Stephen Fry quotations and quotes on God, Creationism, and Religion debates
A number of variously interesting, amusing, perceptive and provocative quotations and quotes from
Stephen Fry about Gods, Religions, Faith and Religious Beliefs are featured on this page.
This presentation includes a recent, January 2015, Youtube clip of an interview for Irish television where Stephen Fry actually uses such terms as "utter maniac" and "totally selfish" in
relation to God. In particular, given the existence of suffering through disease and the activity of parasites that seems inconsistent with what are popularly supposed to be
the attributes of an all-powerful and charitable God, Stephen Fry expresses potent criticisms towards a "monstrous, utterly monstrous", Creationism.
These comments were made during the recording of an interview that was intended to appear on an Irish TV series, 'The Meaning of Life', where interviewees were invited, by an enduringly
popular pillar of Irish broadcasting named Gay Byrne, to share their views and opinions.
A brief selection of other comments attributable to Stephen Fry and related to God, Religion, and Belief, are then considered.
Stephen Fry Creationism ~ Youtube
The following clip was actually uploaded to Youtube by Irish television broadcaster RTÉ prior to screening of an episode of this, 'The Meaning of Life', TV series where Stephen Fry guested,
and drew more than two million on-line viewings over two or three days before the actual Irish TV broadcast on Sunday 1 February 2015.
This footage features Stephen Fry airing certain views on God and Creationism and gave rise to a notable storm of controversy.
A transcription and some noteworthy post-interview further comments from Stephen Fry and Gay Byrne in the immediate aftermath, (for want of a better word), of the first broadcast on Irish TV of
the full episode are available by following a link that appears just after the Youtube clip.
More from Stephen Fry on God, Religion, Faith and Belief
"I don't think we should ever allow religion the trick of maintaining that the spiritual and the beautiful and the
noble and the altruistic and the morally strong and the virtuous are in any way inventions of religion or
particular or peculiar to religion."
The Blasphemy Debate with Christopher Hitchens.
On the Guardian website ~ Hay Festival pages
"I mean it's perfectly obvious that if there were ever a God he has lost all possible taste. You've only got
to look - forget the aggression and unpleasantness of the radical right or the Islamic hordes to the East -
the sheer lack of intelligence and insight and ability to express themselves and to enthuse others of the
priesthood and the clerisy here, in this country, and indeed in Europe, you know God once had Bach and
Michelangelo on his side, he had Mozart, and now who does he have? People with ginger whiskers and tinted
spectacles who reduce the glories of theology to a kind of sharing, you know?" (A distinctly possible side-swipe here in the then Archbishop of Canterbury being bearded and bespectacled).
The Blasphemy Debate with Christopher Hitchens.
On the Guardian website ~ Hay Festival pages
"I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and
injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion
and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and
prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I?
None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong
and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish." "Trefusis Blasphemes" radio broadcast
"You can't just say there is a God because well, the world I beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children.
You have to account for the fact that almost all animals in the wild live under stress with not enough to eat and
will die violent and bloody deaths. There is not any way that you can just choose the nice bits and say that means
there is a God and ignore the true fact of what nature is. The wonder of nature must be taken in its totality and
it is a wonderful thing. It is absolutely marvelous and the idea that an atheist or a humanist if you want to put
it that way, doesn't marvel and wonder at reality, at the way things are, is nonsensical. The point is we wonder
all the way. We don't just stop and say that which I cannot understand I will call God, which is what mankind has
done historically."
"The Importance of Unbelief".
Interview on bigthink.com - recorded December 8, 2009
Image from a humanistic presentation on The Meaning of Life by Stephen Fry
"Some people think ... that the universe was created for a purpose and that human beings were part of some larger cosmic plan. They think our meaning comes from being part of this plan, and is written into the universe, waiting to be discovered."
"The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives."
"And although this vast and incredibly old universe was not created for us, all of us are connected to something bigger than ourselves, whether it is family and community, a tradition stretching in the past, an idea or cause looking forward to the future, or the beautiful natural world on which we were born and our species evolved."
All sourced from a humanistic presentation on The Meaning of Life by Stephen Fry
British Humanist Association
Stephen Fry has presented a "Quite Interesting" BBC show for many years
"You will hear things like, "Science doesn't know everything." Well, of course science doesn't know everything. But,
because science doesn't know everything, it doesn't mean that science knows nothing. Science knows enough for us to
be watched by a few million people now on television, for these lights to be working, for quite extraordinary
miracles to have taken place in terms of the harnessing of the physical world and our dim approaches towards
understanding it. And as Wittgenstein quite rightly said, 'When we understand every single secret of the universe,
there will still be left the eternal mystery of the human heart.'"
Stephen Fry quoting Wittgenstein during a Room 101 TV program
We at age-of-the-sage hope that our visitors will find this "insight?" to be, potentially, Extremely Interesting:-
Some Human Mysteries?
There is close agreement between several major World Faiths, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Shakespeare and Ralph Waldo Emerson in suggesting that Human Wisdom / Spirituality is relative to
Human Desire / Materialism and to Human Wrath / (linkable with Ethnicity and group memberships?).
Modern Psychological science seems to agree with these more philosophical and intuitive authorities!!!
A brief resume of some spiritual quotations that may even qualify as being " Central Spiritual Insights ", from Christian sources, is set out in the following scrollable panel:~
A brief resume of some spiritual quotations that may even qualify as being " Central Spiritual Insights "
is set out in the following scrollable panel:~
