with anything he has spoken about, thankfully. Next you will be telling me to listen to Russel Brand's opinions on politics.


  • #945
    Donkey Oaty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,533 ✭✭✭Donkey Oaty


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    You are getting there.

    So most cancers are environmental, genetic, behavioural. So we are agreed if a god did or didn't exist, he still isn't responsible for most if not all cancers. Correct?

    At some point in this discussion he won't be responsible for asteroids wiping out life on earth either.


  • #946
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 24,773 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    And the squirming starts immediately. "likes of"? "etc." You said is WAS a reference to ISIS, correct?
    Are you claiming you lied or were incorrect the first time?

    "Likes of" as in any group of Islamic fundamentalists who commit terror attacks.

    The poster probably didn't mean it that in hind sight however the word fundamentalist immediately makes a connection to terror attacks etc in my head anyway so I don't like it being used towards me.

    How could I call myself a catholic if I didn't believe other religions were wrong to some degree or other.
    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    Since there still is no god I think I'll go with man on this one.

    It hilarious how you and other atheists can make this statement as if you actually have a clue, you are doing nothing but expressing a misguided opinion.


  • #947
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    Donkey Oaty wrote: »
    At some point in this discussion he won't be responsible for asteroids wiping out life on earth either.

    hmm strange you should say that, given that humans have been very lucky with asteroids compared to previous species.

    In any case, the Christian "god" has little or no power in this world. He certainly is not going to stick a hand out and stop the next asteroid due to hit us, that would be ridiculous.

    Like Fry, you seem to have very little knowledge of the subject you are condemning. At least Dawkins is a relative expert on the religions he denounces.


  • #948
    Eutow
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,197 ✭✭✭Eutow


    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    "Likes of" as in any group of Islamic fundamentalists who commit terror attacks.

    The poster probably didn't mean it that in hind sight however the word fundamentalist immediately makes a connection to terror attacks etc in my head anyway so I don't like it being used towards me.


    You are correct in that I didn't mean it in an ISIS context. However when a poster asked you if children should be forced to learn about the Catholic religion and whether every other religion is wrong, you replied "pretty much, yes".

    It is that I have a problem with. Nobody should be forced to learn any religion, and nobody is better than anyone else for having a certain religion or no religion.


  • #949
    floggg
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,821 ✭✭✭floggg


    Zack Morris wrote: »
    He's right. They all began as cults that became religions when they're endorsed by a king/emperor who then make it the state religion. St. Patrick brought Christianity here but if he didn't, we would be worshiping pagan Gods or the Protestant church would have spread across from England.

    If Christian Europe lost the battle of Vienna, Europe would be predominantly Muslim. You're only a Catholic/Christian because your parents raised/indoctrinated you to be one - the vast majority of religious people were never given a choice to believe in anything else.

    Jesus was no more than a cult leader and hs name wasn't even Jesus because the letter J wasn't invented until the 15th century or thereabouts. The Bible is full of bullshít.

    Actually the Ottomans had a very tolerant multi-culturist approach and allowed full religious freedom to minority faiths. It even took in Jews when they were being purged from Europe.

    I am sure that Christianity would have survived - though Western Europe would likely not be the same.


  • #950
    Donkey Oaty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,533 ✭✭✭Donkey Oaty


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    In any case, the Christian "god" has little or no power in this world. He certainly is not going to stick a hand out and stop the next asteroid due to hit us, that would be ridiculous.

    It would, wouldn't it. Although to be fair, he (presumably) started it - or was it some evil corporation dumping stuff in a river?
    Like Fry, you seem to have very little knowledge of the subject you are condemning.

    Stop it...I always get compared to Stephen Fry and Socrates...I'm embarrassed now.

    But I am also like God, according to you.

    I have little or no power in this world.


  • #951
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    My beef with Stephen Fry is the type of logic he used.

    He basically said the presence of so much evil in the world and the likes of childhood cancer mean its impossible for there to be a god. But its flawed.

    If I punch someone on the street, am I then supposed to say, "why didn't god stop me?" or "how could he let me do such an evil thing?"

    Too many poeple outsource evil and blame it on a "god" and never take responsibility.

    Fry may be right and there is no God, but he didn't really give a good explanation for it. He completely ignored Free Will which is a central tenent of christianity. He also ignored that most cancers come from behavorial, genetic or environmental factors.

    Lung cancer for example, a lot of it comes from smoking. Is god to blame for that too? At what point do people need to take responsibility for their own free will or their own evil instead of blaming a "god"?


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  • #952
    Donkey Oaty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,533 ✭✭✭Donkey Oaty


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    My beef with Stephen Fry is the type of logic he used.

    He basically said the presence of so much evil in the world and the likes of childhood cancer mean its impossible for there to be a god.

    He said no such thing.

    Look at the interviews again and get back to us.


