Stephen Fry tells it as it is........

db · Post by db » Tue Feb 03, 15 9:06 am

Don't worry.
Even though religion is losing it's power over most of us these days, our own greed still gives those that want to control us plenty to work with.

latil · Post by **latil** » Tue Feb 03, 15 9:10 am

It's not as there's one religion,there's hundreds all trying to get their message over and gain power over people by preying on the gullible. This is what causes all the unrest and wars.

db · Post by db » Tue Feb 03, 15 9:16 am

Religion is just the tool used by greedy, power crazed monsters to justify what they do and to make other do what they want.

I'm not a fan of religions, they're like guns. In the right hands, not a problem, but there's too many wrong hands itching to use 'em.

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Tue Feb 03, 15 10:51 am

Well summed up Paul, couldn't agree more.

Dom66 · Post by **Dom66** » Tue Feb 03, 15 1:11 pm

Yep.

It's tempting to post up Fry's comments over on FBBO though, I suspect you might get a somewhat different response....

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Tue Feb 03, 15 1:56 pm

I could have sworn Dave Allen was dead.

cadboy · Post by **cadboy** » Wed Feb 04, 15 6:51 am

db wrote:Religion is just the tool used by greedy, power crazed monsters to justify what they do and to make other do what they want.

totally agree and yes it is getting worst with more power in their hands!!!!!

MrNorm · Post by **MrNorm** » Thu Feb 05, 15 6:48 pm

Some fair questions raised from Stephen Fry, fair rather than new, but that's OK. Anyway, I guess my question to him would be well how do you make any sense of all the suffering in the world? The answer of course is that from the atheist/materialist perspective there is no sense, because we are just a bag of chemicals dancing to the tune of our DNA. The fact that it upset him, like the rest of us, to see so much suffering in the word tells me that he does not really believe his own atheist worldview. On that belief suffering is exactly what you'd expect to see - survival of the fittest, we are no different from any other animal, we're all just fighting to be top dog. As Richard Dawkins says, with no God there's really no right or wrong, good or evil, just "blind pitiless indifference" that's just the way it is.
But of course no one actually lives as if this were true, including Stephen Fry (not even Dawkins). Because deep down we believe there really is such a thing as right and wrong, justice and injustice, the value of human beings etc. In fact the irony is that for Stephen Fry to claim that God is unfair, malicious etc, he actually has to smuggle in God to deny him.....

Blue · Post by **Blue** » Thu Feb 05, 15 7:02 pm

I think you can still have perfectly decent human values without having faith. I can live quite happily with the idea that life has no point and no guidance, I can provide that for myself.

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Thu Feb 05, 15 7:45 pm

Totally agree, Blue.
I have never felt the need for a religious emotional crutch to get me through life.

But that does not mean that I am a totally immoral person either (please don't set up a Pool on this, thanks..........)

Mick · Post by **Mick** » Thu Feb 05, 15 8:34 pm

I think a lot of christians in this country see religion more as a moral compass, as opposed to something you have to play an active role in.
Mick

V8 Sam · Post by **V8 Sam** » Thu Feb 05, 15 8:52 pm

-joins this conversation..-

woah..Bananarama! this..

-leaves this conversation-

Mossy68 · Post by **Mossy68** » Thu Feb 05, 15 10:47 pm

V8 Sam wrote:-joins this conversation..-

woah..Bananarama! this..

-leaves this conversation-

it's not that heavy Sam.
I'm with Blue and Pete. Yet understand how some people need religion in their lives for various reasons.
We are all only here for a shift. Different colours , religions,views,languages etc etc.
if you meet people similar to you, friendships and bonds are created enriching your short time on this planet.
The people whom you have little similarities with , you let pass by

Not as easy as this in real life , but that's the way I try to live my time here.

db · Post by db » Fri Feb 06, 15 9:10 am

MrNorm wrote: The fact that it upset him, like the rest of us, to see so much suffering in the word tells me that he does not really believe his own atheist worldview.

No, sorry Gavin you're completely wrong on this point. What upset him was the thought that an entity could consciously and intentionally create something as cruel as childhood brain cancer, or a parasite whose sole legacy is to leave small children blind.
Imagine, if your wife had invented that parasite and gave it to your own child. Would you not be a little angry? Could you still love them?

I'm not trying to wind anyone up, I just genuinely cannot understand how a follower of any god can accept such things.

Because we scientific-minded folk accept that these things have come about by evolution and chance, does not prevent us feeling sadness, anger, hatred and loss.

It's exactly the same lack of logic that means I get angry at my car when the trunk lid drops on my head after I just spent two hours painstakingly and lovingly installing £50-worth of new gas struts to the damn thing. (in fact I'm STILL bloody angry about it!)

MrNorm · Post by **MrNorm** » Fri Feb 06, 15 12:33 pm

No offence guys, but you have misunderstood the argument. I did not say anything about whether you are somehow moral if you believe in God, or that you can't be moral if you don't. Clearly that is not true - there are plenty of moral atheists, and immoral people who believe in God.

The argument is that you have no BASIS for OBJECTIVE morality if atheism (materialism) is true. That means that if you believe there are moral 'facts' and obligations (regardless of what they are), you are at odds with an atheistic worldview.
To illustrate, if, say, Hitler had killed everyone who didn't agree killing Jews was wrong, and the whole world now believed that it was right to exterminate Jews, would it BE right? If you believe that it would still be wrong, then you believe in objective moral values - that there is such a thing as actual right and wrong, no matter who believes or doesn't believe them. (again - what those values are is another discussion, the point here is solely whether they exist at all).
All you can say as an atheist is something like morals evolved for the greater good of the species. That means they are a convenient convention that people may FEEL are right and wrong, but really they are just a social construct. If we had evolved differently, to believe that, say, murdering and eating each other was right (like some other animals) then it WOULD be right - subjective morality.
This is not a controversial or 'religious' position - most of the atheist 'intelligentsia' would agree with this, I already quoted Dawkins.

If this is true, then even though you may have evolved to feel horror at something, you are not in a position to tell someone that their view or practice is 'wrong'(there is no such thing). It's just a difference of preference. You feel horrible about people being murdered, the other guy feels great, your favourite colour is blue, his is red - it's no different.
Again this is not a 'religious' view. If you believe there is no such thing as objective morality that's OK, everyone is entitled to make up their on minds.

The point is that people vastly believe that objective moral values DO exist. So I say that they are being inconsistent in their views. It would of course be too bleak to live like that, so most atheists act as if there were, even though there aren't - dare I say it's like a crutch to get through life without facing the reality that there is no point to it all.

I'm not trying to stir here, this is a classic argument for God's existence (the 'Moral Argument') and has been around for millenia. I actually think it's a very strong one, amongst many others.

Once again, all of this has nothing to do with exactly WHAT those moral rules ARE, or WHO believes them, or WHY - just whether they do or don't exist. You can be a really 'moral' person without believing in God - and can be an evil scumbag if you do (but I wouldn't like to meet their version of God - which fortunately, I won't!)