Stephen Fry and the Incongruities of Humanism

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Abstract

d="f2c5">These incongruities exist (far better spirited and more politely than certain other humanists, for what it’s worth Fry is someone I admire deeply in other ways) in Stephen Fry himself and many of his expressed views towards God. His response to God involves the words “evil” and “injustice”, words that give an emotional and moral valence to acts and experiences that are from an evolutionary perspective perfectly meaningless features of natural survival mechanisms. Suffering, for an atheist proper, is no more “evil” or “unjust” than a gazelle being eaten by a lion.</p><p id="0444">Of course we can acknowledge that while this may be true we can also admit it may be more emotionally satisfying and conducive to societal flourishing that we act as if this is not so, and adopt views such as the intrinsic significance of human beings, of free will and “fundamental rights” to justice and expressions of goodness.</p><p id="330b">The problem is that refusing to acknowledge where these ideas are derived from leaves us on shaky ground. We could look at this through something like slavery. We often like to think of slavery as a unique sin of the West, certainly since its modern effects emerge from the racialisation of the African slave trade, particularly in America. Yet this is not remotely so. In fact in relation to slavery the only thing that makes the West unique is the process of abolition, motivated by the conscience of Christians. When Hernan Cortes landed on what is now Mexico, he of course did his share of enslaving, but he was given slaves as a gift by Mayas after initial skirmishes, slaves who had already been taken before anyone had heard of the Spanish. Slavery existed everywhere. La Malinche, Cortes’ translator and arguably one of the most important women in colonial history was given to Cortes as a slave, a Nahua having been taken from her home at a young age. Slavery was the currency of the time, and most time before it.</p><p id="2b9d">So where does the values that “every human being is born free and with equal rights” come from? Socrates believed barbarians to be naturally suited for slavery,

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and every culture has accepted it. It is ultimately the conclusion of Christian conscience and theology that wins ground in abolition, as strange as it may be. Columbus and Cortes, both dubious historical figures with significant crimes on their hands, brought with them a religion that would come to judge their very actions as wrong.</p><p id="7dfc">But like those religious people, humanists do not like such complexities. They prefer to put things in zero sum boxes, Christianity = good or Christianity = bad. But history does not offer us such simplicities. Many of Stephen Fry’s values are contingent on an inherited worldview, obviously and unsurprisingly. The God Stephen Fry derides is strangely the one he may also agree with:</p><blockquote id="9c4c"><p>He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness</p></blockquote><p id="0512">The idea that “Every human being is born free and with equal rights” is one most of us today strongly believe. I know I do. But there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that this view has far more rooting in Paul saying <i>“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”</i>, than it does on atheists reflections on our shared humanity. This of course, does not make it true necessarily. But at least acknowledging the ground on which we are standing is an important start.</p><p id="33b5">See also:</p><div id="7a3c" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-basic-flaw-in-the-scientific-method-0e0a7b6c03db"> <div> <div> <h2>The Basic Flaw in the Scientific Method</h2> <div><h3>How too great a belief in the method of science leads to delusion</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*ENSTPHo2LfwD4qrqUZvNPw.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Stephen Fry and the Incongruities of Humanism

Stephen Fry on The Meaning Of Life, RTÉ One — YouTube

In a now well circulated interview in 2015 Stephen Fry was asked what he would say if his atheism turned out to be wrong and he came face to face with God. He responded:

“I’d say, Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain? That’s what I would say.”

Interestingly Stephen Fry is not just an atheist but a humanist. He is a patron of Humanists UK and has worked with them on multiple campaign adverts, the description on the Humanists website says the video “narrated by Stephen Fry, opens with an allusion to Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asserting ‘Every human being is born free and with equal rights.’ As it goes on, it enumerates fundamental rights such as ‘the right to be who you are, to love whom you love, to say what you mean, to make your own choices”.

What makes figures such as Fry so fascinating is the strange halfway house they attempt to exist in between world-views, and the kind of pretence that must be kept up in order to exist there.

After all, both Fry’s objection to God and his humanist beliefs are deeply saturated with religious concepts and values, particularly and conveniently those of Christianity. Given some of Humanism UK’s more militant patrons humanism in fact may be one of the most incongruous and ironic worldviews that exists. It consists of what could be described as virtual plagiarizing of Christian ideas combined, bizarrely, with an utter disdain for those religious ideas and a total denial of humanism’s religious derivation.

These incongruities exist (far better spirited and more politely than certain other humanists, for what it’s worth Fry is someone I admire deeply in other ways) in Stephen Fry himself and many of his expressed views towards God. His response to God involves the words “evil” and “injustice”, words that give an emotional and moral valence to acts and experiences that are from an evolutionary perspective perfectly meaningless features of natural survival mechanisms. Suffering, for an atheist proper, is no more “evil” or “unjust” than a gazelle being eaten by a lion.

Of course we can acknowledge that while this may be true we can also admit it may be more emotionally satisfying and conducive to societal flourishing that we act as if this is not so, and adopt views such as the intrinsic significance of human beings, of free will and “fundamental rights” to justice and expressions of goodness.

The problem is that refusing to acknowledge where these ideas are derived from leaves us on shaky ground. We could look at this through something like slavery. We often like to think of slavery as a unique sin of the West, certainly since its modern effects emerge from the racialisation of the African slave trade, particularly in America. Yet this is not remotely so. In fact in relation to slavery the only thing that makes the West unique is the process of abolition, motivated by the conscience of Christians. When Hernan Cortes landed on what is now Mexico, he of course did his share of enslaving, but he was given slaves as a gift by Mayas after initial skirmishes, slaves who had already been taken before anyone had heard of the Spanish. Slavery existed everywhere. La Malinche, Cortes’ translator and arguably one of the most important women in colonial history was given to Cortes as a slave, a Nahua having been taken from her home at a young age. Slavery was the currency of the time, and most time before it.

So where does the values that “every human being is born free and with equal rights” come from? Socrates believed barbarians to be naturally suited for slavery, and every culture has accepted it. It is ultimately the conclusion of Christian conscience and theology that wins ground in abolition, as strange as it may be. Columbus and Cortes, both dubious historical figures with significant crimes on their hands, brought with them a religion that would come to judge their very actions as wrong.

But like those religious people, humanists do not like such complexities. They prefer to put things in zero sum boxes, Christianity = good or Christianity = bad. But history does not offer us such simplicities. Many of Stephen Fry’s values are contingent on an inherited worldview, obviously and unsurprisingly. The God Stephen Fry derides is strangely the one he may also agree with:

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness

The idea that “Every human being is born free and with equal rights” is one most of us today strongly believe. I know I do. But there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that this view has far more rooting in Paul saying “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”, than it does on atheists reflections on our shared humanity. This of course, does not make it true necessarily. But at least acknowledging the ground on which we are standing is an important start.