I didn’t even want to get into this at all. It’s all been talked in and out of heaven and hell already .They’re back on the radio talking and tussling about god again. William Crawley is leavening the row on “Talkback” with some well-chosen music that would never usually get an airing in the blandfest that is morning and early afternoon Radio Ulster, since the death of Gerry Anderson.What stirred up this buzzing hive again….?
Apparently Stephen Fry, the writer, performer and all-round everygayman, was asked on television , by Gay Byrne , {hypothetically, mind you} ,what he’d do if he arrived at those mystical Pearly Gates somewhere in the clouds of imagination , what he would say to God? Bearing in mind that Mr. Fry does not believe in God and that this was only a mental exercise for him , he basically answered that he’d ask God some very hard questions about his mischievous and errant behaviour in his dealings with us little earthlings and also the many creatures that come into conflict with us. The nub of it is ,why would someone with that kind of power need to get their kicks in that kind of way? Hypothetically …mind you …was it a case of limitless time on his hands and just plain boredom that made him create any of this at all?….I would say …why did you bother?.
Of course another way to look at it is to think that god was really a fantasy creation made up by people suffering beyond their mental capacity and who were willing to take succour from any little crumbs that might fall from an imagined creator’s massive table.Some tribal elder or a witchdoctor may have started the ball rolling while staring at the stars from his cave entrance.
Many educated and non-educated people have a “faith” in god and believe that without god we’d be lost to savagery ,Well , even with god and religion we are are very capable of being lost to savagery already, so morality doesn’t appear to rely on a belief in a creator -being. We’ve just been reminded how delightfully Christian people were compliant in the unholy Holocaust where millions of their fellow creatures were clinically exterminated. Many argued on the radio that there was nothing to sustain them in suffering without the hope of a “salvation”: one man even lambasted another , demanding what should he do for succour if there wasn’t a god to believe in , as if that belief would suddenly make everything all right again, whether it was true or not;his idea was that without a god there would be no point to living and we’d descend into chaos…. but that doesn’t make god a reality , I was thinking…that’s only something you really want to be true; it is simply part of a wishlist…..like the list of things you might stack up in your Amazon account for future reference….a hope for the future that you might be right….a faith, then.
Well ,the debate rattled on with some reasoned contributions ranging across varying viewpoints but it wasn’t long before the floodgates opened up and the Bible -bashers were allowed full -rein too, to air their views, at which point my eyes glazed over and my ear -filters began to kick in. I knew that soon they’d all be exchanging Biblical quotes of poesy to justify every point of view…like the way we quote Bob Dylan lines like …”the sun’s not yellow…it’s chicken!!”
The way my mind operates , was that I was derailed by my fascination of the origin of the very imagery and iconography of those “Pearly Gates”. it’s a great image , isn’t it? To come up with this imaginative doorway to heaven is quite a feat of human imagining .The idea, like that old David Niven film by Powell and Pressburger of 1946 , where the World War Two pilot dies and goes on the Stairway to Heaven….”A Matter of Life and Death”…. that’s it! Well…that kind of thing stirs the imagination .It sticks to the walls of the mind , doesn’t it. Of course you know it’s all done on a film set and there are special effects at work , but you allow yourself to go along with the creative fantasy.That’s what we , humans are very good at …the suspension of momentary reality. We watch films and read fiction for that.It’s a special kind of person who can live in that fantasy forever , though, and nothing will ever shake them from it’s grasp.It’s why we can sit through Lord of the Rings , knowingly all the time that it’s only make- believe.
The idea of those lovely “pearly gates” is a descriptive term that is common parlance to describe a glistening , light -enhanced gateway to a Heavenly plane.I imagine that many people actually see that in their mind when there is talk of heaven, just as they see a devil with horns and a forked tail when hell is mentioned .Like i say , this stuff sticks in the mind. All of it comes from references that were written down in a poetic way thousands of years ago.
