An interesting conversation had in the office HipChat, triggered by comments made by Stephen Fry; it definitely amazed me a little, just how many people we had with very strong opinions on religion. Note: all grammatical and spelling errors are the original authors, and are left here for authenticity.

[Jan-30 3:20 PM] Glen: http://imgur.com/gallery/opJLE -- @Jake

[Jan-30 3:21 PM] Brandon: boooo. That's a very shallow view of theology.

[Jan-30 3:23 PM] Brandon: I'd warrant that he probably said that thinking to be clever, though. It was probably meant more as a thumbed nose in the direction of belief in God than it was meant to be an actually philosophical statement.

[Jan-30 3:27 PM] Jake: I'd agree Brandon. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out how shallow certain theologies view homosexuality.

[Jan-30 3:29 PM] Brandon: Certain, not all. Fry is making an absolute statement regarding the core of Christian thinking, and dismissing it out of hand because, hey, bad stuff

[Jan-30 3:30 PM] Brandon: But if we are entertaining the thought of a creator as the cause of all ills, how could we possibly not hold him responsible for the beauty of life as well?

[Jan-30 3:30 PM] Brandon: Which is more powerful, would you say?

[Jan-30 3:30 PM] Brandon: And, is suffering -always- a bad thing?

[Jan-30 3:30 PM] Brandon: It certainly made me stronger. I'm sure you feel the same.

[Jan-30 3:30 PM] Jake: Which he is entitled to do, but is the questioning of an out homosexual man being "confronted by God" not entirely shallow as well?

[Jan-30 3:30 PM] Phillip: Fry never mentions christianity. He has a problem with all monotheism based on reality vs our notion of fairness

[Jan-30 3:31 PM] Brandon: pardon, I am responding as a Christian. I cannot speak for Islam.

[Jan-30 3:31 PM] Brandon: or other forms of religious thought which he takes umbrage with.

[Jan-30 3:32 PM] Brandon: I think the entire line of questioning is stupid, but it is out of context. I do not know the rest of the conversation.

[Jan-30 3:34 PM] Phillip: I grew up in a fundamentalist church, and studied scripture. And the line of questioning that Fry is asking is very similar to why I lost my faith.

[Jan-30 3:35 PM] Phillip: If there is an all powerful, individual creator that is responsible for everything, can I feel good about myself worshiping this creator with the amount of unjust suffering that occurs on this planet

[Jan-30 3:38 PM] Jake: Agreed Brandon - I'm sure the entire context of the conversation would be enlightening. However, I don't think it's a bad thing to say that you would ask God about the notions of suffering in the world. I don't think it's a bad thing to ask a creator about the notion of compassion in a declining world...particularly when you belong to a minority that has suffered at the hands of religious people.

[Jan-30 3:38 PM] Christian: the more suffering you have the more fruits of babylon may you eat

[Jan-30 3:39 PM] Jake: Now, is it helpful in his argument to vilify God? Of course not, but you can't blame a man for having an emotional reaction given the context of the question.

[Jan-30 3:39 PM] Patrick: Holding my tongue on this one, but he has debated the issue a few times. Videos are around.

[Jan-30 3:40 PM] Jake: These are conversation that advance understanding so I am all down for it. We're all being respectful which is all that matters :)

[Jan-30 3:41 PM] Jake: conversations*

[Jan-30 3:55 PM] Dan: @Brandon There is no "core of Christian thinking". There are only hundreds of varieties loosely related to one another. It's been that way from the beginning when it was merely a small, Jewish, apocalyptic sect.

[Jan-30 3:59 PM] Jake: There is a ton of good done in the world by Christian charities and by priests/nuns. Not that I speak for him, but I think Brandon's only issue was that Fry's comment only addressed the negative impact of God...not the positivity that is also a result of the faith.

[Jan-30 4:01 PM] Jake: Basically...can you ascribe negativity to a deity without also acknowledging the positive implications of said faith?

[Jan-30 4:02 PM] Patrick: I think you can. Hitler painted. #Godwin

[Jan-30 4:03 PM] Phillip: You know, the nazis also used Godwin's Law to end a conversation

[Jan-30 4:03 PM] Jake: What's the reasoning behind that? Just curious...

