This video of atheist
Stephen Fry responding to a question has impressed many; it is, after
all, about that perennial problem of Christian theism, the problem of evil and
suffering. I not going to take up that difficult
subject here, but instead I’m going to focus on the reaction of my favourite evangelical
atheist Larry Moran. This biochemistry professor, it seems, is pretty much underwhelmed by Fry’s response and entitles his blog post “Stephen Fry blows it by assuming he knows
the mind of god” and in it he writes this:
Many of my atheist friends think that Fry's response
is fantastic because he really shocks the interviewer, Gay Byrne. That's naive.
Most intelligent Christians have developed some very good rationalizations
concerning the problem of evil. They've heard it all before and they know how
to respond. One of the classic responses is that they cannot know the mind of
god. But Stephen Fry knows the mind of god and this is puzzling because Fry is
an atheist.
Larry Moran
knows that Fry is treading very deep theological waters indeed and also
knows that populist answers to theological
questions, questions which have been pondered by theologians and scholars for centuries aren't
going to impress those “Intelligent Christians” one little bit. But let me read between the lines of Larry’s
post, as I did when I commented on it in a Facebook entry as follows:
..well I
suppose we can all, to a lesser or greater extent, get held up at the theodicy
problem; but the crucial point is Stephen Fry is seriously thinking about
theology and moreover relating it to empirical conditions! As evangelical
atheist Larry Moran over on Sandwalk points out, this is a virtual defeat
because it can be taken as an admission that the "God" concept has
some (profound) empirical content. Evangelical atheists like Moran would much
prefer to see "God" as a vacuous, obscurantist fairy tale object,
devoid of all empirical meaning, rather like Russell's orbiting teapot or the
tooth fairy. Moran senses that Fry, by grappling so seriously with theism, is
admitting that "God", as a concept, is empirically meaningful, even
if Fry himself doesn't believe God to be a reality. In Moran's eyes Fry is on a
slippery slope that could conceivably lead to conversion!
In other words Larry
would much prefer that Fry didn't get in bed with the theologians by effectively
encouraging the debate to enter into highfalutin theological discussions about
the internal consistency and/or questionable morality of the Christian creator
God, as a concept. He would much prefer
to simply declare the whole subject to be rationally off limits because, he
believes, theology is basically non-empirical nonsense. He sees Fry playing theologians at their own game; but Larry wants to only play the game of what he thinks of as "just science". His efforts, however, are in
vain; Larry’s post attracts a very long theological
looking comment thread where the character of God is thrashed out in detail.
In one comment Larry throws up his hands and tells us what he thinks (My emphasis):
Theodicy is an example of the "sophisticated
theology" that Christians claim we atheists are ignoring. It's what PZ
Myers was mocking in the Courtier's Reply. We atheists have already lost the
battle once we start debating the merits of theodicy because we concede the
possibility that god exists and now we are just quibbling about his properties.
Larry wants to
just sweep all that theological sophistry off the table without engaging its
finer points; after all, to him it’s just so must time wasting casuistry. Trouble
is, if Larry is to seriously criticize Christianity (as is Fry) he can’t avoid
thinking theologically and I have caught him at it several times: See for example here and here
PZ Myers thinks Fry's response is good but,
however, a “fairly standard atheist
answer”. What does interest me is the following comment by Myers:
Another factor, to me, is that if their afterlife were
true, they expect us to stand before a deity as a supplicant, with a vast power
differential, and then essentially grovel. There is no human dignity and no
hope in their vision of death — your choice is to submit or suffer. If this god
could see into our minds what we were truly thinking, then there is also no
point to pretending, and it would know it: this would be a monstrous alien
passing judgment on a humanity it regards as corrupt, debased, and wicked, and
the only propitiation it could get from us is our terror…… Fortunately, there
is no evidence and no reason to think we will continue to exist beyond the
death of our bodies, or that there is such a cosmic tyrant, so I’m relieved
that I don’t have to worry about a Christian afterlife.
The answer to
this response is very much bound up with the personality of God; The vision Myers
portrays here is of a God who is a very repugnant personality, someone who, if he
existed, Myers wouldn't want anything to do with (and neither would I!). Myers is very much consoled, therefore,
by his belief that this God doesn't exist. Western fundamentalism is unlikely
to disabuse Myers of such an opinion because the fundamentalist God is the God of hell and hamnation (See also here, here and here for example). If God does exist
then Myers really needs to meet him personally as does Larry Moran. In fact in
his blog post this is what Larry would say if he met God after he had died….
My questions would be "Who are you? Which groups
of humans (if any) got it right when making up a religion? Tell me about
yourself and why you didn't reveal yourself to me."
Good question!
Which group of exclusivist scriptural literalists have “made up” the
right religion?One can find a different species of fundamentalism creeping out from under every stone one turns. I am inclined to answer this question with Hebrews 1 and Philippians 2
but there is no shortage of fundamentalist brands out there claiming that the gospel
of Hebrews 1 and Philippians 2 only fully applies to those affiliated to their observant communities of strict practice and belief. So, I for one can’t be too hard on
the opinions of Larry Moran, PZ Myers, or Stephen Fry for that matter.
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