Stephen Fry and the Straw Man Theodicy

[rug]

February 5, 2015
by Ben Conroy

Stephen Fry recently had a bit of a go at God on Irish television, telling veteran broadcaster Gay Byrne that “The God who created this universe, if he created this universe, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish.” He indicts the nonexistent God for creating a universe with bone cancer and flies that thrive only by eating children’s eyes.

The video of him saying this has over five million hits, and counting. Here, give it a few more:

Now, my first instinct is to applaud this. All one needs to do is read the book of Job to realise that railing against God, questing His every action, is a much better way of relating to the divine than milquetoast justifications. And I’m not inclined to mock Fry for being so angry with what he thinks is a nonexistent being – God does exist, after all, and being a bit self-contradictory is better than being comprehensively wrong (LINK).

But my second instinct was to roll my eyes. Because as questioning of God goes, this is about five steps back from where the debate is at now.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/shadowsontheroad/2015/02/stephen-fry-and-the-straw-man-theodicy/

[Bluenorthwest]

1. It's amazing how furious certain segments of the faith community become when a gay man mocks

their faith considering that much of the faith industry is based on mocking gay people. Well, mocking and denigrating and organizing against gay people to be fair.

[rug]

2. I didn't see him mention being gay in that clip.

Or gay people at all, for that matter.

[bvf]

3. Would you prefer

that Fry preface everything he said with, "As a gay man, I think..."?

[rug]

4. Ask Blue.

[bvf]

6. I asked you.

Why would I ask Blue what you prefer?

[rug]

7. And I told you what to do.

He's the one who brought it up.

[bvf]

9. I'll take that as a "yes."

[rug]

10. You can put in your head whatever you want.

Reality be damned.

[bvf]

12. The reality is that

you took exception to Fry not explicitly identifying himself as a gay man anywhere in his comments.

Reality be revered.

[rug]

13. Read the post again. And then ask yorself why you have such a bizarre reaction.

[bvf]

15. I did.

The only thing I find bizarre is your insistence that a gay man be required to identify himself as such with every utterance.

Oh, and your suggestion that I ask Blue about what you meant by your earlier comment. That was really odd.

[rug]

16. If you had, you wouldn't be blathering about "insistence".

What is, in fact, odd are your posts in this thread.

[bvf]

22. Did you know

that Stephen Fry is gay?

[rug]

24. It never crossed my mind.

Regardless, the clip is about his view of God, not sex.

[bvf]

27. It never crossed your mind?

Really?

Even after reading and responding to Blue's post?

Surprised you missed that.

[rug]

28. Not while watching the clip.

I was more interested in what he was saying.

Are you in the habit of speculating if someone you're listening to is gay?

[bvf]

29. Of course not.

What does that have to do with anyone pointing out homophobia in religion? Don't you think outrage at his comments is bound to be even greater, given the church's anti-gay stance?

[rug]

30. Because he wasn't talking about that at all.

[Leontius]

17. My first response to that post was

WTF

[Humanist_Activist]

21. Blue might be reacting to the fact that Conroy is a member of an anti-gay hate group...

The Iona Institute, of Ireland.

They lie about the effects of same sex marriage and parenting, and lobby to restrict the same, etc.

[AtheistCrusader]

42. Stephen Fry's sexuality has been well known for as long as I can remember, and he

is quite comfortable in his own skin. Anyone in the UK watching that clip likely knows quite a bit about him, beyond his sexual identity.

Perhaps a bit more obscure to an American I guess.

[Leontius]

5. Thanks for posting this it should make some people think.

But they won't.

[rug]

8. Thinking is harder than reflexing.

[Humanist_Activist]

20. Why should it make people think? Think about what, exactly?

How poor the apologetics are in this case.

The fact that this author erected straw men Stephen Fry's to knock him down. He could have actually emailed him questions, after all.

How about the fact that Stephen Fry's premise was not answered adequately?

Given the universe we live in, why does suffering exist if an omnipotent god who is "good" exists?

[Cartoonist]

11. God does exist, after all

Says you. Talk about rolling eyes. Are we supposed to just accept such a statement because he said so? Does he offer any proof? How about: There must be a god because only a supreme being could create flies that eat children's eyes.

