“Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god, who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”

Last week Stephen Fry was asked on Irish television program The Meaning of Life what he would say if he met God.

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I'll say, "Bone cancer in children? What's that about? How dare you! How dare you create a world in which there is such suffering 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 which is so full of injustice and pain?"

That's what I would say.

Byrne then asked Fry if he thought he was going to get into heaven after saying that.

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No, but I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to get in on his terms. They're wrong. 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't pretend not to be human in their appetites, and their capriciousness, and in their unreasonableness. They didn't present themselves as being all-seeing, all-wise, all-kind, all-beneficent. Because the god who created this universe, if it was created by a god, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac, totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him? What kind of God would do that? Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle 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.

So, you know, Atheism is not just about not believing there is a God, but on the assumption that there is one, what kind of God is it? It is perfectly apparent that he is monstrous, utterly monstrous, and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, your life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, and more worth living in my opinion.

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