[Jan-30 4:04 PM] Dan: Indeed. But consider this: The book stores have scores of shelves filled with books all about the good aspects of Christianity and never addressing the negative aspects. Entire television networks and radio stations for decades have played round-the-clock propaganda extolling the wonders of Christianity and completely ignoring its dark side. No one asks of them: "Can you ascribe positivity to a deity without also acknowledging the negative implications of said faith?"

[Jan-30 4:06 PM] Dan: Yet, when a few individuals write a handful of books and speak on a few talk shows, pointing out the negative aspects of the religion, everyone complains that they're not also talking about the good side. Well, they don't need to. There's already hundreds of thousands of books and hundreds of thousands of hours of air time by people doing that.

[Jan-30 4:10 PM] Patrick: I mostly wanted to invoke Godwin. But I don't think you have an obligation to acknowledge the good parts of something you think is worthy of denouncing. If I think that Yahweh is, in his very nature, bad, then the charities, and the peace and comfort the faith brings some people, aren't really relevant. It doesn't do anything to make him less bad.

[Jan-30 4:14 PM] Patrick: I think it's worth noting that Fry is arguing about the god and not the religion. He's not saying that churches don't do any good in the world. He's saying that God, if he exists in that form, is cruel.

[Jan-30 4:16 PM] Jake: I think it devalues the argument to focus on one aspect while not acknowledging the other...much like Dan said. And can you argue against a deity when the only manifestation of it's will is in the people who practice the religion?

[Jan-30 4:19 PM] Brandon: @Dan , many theologians wrestle with negativity surrounding Christianity, and the things that Fry asserted. Most famously was CS Lewis' The Problem With Pain, which is a great read.

[Jan-30 4:19 PM] Jake: And do you need to denounce something in order to not believe? That would lead me to question the authenticity of one's beliefs...is the denouncement rooted in a belief or simply a reaction?

[Jan-30 4:20 PM] Brandon: I have personally known many folks who started along the lines of Christianity, only to pull away when they could not correlate a loving God with the ills of the world.

[Jan-30 4:20 PM] Brandon: CS Lewis was a truly brilliant man, and he never really answered the problem. Many religions attempt to in their own right.

[Jan-30 4:22 PM] Dan: @Brandon Yes, theologians do wrestle with those issues—at least the good ones do because they have enough integrity to not white wash their religion. But hardly anyone actually reads anything that the theologians write. The vast majority of the books and TV/radio broadcasts are propaganda.

[Jan-30 4:22 PM] Brandon: Most conservative sects of mainstream religions would take the easy way out and explain these ills or aberrancies as lack of faith, or weakness of the flesh...but that does not mean the entire religion follows suit.

[Jan-30 4:23 PM] Brandon: Lol, yeah. Most who actually read ignore the bullshit spewed by "teachers" like Joyce Meyer or Joel Osteen. Prosperity gospel is moronic.

[Jan-30 4:25 PM] Patrick: You don't need to denounce in order to believe. He said god, if he exists, is bad because he allows x,y, and z. He doesn't say that because he doesn't think he exists. Those are different issues.

[Jan-30 4:25 PM] Dan: I agree that C.S. Lewis was brilliant. I don't agree with many of his conclusions (and I've read almost everything he wrote), but I don't have to agree with him to acknowledge that he was brilliant. I think many of the best theologians are brilliant philosophers (Tillich, Hicks, Harteshorne, Niebuhr), and I thoroughly enjoy reading them. But, being a naturalist, I obviously don't agree with their supernaturalist perspectives.

[Jan-30 4:26 PM] Patrick: I don't go along with the bad in the world argument like he makes myself. I think its perfectly possible to have a world with terrible things in it, and still have a benevolent creator.

[Jan-30 4:27 PM] Patrick: I do, however, you can argue against the morality of deities as they are portrayed in their scriptures though. They would not be redeemed by the acts of their followers.

[Jan-30 4:27 PM] Patrick: s/, you/ , think you/

[Jan-30 4:27 PM] Dan: Yes, @Patrick , it is possible. The problem is not whether such a being exists. The problem is, can such a being be all-benevolent?