[rug]

14. That's debatable but the existence of straw men is irrefutable.

[Silent3]

18. I see no reason Fry, or anyone else, should feel obligated to even give a nod toward...

...the piss poor theodicies and apologetics out there which utterly fail at defending the kind of god a God would have to be to oversee exactly the horrors Fry rightfully points out.

Nothing more than another variation on the Courtier's Reply here.

[rug]

25. If he's using that as an argument against God, it comes with the territory.

[Humanist_Activist]

19. I like how this guy erected strawmen about Stephen Fry's supposed arguments, then...

demolished them as the straw men they are.

I also like his arguments to...attempt to refute Fry's "problem of evil".

I actually have a problem with the terminology here, I would refer to it as the "problem of suffering"

The first thing this poster goes to is "The Fall". Let me stop right here and say that this is piss poor attempt, there is NOTHING that any person on this planet has done to deserve the type of suffering individuals in our species have suffered, whether inflicted by ourselves or by nature. Assuming there is a god that is omnipotent and omniscience, we can assume that this god is indifferent to this suffering at best. Not to mention the fact that, according to the myth, every human since Adam and Eve is being punished, as part of their punishment, or something. Its intrinsically unjust, sure an existing god could do better.

His second argument is basically a universe with "evil" in it is necessary in order for Stephen Fry and the rest of us to exist. I could easily turn this around, the universe appears to have no deity interacting with it, so therefore doesn't have a deity interacting with it. Whether this is a deistic entity, or a completely non-existent one is irrelevant. If there was a universe with a diety interacting with it, none of us would exist, because we can, with our puny human minds, imagine much better worlds than this one, even ones that preserve most of that most precious free will, that have far less suffering in them, surely a god could do better than us.

I don't find the author's example of Jesus on the cross compelling, simply because God should have been able to redeem humankind from disobeying him without "sacrificing" himself. How does that work anyways? Why was the redemption and forgiveness necessary? Why does this god's ego seem so fragile, that he would punish people into perpetuity over disobeying a command?

I won't even go into his false framework on Stephen Fry's morality, its not even worth the effort. All I can say is that the author of this blog gives out a classic example of why I call Christianity, at best, amoral, because that is what its god is.

[Silent3]

23. How very judgmental and unsophisticated of you...

...to not accept and appreciate the serious efforts of the many theologians and apologists who've worked diligently to create some of the finest quality handwaving ever conceived by humankind.

[rug]

26. Dueling strawmen is not much of an argument.

[Humanist_Activist]

31. Actually, I failed to touch upon that in my original post, what strawman did Stephen Fry use?

The only assumption I think he is making is that this god he meets is the Christian god.

He didn't present any arguments of this supposed god, he simply assumes this is the being responsible for the current state of the world, that's not a strawman.

[rug]

32. A psychopathic maniac chortling as he creates eye worms and the children to host them.

[Humanist_Activist]

33. He said a god who creates a world where eye worms and bone cancer exists...

a god who has the power to prevent such suffering, yet refuses to, can be characterized as a psychopath, again, I don't see the strawman.

Also, I don't remember him mentioning "chortling".

ON EDIT: In addition, most of the characterizations of God, as an egocentric maniac, seems to be a rather accurate observation of how this being is portrayed in the Bible.

[rug]

34. Oh, he only "characterized" him as a psychopath.

I swear, these arguments are becoming more and more disheveled.

[Humanist_Activist]

35. Can you clarify what you mean by this?

I have yet to see or read anyone counter Stephen Fry's argument that is in anyway coherent or even consistent.

I would, more accurately, call such a god a sociopath, assuming they have the power to prevent suffering and won't do it, they would display classical signs of being a sociopath, lacking complete empathy, and being indifferent to humanity.

[rug]

36. If you read the article, you'd see theodicy has been around for a very long time.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/#The

Reconciling an omnipotent, all-loving God with the existence of evil did not originate with Fry and arguments and counter-arguments have been smoldering for centuries. Despite victory laps every few decades by one side or the other, the issue has never been convincingly decided.

Either a selective one-dimensional portrait of a God is portrayed or, a murmur of mystery beyond human understanding is offered. I find neither framing to be a satisfactory one.

Stephen Fry, for all his eloquence, passion and wit is no exception. He has not escaped the camp of the former. Granted, this was a spontaneous answer to a television show, but there it is, regardless.

