Interviewed by Gay Byrne for a program called The Meaning of Life, Stephen Fry shared what he would say to God if Fry met him at the gates of heaven.
Bryne: Suppose it’s all true, and you walk up to the pearly gates, and are confronted by God. What will Stephen Fry say to him, her, or it?
Fry: 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.
Byrne: And you think you are going to get in, like that?
Fry: But I wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t want to get in on his terms. They are wrong.
For over forty years Christopher Hitchens has written and spoken with passionate commitment on matters that others fear to broach. His life has been one of defiance, wit and humility. Now his life is threatened by cancer, but his devotion to the truth and his extraordinary courage are undiminished. In this special event for Intelligence^2, Hitchens will be in conversation via satellite in Washington D.C. with his friend Stephen Fry who will be onstage at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, in front of a sell-out audience of 2,500. Don’t miss this chance to hear one of the great public intellectuals of our age discussing politics, literature and, as he puts it, “the things that make life worth defending - foes like faith and false consolation”.
It’s £5 for a live-stream and 30 days of unlimited on-demand viewing.
Update: Nuts, Hitchens has pneumonia, so Fry will be joined instead by Martin Amis and Richard Dawkins.
They will be examining their own and Christopher’s ideas of what constitutes the good life and the good death — seen against the backdrop of Christopher’s career, the causes dear to his heart, the controversies that he has so enjoyed provoking and the things that make life worth defending.
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