  • #953
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,069 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    If I wanted to hear an intellectual speak, the last person I would listen to is Fry. So yes, I have very little familiarity with anything he has spoken about, thankfully. Next you will be telling me to listen to Russel Brand's opinions on politics.
    So, to summarize, you don't know what he said but he's wrong.
    Thanks for that.


  • #954
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    Donkey Oaty wrote: »
    He said no such thing.

    Look at the interviews again and get back to us.

    What was your understanding of what he said?

    First of all, he's an athiest, you agree on that? He said if he met God, he would say all these things to them and want to have nothing to do with him. However, reading between the lines, he's an athiest and the presence of so much evil in the world is his reason for not believing.


  • #955
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    Dan_Solo wrote: »
    So, to summarize, you don't know what he said but he's wrong.
    Thanks for that.

    That pretty much sums it up yes. Most people are wrong on most things. I don't get excited by what UK celebrities have to say, clearly you do and take it as "gospel".


  • #956
    Rabo Karabekian
    Closed Accounts Posts: 275 ✭✭Rabo Karabekian


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    My beef with Stephen Fry is the type of logic he used.

    He basically said the presence of so much evil in the world and the likes of childhood cancer mean its impossible for there to be a god. But its flawed.

    If I punch someone on the street, am I then supposed to say, "why didn't god stop me?" or "how could he let me do such an evil thing?"

    Too many poeple outsource evil and blame it on a "god" and never take responsibility.

    Fry may be right and there is no God, but he didn't really give a good explanation for it. He completely ignored Free Will which is a central tenent of christianity. He also ignored that most cancers come from behavorial, genetic or environmental factors.

    Lung cancer for example, a lot of it comes from smoking. Is god to blame for that too? At what point do people need to take responsibility for their own free will or their own evil instead of blaming a "god"?

    The examples he used were of naturally occurring 'evil' like worms who survive by feeding on eyes. The examples you used are of organisms who are just being dicks.


  • #957
    Shurimgreat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,133 ✭✭✭Shurimgreat


    Rabo Karabekian wrote: »
    The examples he used were of naturally occurring 'evil' like worms who survive by feeding on eyes. The examples you used are of organisms who are just being dicks.

    And again, Fry and his followers on here, seem to think God should be intervening and that because he doesn't intervene he either doesn't exist or he's an evil god, which is plainly ridiculous.

    If there is a god, the idea he would intervene to stop naturally or manmade evil is plainly ridiculous.

    Its a concept that ranks with the idea of a Santa Claus delivering presents individually.


  • #958
    K4t
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,362 ✭✭✭K4t


    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    Please, he is attacking Catholics by calling their religion a "disease" many other offensive terms.

    If I went and kicked you in the face would you be offended? The posts by that (and many other) posters are along the lines of that.
    That's similar to the analogy the Pope used in the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo, except even he did not go as far as to explicitly suggest that speech is equal to physical violence, and that someone insulting a person's beliefs is the direct equivalent of shooting them with a gun or kicking them in the face.
    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    A person and their beliefs are one in the same.
    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    And some of the stuff posted here would certainly be an offence under the blashmaphy laws in this country and could get you arrested too.
    Using the blasphemy law to issue threats and in an attempt to suppress speech.



    This is a direct question to you and your reply:
    hynesie08 wrote:
    Nox, do you still believe that all religions other than Catholicism are "wrong" and that kids should have it forced on them in school?
    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    Pretty much yes.


    Emersyn Deep Destroyer wrote: »
    "Likes of" as in any group of Islamic fundamentalists who commit terror attacks.
    The poster probably didn't mean it that in hind sight however the word fundamentalist immediately makes a connection to terror attacks etc in my head anyway so I don't like it being used towards me.
    How could I call myself a catholic if I didn't believe other religions were wrong to some degree or other.
    You're not a fundamentalist, but you're not exactly a million miles away from it either when it comes to your religion.


  • #959
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,069 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    That pretty much sums it up yes. Most people are wrong on most things. I don't get excited by what UK celebrities have to say, clearly you do and take it as "gospel".
    Oh, I see. Because I made a fool of you and your assertion that Fry is often incorrect, I must therefore agree with everything Fry says and be a big fan.
    Is this one of those non-logical spiritual arguments again?


  • #960
    Rabo Karabekian
    Closed Accounts Posts: 275 ✭✭Rabo Karabekian


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    If there is a god, the idea he would intervene to stop naturally or manmade evil is plainly ridiculous.

    Why not? He used to be *all* about getting mixed up in our sh1t.


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  • #961
    Dan_Solo
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 10,069 ✭✭✭✭Dan_Solo


    Shurimgreat wrote: »
    And again, Fry and his followers on here, seem to think God should be intervening and that because he doesn't intervene he either doesn't exist or he's an evil god, which is plainly ridiculous.

    If there is a god, the idea he would intervene to stop naturally or manmade evil is plainly ridiculous.

    Its a concept that ranks with the idea of a Santa Claus delivering presents individually.
    So, tell us, what purpose does this god who never intervenes serve and why should I worship him?


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