{"id":41579,"date":"2015-02-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/british-actor-explains-his-atheism\/"},"modified":"2015-02-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T00:00:00","slug":"british-actor-explains-his-atheism","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/british-actor-explains-his-atheism\/","title":{"rendered":"British Actor Explains His Atheism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stephen Fry, English actor and comedian, is a committed atheist. In response to the question of what he would say to God upon death, he stated, &quot;I&#39;d say, &#39;Bone cancer in children? What&#39;s that about? &hellip; How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault. It&#39;s not right, it&#39;s utterly, utterly evil.&#39; Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain? That&#39;s what I would say.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>In response to the interviewer&#39;s second question, &quot;And you think you are going to get in, like that?&quot; only served to fuel his fervor. &quot;But I wouldn&#39;t want to,&quot; Fry insisted. &quot;I wouldn&#39;t want to get in on his terms. They are wrong.&quot; He continues, &quot;Now, if I died and it was Pluto, Hades, and if it was the 12 Greek gods then I would have more truck with it, because the Greeks didn&#39;t pretend to not be human in their appetites, in their capriciousness, and in their unreasonableness &hellip; they didn&#39;t present themselves as being all-seeing, all-wise, all-kind, all-beneficent, because the god that created this universe, if it was created by god, is quite clearly a maniac &hellip; utter maniac, totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him? What kind of god would do that?&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Editors Notes: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christiantoday.com\/article\/stephen.fry.says.god.is.capricious.mean.minded.stupid.but.lets.not.get.angry\/47174.htm\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">See this thoughtful response<\/a> to Fry&#39;s comments from Krish Kandiah.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3424,3450,3903,3923,4084,4584,4900,5103,5152,5202,5305],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-41579","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-apologetics","tax_ctp_tags-atheism","tax_ctp_tags-evil","tax_ctp_tags-explanations-for-evil","tax_ctp_tags-goodness-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-pain","tax_ctp_tags-secularism","tax_ctp_tags-suffering","tax_ctp_tags-theodicy","tax_ctp_tags-unbelief","tax_ctp_tags-worship"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>British Actor Explains His Atheism - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/british-actor-explains-his-atheism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"British Actor Explains His Atheism - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stephen Fry, English actor and comedian, is a committed atheist. 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