Stephen Fry response

My response to a  link I was tagged in to a video where Stephen Fry explains his thoughts on God and what he'd say, should they meet. 

Hi John. 

I wouldn't normally respond to links like this from friends, but as you tagged me in it I thought I had better say something, else I might appear rude or not seem to have an answer. 

I like Stephen Fry. The man has an amazing way with words and very keen sense of humour. I also like the fact that he thinks about things and doesn't just give a glib answer to questions like this. I much prefer an negative comment about God from someone who has deemed it an important enough topic to warrant the time and energy to consider it, than an ambivalent or dismissive comment from someone who hasn't even thought about it. 

After all, the prospect of there being a Supreme Being that created all that is around us and wants a relationship with us individually, must rank pretty high on the list of things worth thinking about.

Stephen makes a few points, but the main opposition to God is that he is “not willing to accept God on His terms”.  Now, I would make the assertion than God made us in His image and yet we are constantly trying to make God in ours. We simply cannot compare God to us. He is everywhere all at the same time. He is outside of time. He has no beginning or end. These are all things that our brains with our limited experience can never truly understand. It's like comparing a pencil drawn landscape to the actual view itself. There are so many more dimensions than the pencil lines can convey. 

Why should God, who (as I believe) has existed before there was even a way to measure time, conform to the whims of the “enlightened” created beings that have collectively learning for the last 10,000 years and personally only been learning for the last 40, 50 years. 

We are a fickle breed. Our views on things change constantly. What, one year, is considered intolerable, is welcomed the next. One minute we are crying “Je suis Charlie” and marching to state that anyone should be able to say anything. The next we are saying that people who condone the outrageous acts in other countries should be forcibly removed from ours. Who are we to decide how God should behave?

I don't even start to understand why children start to get ill or why there are wasps, let alone insects that burrow into eyes. But we can't hold that up as an outrageous evil while we dismember unborn babies that are “inconvenient” or allow people to live in abject poverty while we throw away most of what we have. 

As for thinking that God wants us to constantly be on our knees before Him. That ignores why God created us in the first place (to walk with Him and a relationship) and why I believe He sent Jesus (to restore the broken relationship). There is a way that we must behave in the presence of Royalty, but that doesn't stop Mr Fry being good friends with Prince Charles. 

I would love to be able to explain the mysteries of this world, but I'm personally happy to trust God with what I don't understand and know that He sees the much bigger picture.

Hope you made it this far and if you don't agree with what I've said, that's fine. At least you've been thinking about something bigger than what colour to paint your lounge or where you'll go on holiday. 

All the best, Andy