There is a description ,for example, of the “New Jerusalem” {that’s the one to come..}, in the Christian Bible’s Revelation 21:21: “The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate being made from a single pearl” You might think that the builder of those gates was farming some mighty big oysters to accrue such pearls, before sculpting them into doorways. Then again , maybe we’ll all need to be a shrunk down lot smaller, to get in …like something out of a Doctor Who episode.The popular picture is of wrought-iron gates, possibly painted with glowing gold -leaf or golden Hammerite ..or maybe even glistening white ..to withstand the elements.There are usually clouds about too so there might be some rain about …dampness at least, like when youa re high up in a mountain….and of course there will be an old bearded guy with the Keys to the Kingdom as gatekeepr .This is usually taken to be Saint Peter and he’ll bode little argument as to who will enter and who will not. If you’re not on his list you’ll not get into this special club.
Okay , most people will understand that as a fantasy , but obviously many haven’t thought too much about it either way.It all sticks around inside the brain though, otherwise Gay Byrne wouldn’t have mentioned it at all….would he?
Fry’s problem is that he isn’t very fluent in the native colloquial idiom. If, instead of calling the President of the Immortals an “utterly, utterly evil maniac”, he’d simply said that said President is a midget parasite and a scumbag traitor, that would really have set them talking, writing editorials in their newspapers of record etc etc.
Hi PK hope you’re well old bean.
I watched the Stephen Fry interview myself and it’s probably no surprise to you, given our previous, that I took a different slant on the issue discussed and that I asked different questions.
Essentially what Fry was talking about was his ‘difficulty’ with God and suffering in the world; and that suffering in the world is why he is an atheist. But as far as I can recall he didn’t share with us any reasons why he thinks suffering in the world and Gods existence would be logically inconsistent. I’d love to know does he mean that it’s impossible for God and the suffering in the world to both exist or is he saying that it’s merely improbable that both exist? The issue for Fry in this instance is that he has to demonstrate how suffering is incompatible with God, and if this is due to it being logically impossible or improbable, in order for his assertion regarding suffering to hold any merit. He did neither and it’s a shame for all we’re left with is his opinion, which proves nothing.
In your article you make a couple of statements which I’d like to pick you up on. You say “The nub of it is, why would someone with that kind of power need to get their kicks in that kind of way?” To clarify the theist’s position; theism holds that God needs nothing and there is no reason to think that God needed to create this universe because of a lack in his being. And just in case you don’t know, theists also maintain that God created the universe out of a free decision of his will. God creates for the benefit of all the creatures and not for his benefit. When you think about it is a gift of unfathomable value!!
You go on to suggest that another way of looking at God is that he was “made up”, “a fantasy creation”. This is an emotive point, certainly for believers, but without evidence or cogent argument for this declaration you are guilty of believing your own made up opinions. And you fail to persuade any rational person.
Another thing I’d like to discuss with you should you be willing, is the paragraph that touched on morality and that without it we’d descend into chaos and you rightly point out that this doesn’t prove God to be a reality. The point I’d like to make here to begin with is to make the distinction between the theistic and atheistic worldviews.
The theist believes in objective moral values (via God). The atheist on the other hand has no foundation for believing objective moral values exist, for the atheist everything is relative. Atheists hold that morals are simply a byproduct of evolution and a true atheist will realize that their worldview handcuffs them to nihilism, which may not be too far off what that fellow on the radio said, that life is objectively purposeless, valueless and meaningless without God. This is known as the absurdity of atheism, however most atheists I know are not nihilists and live good moral lives, but given atheism’s demands, there is something I find hypocritical when I hear them condemn the acts of such and such or praise the work of so and so, I find it absurd because their ‘faith’ corners them to hold that good and evil are subjective.
The logical form of this argument in favor of God’s existence goes like this:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.
Any thoughts on this?
This is when you get two for the price of one…GOD NOSE
Hi Baldybap .Glad to hear from you again .As you say , you and I have tossed this one back into the river many times before .No , it was just an opinion piece I knocked out on the back of this little bit of entertainment sensationalism .We all know when the media is trying to ring our collective bells .This was one of those times when I responded with my tuppence worth. We can all argue the origins of our beliefs in gods and the like ,forever but “faith” is a thing that needs no proving anyway so my take is to say whatever I believe and let whoever wants to believe whatever it is they want to believe get on with it. I’ll not take offence.I just don’t have a “faith” and that is something that really can’t be taught by logic.If anything that is an anti-logic stance.It’s just the way it is .
