Stephen Fry's rant against God!

Stephen Fry annihilates God

Stephen Fry famously had a good old rant against God recently - you can watch it here: http://youtu.be/-suvkwNYSQo

Does Stephen manage in a few sentences, to annihilate the God of the Bible? unfortunately for him - no! Big fail Spephen. But then, if you rage against what is true, you are bound to failure.

 He annihilates a false God of his own making, one that I certainly don't believe in.

Stephen Fry's rant is an emotional (not intellectual) rant. That is not to say his emotive questions, accusations and objections are not important, they are - but they are, at core, emotional. 

GUESS WHAT?

Now, if someone is going to annihilate the God of the Bible, then guess what? You have to deal with ... THE GOD OF THE BIBLE! Surprise! Fry totally fails to do this. If he was arguing against the God of the Bible he would not say the things he says.

Either he has never read the first few pages of the Bible and so is arguing from total ignorance, or he has read the first few pages of the Bible and is conveniently ignoring it and instead creating a straw man to knock down. Whatever, it is unacceptable to do that and anti-intellectual. Anyone can do that. 

EXAMPLE - Stephen Fry rants against a God who created bone cancer in children and bugs that burrow into children's eyes. He claims he would give God a good telling off, he reckons he would say, and I quote: 

"How dare you create a world with such misery that is not our fault!"

Now, if that is what the Bible tells us about God, then I agree with Stephen! I too would hate such a wicked, cruel God - but that is not the God of the Bible. Any four year old who reads the first page of the Bible could tell you that! Read it. The story of creation appears on the first page of the Bible in Genesis 1. In just 31 verses it tells us about the creation of everything. In those 31 verses we are clearly told that creation was created good.

'IT WAS GOOD' appears four times and 'IT WAS VERY GOOD' once at the end. Now when God says something is GOOD, it means, it is good in every conceivable way. There is nothing at all remotely bad - not a shadow of it.

So, Stephen Fry needs to argue against a God who created a really Good world, a world GOOD in every way - otherwise, he is ranting up the wall and not dealing with the God of the Bible at all.

So, if on that great and glorious day when God judges the world, Stephen Fry does try to take the moral high ground with God and says to Him ... 

"How dare you create a world with such misery that is not our fault!"

God will reply, (hyperthetically) ...

 "Ermmm, I didn't create such a terrible world! I told you that on the first page of the Bible, what are you going on about? Didn't you read it!"

Big fail Stephen Fry!

But there are other problems too.

Stephen Fry's argument is purely emotional - as is so often the case, it is not an intellectual objection, it is not rational, it is not evidential, it is purely emotional. Stephen Fry is clearly very angry with God - that is obvious. Now that is very strange. It is not normal to get really angry with something you don't believe exists. How many people are really angry with fairies because they don't grant everyone's wishes, or Father Christmas because he does distribute gifts fairly and equally to everyone around the world? None! People get angry with people they believe are real!

Stephen Fry is a closet Christian!

Ok, that might be going a bit far - but I have a feeling, Stephen Fry like so many people, knows, deep down inside, that there is, or may well be a God - but Stephen's problem is that God doesn't do what Stephen wants Him to do so Stephen is angry and rejects God and throws all his toys out of the pram. Stephen may well be trying to provoke God to action of some kind - but God will not play Stephen Fry's game or anyone else's. God has revealed Himself to us through JESUS whom He authenticated by raising Him from the dead. JESUS is God's testimony to the world.

But, let's suppose for a moment that God did create the world evil, well then it just means God is evil, it does not mean he does not exist. Not liking him does not make him go away. Stephen knows this and refers to it in his rant when he refers to Thor etc. But his problem is, apparently, specifically with the christian God - all the more reason for Stephen to actual deal with the God of the Bible which he fails to do when he ignores the fact that the God of the Bible created a good world.  A fair question would be, '"Why would a Good God allow His Good world to be ruined?" - that is a good question - but it is not one Stephen asks.

An Intellectual does not equal an Authority

But there is another problem with Stephen Fry. He is an intellectual, but he is not a philosopher, he is not a scientist of any sort, he is not a theologian. Why on earth rely on him as an authority in these matters? He studied English literature! He is no authority on these things at all.

If you want to know about Shakespeare, sure, ask Stephen Fry, he knows about that stuff, but when it comes to cosmology, philosophy, theology (The queens of the sciences) - he is a laymen.

He is very intelligent, but it is not how much you know that counts, it is what you know.

I doubt he is "100 times more intelligent than most of us" as some reckon. He got an UPPER SECOND CLASS honours degree in English lit for goodness sake. My daughter got a FIRST CLASS honour degree in forensic biology - she is a lot more qualified than Stephen Fry. He is very articulate and certainly intelligent - so was Adolf hitter - doesn't make him an authority either. There are literally thousands and thousands of people in Brighton more highly qualified than Stephen Fry. Everyone who has a BA SECOND CLASS (hons) is as qualified as Stephen Fry. Anyone who holds a BA FIRST CLASS Honours, or a Bsc, a Masters or doctorate is more qualified than Stephen.

7) Ricky Gervais - Really??? Stephen Fry was bad enough but Ricky??? The man is a joker - literally. If he lived in medieval times he would have been a jester with a jester's hat and silly bells on his toes - are you seriously suggesting the jester Ricky is an authority? 

8) All the stuff about cancer etc is an argument for, not against the God of the Bible. The Bible explains that stuff. If the Bible is true, then we would expect to find that, plus a whole load of evil.

Like I said above, if people want to disprove THE GOD OF THE BIBLE, then they have to deal with THE GOD OF THE BIBLE.

To Argue against the Christian God, you must argue against a good God who created the world GOOD. A world without death, disease, illness tragedy. One needs to deal with a human race that became corrupt and rejected the God who held the world together in harmony and destroyed the good world God created (and continues to do so).

Most importantly, it is easy to disprove God if he is not true. According to the Bible a protagonist only has to prove JESUS did not live, did not die on a cross or did not rise again. The bible tells us, the whole christian Faith stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus, and not on some monstrous God who created the world evil as Fry suggests.

This is what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:14-19

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

Nuff said.