[Jan-30 4:27 PM] Brandon: @Jake great point. That was what I was attempting to say. If one entertains a Creator God as existing, and assumes all of the ills of the world are His fault, it would be completely unfair to ignore the rest of Creation. Also: what scope would we give the God capable of creating the world we perceive? There is probably more to Him than we can fathom, yeah?

[Jan-30 4:28 PM] Brandon: Then either this deity loves the creation he made as his own, or he has separated himself as merely a spectator. He set events in motion, and allowed the creation to move along. Some Christians believe in predestination. Others, free will. I am the latter. I was never a good Calvinist.

[Jan-30 4:29 PM] Patrick: @Dan No, definitely not. You'd hit contradictions pretty quickly.

[Jan-30 4:30 PM] Brandon: I gotta say, this is not the sort of conversation I expect in Richard Hammond :p

[Jan-30 4:31 PM] Dan: But you don't have to think that all of the ills of the world of his fault to take issue with such a being. You have to ask why such a being is capable of doing something about the horrible things that happen to innocent people, nonetheless allows them to suffer.

[Jan-30 4:32 PM] Brandon: @Jake I just read your earlier post. I do not think Fry would be ejected out of hand for questioning Creation. However, I also think that were he to see that God did indeed exist, he wouldn't be so concentrated on being as obtuse has he appears to be in that context. Awe and wonder has a way of turning cynicism off.

[Jan-30 4:34 PM] Dan: Consider this: If I was standing in my kitchen at the back of my house looking out the window and I was some man grab a 5-year-old girl, pull her behind the garage and start brutally raping her, would I not be a horribly immoral person if I were to not do anything about it, if i were to just stand there and watch when it was perfectly within my power to go out and stop him? Now consider that such things happen every day, and this benevolent deity watches them happen, is capable of stopping them, but doesn't.

[Jan-30 4:37 PM] Brandon: What if our morality is not absolute? For instance: does America have the right to swoop into another nation, assert dominance, then declare their society unfit and immoral? Would we be allowed to view their way of life, and use our military supremacy to dictate how they should live their lives? To be fair, Dan...immediately jumping to rape is more sensationalist than conversational.

[Jan-30 4:38 PM] Dan: There's nothing sensationalist about it. It happens every day. And it's one of the few things that I think we can say is absolutely immoral.

[Jan-30 4:39 PM] Brandon: It was not always. Models of morality grew to that point over eons. We used to club chicks. :p

[Jan-30 4:40 PM] Phillip: Used to?

[Jan-30 4:40 PM] Brandon: lol

[Jan-30 4:41 PM] Patrick: Ok, but we as a group in the conversation can probably say rape is absolutely immoral, from our perspective. :p

[Jan-30 4:41 PM] Brandon: absolutely, but why do we know that? what tells us that rape is wrong?

[Jan-30 4:41 PM] Patrick: empathy.

[Jan-30 4:41 PM] Brandon: I was going to say common sense, even.

[Jan-30 4:42 PM] Patrick: So rapists just lack common sense? ;)

[Jan-30 4:42 PM] Brandon: They certainly lack empathy. My point is that we had to get there. Morality is taught by history.

[Jan-30 4:43 PM] Brent: Some would say that morality as they understand it was dictated to them by their deity

[Jan-30 4:44 PM] Brandon: In the case of the Ten Commandments, they would be right. But even that was left somewhat open to interpretation

[Jan-30 4:44 PM] Brent: I happen to believe that there are many paths, and that there are common underlying themes to all of them

[Jan-30 4:46 PM] Dan: The concepts of morality began as the human species slowly became sentient enough to start asking the question of whether their actions that affect others are right or wrong. The question itself rests on the fact that we are social creatures and our actions can have either beneficial or harmful effects on others. The concepts of right and wrong developed out of recognition our actions can cause harm to others. And here we're not talking about a little mild suffering that helps you "grow as a person." We're talking about HARM. That's why I used a clear-cut case of harm as an example.

[Jan-30 4:47 PM] Brandon: I get it. I'm simply saying (as you put it) we had to get there over time.

[Jan-30 4:48 PM] Dan: Yes indeed. Over an extremely long period of time.

[Jan-30 4:49 PM] Brandon: This was an unexpected and awesome conversation, thank you gents

[Jan-30 4:50 PM] Dan: Thank you.