We all like to see our views vindicated, and hence my gratitude to the newlywed comedian cum talk show host.
About a fortnight ago I wrote that, whenever atheists talk about God, “they are absolutely guaranteed to sound stupid and vulgar, no matter how clever they are otherwise.”
I doubt that Mr Fry is among my regular readers, because if he were he would have had an apoplexy a long time ago. So it was thanks to one of those blessed serendipities that he set out to prove me right.
It has to be said that Mr Fry doesn’t start from the vantage point of towering intellect, although he’s reasonably clever for an actor. Fry is your typical metrosexual trendy, dabbling at this and that, attending all the fashionable parties and fashionable shrinks, popping antidepressants and whatever else is going, advocating every faddish leftie cause – well, you know the type.
Nonetheless he is taken seriously by those who equate intellect with Mr Fry’s well-honed ability to memorise heaps of trivia. This knack makes him a competent talk show host, a celebrity in other words.
And of course any celebrity feels entitled not only to his opinion but also to an audience. In this instance Mr Fry found his audience on one of those rare occasions when he appeared on a TV show as merely its guest.
Asked what he’d say to God at the pearly gates – assuming hypothetically that God exists – Mr Fry unleashed a tirade suggesting that he’s courting apoplexy even without reading my prose regularly.
“Utterly evil… capricious… mean-minded… stupid… a maniac… totally selfish… utterly monstrous…” – there, there, dear, take it easy. Look, you’ve turned purple in the face. Have a sip of water. Feel better now?
One would think that, now Mr Fry is happily married to another man, he’d mellow a bit. No longer on the make (one supposes), he can concentrate on learning how to ponder the meaning of life. Instead he has forgotten his manners.
One simply doesn’t talk to anyone the way Mr Fry would talk to God in his imaginary conversation. Why, I wouldn’t talk that way even to Mr Fry.
As to the meaning of life, he probably thinks there is none. And if there is, Mr Fry is sure God has nothing to do with it. In fact: “The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living in my opinion.”
Actually, if one-tenth of the things one reads about Mr Fry’s own life are true, it’s rather the opposite of simple, pure and clean.
Manic depressions, frequent suicide attempts, drugs, perverse sexuality – such are the hallmarks of Mr Fry’s existence, and these hardly testify to the benefits of banishing God from one’s life.
Still, assuming – and this isn’t a safe assumption – that he was compos mentis during the interview, he ought to know that at times one has to shut up, especially if one has a reputation for cleverness to protect.
Essentially, if you’ll forgive a neologism, Fry is a Humosexual, in that he expanded on the fallacy first made popular by David Hume. If God is omniscient, omnipotent and good, then how come we have [insert anything you don’t like, such as murder, natural disaster, disease or, for that matter, Stephen Fry].
Now Mr Hume was immeasurably cleverer than Mr Fry, but even he proves my conviction that atheism can make even intelligent men sound stupid. Specifically, he committed the gross logical error of judging one system (religion) by the criteria of another (atheism).
If in Messrs Hume’s and Fry’s opinion God doesn’t exist, then he can be neither omnipotent nor monstrous. Conversely, if one believes that God exists, then one must operate within the system of thought based on that fact.
One has to ponder the corrupting effect of Original Sin not only on man but also on the natural order. One must figure out how our free will coexists with God’s design. One has to look upon physical death in the context of eternal life.
In short, one would have to dedicate one’s life to pondering and absorbing the profound philosophy that clearly takes not only Mr Fry but even Mr Hume out of his depth.
Now it’s no secret that I find Mr Fry not only a pathetic character, but also an utterly boring one. That he is typical doesn’t make him any less tedious.
Hence what he thinks about God is of no interest whatsoever. However, I’d pay good money to find out what God thinks of Mr Fry.