I don’t think a lot of people even think these things through in any kind of depth anyway. there’s only me and thee sitting on a rock inside our cave , staring at the stars and wondering in conversation .”…sat on a park bench like bookends” as Paul Simon might have had it..
Mr Fry may change his mind every week for all I know. This week he’s been prompted to make a statement on a talk show. His answer might change on a daily basis for all I know.He’s an eloquent man with a tricky mind but he may just have made the kind of flip thing that any one of us might make on the fly ,at any time.All I can say is that everything I’ve ever learnt and everything I’ve known so far in life , has not convinced me that god is no more and no less than an invention of our developing brains.There’s no more proof for a god’s existence than there is proof of his non-existence..
The only reason I can see for a belief is the fear of life-ending. Once that fear is dealt with , verything else falls into place and makes perfect simple sense.It lifts all worry and makes earthly life all the sweeter. It dals with god thoroughly. I would say , it actually brings the beauty of the world into focus.Once that concept is grasped , there is no more dancing on the head of a pin and contorting the mind to accept concepts that make no real sense… or miracles that go against the natural laws of nature. No more the semantics of women and their place in the church .No more the worry of our place in the pecking order of the universe.All that magical mystery that storytellers have amazed their fellows with..simply doesn’t matter anymore. Nobody rises from the dead . nobody worries about miraculous cures and visions anymore ….
Most of the religions are literally hand-made. They are written down by human -beings .Sure ..the writers can all say they were inspired by a creator..and the people who say that , do so without any proof of that creator …so what they are really saying is that this stuff popped into my mind and I want to tell you all about it.
In most cases the god that inspired all of this is a paternal male god ,of course. That is probably a very important detail but it harks back to a time of tight tribal male control.There may have been a belief in an external controller but that doesn’t mean that one existed either.People believed the sun was a god , after all .In some real sense they could be very right in that respect…but does the sun care if we live or die ? I don’t think so.
As for morality….? sometimes I flippantly think …What morality? when you look around at humanity in action, morality appears to be a very pick -and- mix affair. It’s only kept in check by the fear of society breaking down …the fear of being caught …stealing …lusting …or killing, mostly. The prisons are full of some of the ones who are caught.Some of the others rule entire countries and kill at will. Look around you…we are a greedy sort of creature. Religions may pay their part in controlling our baser natures but that doesn’t mean that the god they represent is any more real either. Some religions are operating on an ancient form of tribal control too. Decapitations , crucifixions, stoning and the like . They’ve bound all of these activities up in a ball with their belief in their god. That doesn’t make their god any more real either.It’s just something they’ve been schooled in from an early age.”Give me the boy and I’ll give you the man” ..and all of that as the Jesuits were fond of saying….
Bear in mind that none of this has any bearing on yourself or anyone else with a “faith”. That ‘s up to them and their world view. Good luck to them , I say .It never worked for me , that’s all ..and i can’t prove to you that god doesn’t exist either , other than pointing out all the things I’ve seen and read throughout my particular life. That’s my life …not yours, after all.You might have different needs entirely and will veer to ideas that suits your vision of the world..By the same token I have never come across any evidence of a god other than wishful thinking , prayer and associated cosmic intervention that is really a product of human imagining.
Mr Fry knows already that God has nothing to do with the suffering in the world anyway. it was a hypothetical ruse.All that guff about insects laying their eggs in childrens’ eyes. That’s just him showing off his knowledge of lots of little earth-bound trivia.He’s a font of that kind of stuff..No… he believes there is no god so there’s therefore no god to blame anyway.What he was really implying is that this is the way our world is and it would be that way because of evolutionary developments that were simply genetic gambles that worked in that particular way .Trial and errors if you like…built on a million mistakes made beforehand . Some things have developed to our liking such as a nice fresh peach or a spud , but some things like slugs , for example ,mightn’t be on our list of favourite things. Birds will enjoy them though..This is how it has naturally developed …all of its own volition. There’s no one to blame except ourselves for the things we can actually control.All the rest may well be a cosmic aberration ..ourselves included…gone in a tiny blink of time like the dinosaurs before us.We haven’t been around that long… after all.