On Stephen Fry, Blasphemy and Abortion

In January of this year, the internet was infected by a virus in the form of a cheeky Stephen Fry video clip that proved quite popular among the infidels. In the clip, Fry rails against the idea of God saying,

Yes, the world is very splendid but it also has in it insects whose whole lifecycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. They eat outwards from the eyes. Why? Why did you do that to us? You could easily have made a creation in which that didn’t exist. It is simply not acceptable. It’s perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever.

‘Bone cancer in children!? Insects that destroy the eyes of children!? God, shame on you,’ Fry scolds a divinity which he claims doesn’t exist with all the moral indignation of  a Hebrew prophet. 

He may have the mind of an atheist, but his heart would be well placed in a Puritan. (You're welcome Mr.Fry)

The amateur philosopher in all of us may be amused at Fry’s pontificating blasphemy. He is holding to some moral code that he expects God to know about and respect. But he is angry because God seems to be breaking a rule. Where does this moral code come from? If it comes from within Fry, then why should God give a tuppence? If it comes from outside of Fry, then perhaps Fry should seek the creator of this law and take this corrupted semi-divinity he is criticising to a higher court. Fry believes in no such Creator and is therefore having to borrow the idea of ultimate goodness in order to critique God’s behaviour as immoral. Like most living in a secualr, post-Christian society - he is probably unaware of how much his soul is borrowing from the cultural values of his ancestors. His heart is not in the same place as his mind... there's hope for him yet.

When we have no Creator God, our god becomes the universal powers of nature. Fry's fellow atheist Richard Dawkins described what he sees as the Universe's ultimate power in this fashion, ‘The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference…DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.’ Here, Dawkins is more consistant than Fry in his lack of moral outrage over suffering. When we give our highest respect to an indifferent universe, we become indifferent ourselves. Our hearts catch up to our philosphy. The universe is just matter in motion. Sometimes it feels good and sometimes it feels bad. So what?

And it is that indifference that is the most shocking thing about the Planned Butcherhood videos that circled last year. What shocks us is not that PB is selling baby organs. What shocks us is not that abortion is killing babies – we’ve known this for a long time. What shocks us is the cool indifference with which it is discussed – the haggling over prices, the bored checking of the smartphone, the small jokes and puns made while discussing how to get a whole, intact ‘product of conception’. 

The universe is indifferent, why shouldn’t we be?

Stephen Fry blasphemed God for destroying the eyes of babies. But in worshipping a universe without a kind and loving Creator, we destroy children’s eye – and the rest of their bodies – every day. Then we sell the eyes off without an afterthought before we go to lunch.

May Mr.Fry's mind catch up to his heart - and not the other way around. 

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For a look at what the Bible says about close friendship between across the gender divide please check out Forbidden Friendships - available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle in the USA and the UK.