[Humanist_Activist]

37. Eh, so it seems that, basically those arguing against God being good actually have a point....

That's a summary of the link you provided, basically, none of the justifications or theories as to why the world is the way it is make God seem good, so instead they fall back it "its a mystery", which is dodging rather than answering the question.

And the whole "beyond human understanding" thing is just a sick joke on top of it.

I know some people just HAVE to believe this world, and themselves, are being cared for by an omni-benevolent god who actually knows them by name and cares for them. Its a great ego boost, and a great motivator to do good or bad, depending on their predilections. But its also just a belief without evidence.

I'm not saying that Stephen Fry is breaking new ground here, and this is a spontaneous answer on a TV show, but the fact is that there is no argument refuting his reasoning just illuminates how weak the theistic argument for a the existence of god that is good is.

[rug]

38. No doubt. But it's just the beginning of the argument, not the end.

If I had to pick one, I would say the nontheist argument is the stronger one at the moment, though I still don't think it's the final word. It's a shame when it gets infected by caricature. It's strong enough on its own terms.

[Humanist_Activist]

39. Actually there are a couple arguments for gods that aren't evil that still created the universe...

we live in.

The first is a deistic god, however, with two limitations, they had the power to create the universe, but lack the power to interact with it afterwords, so they cannot be omnipotent, at least in the multiverse sense. You can debate the morality of creating a universe in the first place that had the potential to have suffering within it, but a god of this sort will also not be omniscience.

The second kinda stretches the definition of god, think extreme pantheistic or parantheistic god, basically an overall, creative force, with one striking thing about it that removes it from responsibility, no consciousness.

Now, neither of these are the classic, personal, 3O's God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But then again, that god is himself a contradiction, an impossible object, like an invisible pink unicorn, or a square circle.

Of course, the strongest argument is this, imagine a universe without an active, interventionist deity running it, how much of that universe would differ from the one we observe now?

[rug]

40. That's a very good question.

Until and unless it can be demonstrated that a universe ex nihilo is naturally possible, there may not have been one at all.

But one that naturally existed, or began, or quarked from who knows where, may indeed be starkly different.

It may have been simply a vast, dead expanse. Or, a place sporadically populated by biological organisms responding to biological principles. Intelligence and consciousness are not the inevitable results of evolution. Possible, perhaps probable, but certainly not inevitable.

But as it stands now, humans are indeed unique, most notably in our consciousness and understanding of ourselves, of others, and our knowledge, surrounded by intimations, of the universe. That is far different in both quantity and quality from other animals. That evolution to this state would also have to be explained naturally to conclude a godless universe does not differ from a created one.

One theist answer is that awareness is one of the things meant by "made in the image of God". That quality is often seen as an attribute of a human soul created by God.

Ultimately, the explanation of us is the explanation of God or the extinction of God. That's one reason I find religion endlessly fascinating.

[Humanist_Activist]

41. See, this is where I think we differ, I find the use of a deity to explain our universe's...

existence to be needlessly complicated. It adds a layer of complexity that frankly has no explanatory value, and leads to the whole "infinite egress" of where this god came from, etc.

So far, the evidence is suggesting that our universe may be one where life is widespread, if not common, and sapient life is rare. This isn't confirmed, by any stretch, but its not unreasonable to assume that anywhere there is liquid water, a source of energy that keeps it liquid and feeds the system, and a variety of chemicals present, life could arise. However, I don't see this as evidence for a creator, the problem is this, we only know of the conditions of this one universe, with only a sample size of one, its rather difficult to draw any conclusions.

In addition, evolution to sapience, to us, has already been explained naturally, we have a decent fossil record of our own past, and its expanded greatly recently. In addition, we are not so unique a species on this planet, our other ape cousins exhibit self awareness, tool use, making tools, culture, and rudimentary senses of fairness, etc. Crows and other Corvids have many of the same characteristics, on top of meta-tool use, what appears to be rudimentary language, including possibly personal names, and long memories of individuals, even of other species. Dolphins and other Cetaceans, also share these same qualities. And again, for Elephants, similar behaviors have been observed, and I forgot to mention that some of these species have some type of funerary rites, or at least recognize the dead, Elephants being the most obvious example.

Am I saying any of these species equal humans in ability when it comes to abstract though or consciousness? No, but I would say that its more like a gradient than a bright line separating those who are conscious of their existence, and those that aren't.

The question of us, how we got here, is a scientific inquiry, not a religious one. God simply isn't relevant.