What questions would Stephen Fry ask God at the pearly gates?

boing
61

You forgot omnipresent.

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FTFY. Its kind of become my role to point out that Jews are not Christians minus the Jesus. Jews don’t have “pearly gates” or really anything like the Christian concept of “Heaven”.

As a meta comment its kind of sad how the Dawkinsists assume that all religion follows the Christian paradigm.

Because people don’t like the idea of freewill and the responsibility it implies?

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63

Fry’s questions at the pearly gates would definitely be pillow talk, because those are the kinds of “pearly gates” he’s into.

64

Why do you love science more than faith, but so many of your followers call for faith over science?
If you are omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, why are you such a bad communicator?

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God wanted to avoid a “Midi-chlorians” disaster, so he just left it a mystery…

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Someone once told me that there’s a legend about Orang Utans that they can actually talk and are intelligent, they just don’t talk to humans, because we’d give them jobs to do.

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Cassetteboy needs to get on that shit right now.

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68

Here’s a question!

Why is it that whenever humanists, atheists, and agnostics want to “suppose there is a god”, that they use the same blinkered, stereotypical god that most Christians popularly do?

Is it that hard for people to think up a god which makes sense and isn’t fueled by cognitive dissonance?

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69

When theists start by assuming the pearly gates and other ideas related to a particular understanding of a Christian god, it isn’t the atheists who are blinkered.

As it is, I guess you could say that in this argument,

(••). ( ••)>⌐□-□. (⌐□_□)

Gay Byrne got Fryed.

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71

I didn’t say it was…

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Because most atheists in the western world were brought up in nominally Christian countries. Their atheism is a rejection of the stuff they were told as kids.

I had to go to a Church of England school, I had to go to Christian services at school and in the youth groups that I was in, I had to have lessons at school studying the bible. I had no choice, it was forced on me.

Of course my atheism is a reaction to and rejection of that.

And in this specific example, Fry was asked specifically about that kind of stereotypical Christian view of religion.

But to answer your wider question, why would I want to think up a god of any kind? (Unless it’s for a screenplay)

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73

Well in this case, the person was being asked by a long term presenter of a TV show in a strongly culturally Catholic country. There was a nod to the idea that God could be male, female or neither, but the question is still being phrased as a situation where “it’s all true” and Stephen Fry is called to account by a personal god in a stereotypically Christian setting - a kind of personal judgement after you die. It may be that atheists, agnostics etc. lack imagination, but I don’t see how it’s true in this case. In any case, shouldn’t it be up to theists to propose a possible deity, rather than up to atheists to find deities that may actually exist?

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Propose a falsifiable deity, then use the scientific method to determine if it exists.

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I guess. Maybe England’s use of Christianity is merely their reactionary rejection of Druidism.

As a metaphor for the world as you experience it? That seems to be the usual reason. People have an easier time making symbol sets which conform to human cognitive models, so personifying concepts could potentially be useful. People do it all of the time with concepts regarded as secular, such as markets and law, this is no different. It could be anything from a lazy crutch, to an interesting thought exercise, depending upon what you do with it.

No, why would it? The “existence” of gods is completely irrelevant, and I don’t understand what people find so interesting about it. People in their daily lives use many things which are “just ideas” and seem to have no problem with this. Why not prove that your subjective feeling of “happiness” is “real”? Or that a country you are citizen of is “just a made up idea”? So what? Nobody seems to find these controversial.

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I don’t really care if your subjective reality is real, but if you suggest that I am accountable to your subjective ideas, I feel quite entitled to refute them.

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You aren’t entitled to refute other people’s subjectivity, that’s why it’s subjective. OTOH if people try to impose their subjectivities upon you, they refute their own subjectivity for you by trying to externalize it. This has nothing to do with the subjective contents of people’s thoughts - but rather just that many people are lazy thinkers and assholes.

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That’s kind of the point - the question presupposed that there was nothing subjective about the Christian deity. While you may see religion as fundamentally subjective, many religious followers don’t share your conviction.

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How dare you add context? In context it seems line an entirely reasonable, if not well informed and measured response.

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As a bit more context, here are some things that Stephen Fry has to say about the Catholic Church. I’m not surprised that he finds it offensive to be told that its moral stance applies to everyone, including non-believers.