The Stephen Fry problem

Originally posted by @uzless
How does "the knowledge of evil and the freewill to pursue evil" result in bone cancer in children?

If you're going to dismiss the answers and just answer back like a parrot with one-liners, then what's the point. This isn't a discussion.

The general concept is, the world was created free of disease. The actions of the first human beings plunged the human race and the world into a corrupted state.

If that's not a satisfactory answer, then you reject the bible and you should seek answers to why babies get bone cancer from people other than bible believers.

Originally posted by @tom-wolsey
... mankind's representatives--the first and most perfectly made creatures--literally chose to usher in suffering and evil because they preferred it over the lack of knowledge and free will to do as they pleased.

Literally? Adam and Eve thought that if they ate the apple then suffering and evil would began to exist, and kids would die from cancer? They had full knowledge of the consequenses BEFORE they ate from the fruit of knowledge? I'm calling bull.

Originally posted by @tom-wolsey
If you're going to dismiss the answers and just answer back like a parrot with one-liners, then what's the point. This isn't a discussion.

The general concept is, the world was created free of disease. The actions of the first human beings plunged the human race and the world into a corrupted state.

If that's not a satisfactory answer, then you r ...[text shortened]... nd you should seek answers to why babies get bone cancer from people other than bible believers.

I am a Christian. I believe in God. I do not argue with these kinds of comments. Why do you people feel that you need to defend God? WHY ??? Do you think God is watching to see who is defending him and therefore you are entitled to some kind of favour? In fact if/when I see God I have a couple questions myself along the same lines. If you think your mumbo jumbo explanation makes sense then you people are just an embarrassment to the Christian community.

The correct answer to all these types of questions is: "Sorry, I do not know. I was not there in the Garden of Eden when these events took place. I am not in a position to understand all the ramification of creation and why it is that man is flawed. However Im sure that all these questions will be answered at the correct time

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
Sir, you clearly lost this argument the moment you questioned Fry's intellectual capacity.


In relation to the OP. There is 'no' problem. Fry is correct. Simply agree with him, abandon your God and bathe in the man's genius.

Could you include this excerpt as a little side note, the next time you quote the Bible to the Forum as if it carries some authority ?

... abandon your God and bathe in the man's genius.

Originally posted by @apathist
Literally? Adam and Eve thought that if they ate the apple then suffering and evil would began to exist, and kids would die from cancer? They had full knowledge of the consequenses BEFORE they ate from the fruit of knowledge? I'm calling bull.

Can you show me a verse that says, "but Adam and Eve had no idea babies would get bone cancer in the 20th century."

Originally posted by @rajk999
The correct answer to all these types of questions is: "Sorry, I do not know. I was not there in the Garden of Eden when these events took place. I am not in a position to understand all the ramification of creation and why it is that man is flawed. However Im sure that all these questions will be answered at the correct time

Point taken but if someone is going to ask a bible believer why this or why that, then it should also be safe to just tell him what the bible says and let him embrace it or reject it. What I don't feel it is my responsibility to do is to sugar coat it, or try to explain what is or was going through God's mind. I just offer the biblical view, and sometimes my admitted opinion, and they can take it or leave it. I don't react well when they play petty games trying paint me into a corner.

Originally posted by @uzless
Can you clarify how bone cancer in children is derived from sinful behavior?

When we became subject to physical death, our mortal bodies naturally became subject to illness, disease and decay. And the results of sin and our brokenness and a broken world do not affect only who we would consider the guilty.

But our lives here are literally a drop in the ocean compared to eternity and I think it’s a mistake to place too much emphasis and importance on life here.

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”

(1 John 2:15-17)

Originally posted by @apathist
Literally? Adam and Eve thought that if they ate the apple then suffering and evil would began to exist, and kids would die from cancer? They had full knowledge of the consequenses BEFORE they ate from the fruit of knowledge? I'm calling bull.

God didn’t owe Eve an explanation of what would happen if she disobeyed Him nor did He give (or owe) an explanation to Job for Job’s suffering.

Your belief that God answers to humans and must justify Himself to us is laughable.

“Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?”

(Isaiah 45:9)

Originally posted by @tom-wolsey
Point taken but if someone is going to ask a bible believer why this or why that, then it should also be safe to just tell him what the bible says and let him embrace it or reject it. What I don't feel it is my responsibility to do is to sugar coat it, or try to explain what is or was going through God's mind. I just offer the biblical view, and someti ...[text shortened]... ke it or leave it. I don't react well when they play petty games trying paint me into a corner.

Do you really think that Stephen Fry does not know the bible story of the fall of man? You for real ???

Originally posted by @tom-wolsey
Point taken but if someone is going to ask a bible believer why this or why that, then it should also be safe to just tell him what the bible says and let him embrace it or reject it. What I don't feel it is my responsibility to do is to sugar coat it, or try to explain what is or was going through God's mind. I just offer the biblical view, and someti ...[text shortened]... ke it or leave it. I don't react well when they play petty games trying paint me into a corner.

You're going to get bored fast here.

Originally posted by @rajk999
Do you really think that Stephen Fry does not know the bible story of the fall of man? You for real ???

You picked a strange comment to reply to with that question. And I never said he didn't know it. I suggested he doesn't fully understand the depth of it. But ultimately, who cares. He's just a guy rehashing the age-old "problem of suffering" argument.

Originally posted by @bigdoggproblem
You're going to get bored fast here.

Yeah, judging by the traffic that could happen but I can always look forward to conversations about wrestling. LOL

I wonder what happened to ol' Dick Slater. He came to mind the last time you and I talked.

For a man's views to be wrong one must be able to show the opposite view to be true.

Uzless

That is technically right, but what happens when we are dealing with something that can never be totally & utterly proven? For instance, let's say that no one ever uncovers a single piece of hard evidence on this...

Either the Egyptian Northern & Southern Kingdoms united through diplomatic marriages prior to modern records, or they were united through a bloody war, sometime before the year 3500 BC... Or, either the Hebrew tribes have ties to the Sea peoples and there are etymological similarities, or there just isn't.... Gilles de Rai was a mass murderer, or he wasn't.

Experts have conflicting opinions on these two things. Both people have good reasons for their beliefs. There isn't enough evidence to make a conclusion. The record is not complete.

So we have this massive problem where, then, there is obviously a right answer, but because it is not provable, we cannot make any conclusions at all about it.

Cue Stephen Fry.

There is not enough information to say that Stephen Fry is wrong about God; there isn't enough information to show that Pope Francis is wrong about God; there is not enough information to say that the Grand Ayatollah Khameini is wrong about god. Yet, if any single one of them is right, the others are wrong.

And we have Fry being very famous for trolling hard everyone else on these topics and disguising himself as a simultaneously humble & proud intellectual. Fun. Reminds me of someone.

And what of these accusatins he made about bone cancer in children, etc.?

He is an intellectual who claims some sort of high ground but pretends to be unfamiliar with the basic arguments a Christian or Muslim would make.

I understand that an atheist does not accept that there is Heaven and that we live in a transient world where the pain of the fallen world is meant for edification... Fine! Reject the model all that you want. Say it is all false.

But you tell me that God is evil, when, clearly, the God that Muslims & Christians believe in has a plan that rewards all goodness with eternal life and bliss? That is nonsensical and inflammatory, it isn't acutally intellectual. It's ridiculous.

That is like me painting as foul of a picture of atheism as I want while willfully ignoring the grander humanist picture that they themselves put forward. I'd get slammed for it. Yet, Fry is a Saint to some of these pseudo-intellectuals.

Oh well.

Originally posted by @tom-wolsey
It comes as no surprise that Fry--or any unbeliever for that matter--would focus on the suffering and simultaneously disbelieve in God while holding Him directly accountable.

Oh gosh. It's a thought experiment, isn't it? Fry is an atheist. He is critiquing an ideology that he finds morally incoherent. He is not holding "God" directly accountable.

Originally posted by @philokalia

For a man's views to be wrong one must be able to show the opposite view to be true.

[b]Uzless

That is technically right, but what happens when we are dealing with something that can never be totally & utterly proven? For instance, let's say that no one ever uncovers a single piece of hard evidence on this...

Either the Egyptia ...[text shortened]... . I'd get slammed for it. Yet, Fry is a Saint to some of these pseudo-intellectuals.

Oh well.[/b]

It's a difficult question to answer, regardless of how anyone on either side esteems the asker.

Do you theists not realize that the whole book of Job is spent on this question, and also without answering it?