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Last night, Stephen Fry won the Harvard Secular Society’s Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism. The audience packed the pews of Memorial church, and rolled with laughter at Fry’s speech, filled with jokes as well as with rhetoric about reason and religion. As a former atheist and recently converted Christian, I thought I ought to hear what this outstanding secular humanist had to say. Yet I was dismayed to find his speech riddled with contradictions and inaccuracies.As expected, Fry praised reason and more importantly, empiricism. “All must be demonstrated and tested,” Fry advised, going so far as to say that even “Reason must be tested.” Yet this standard of empiricism would rule out almost the entirety of his speech. Fry threw out lots of high ideals – complaining about injustice and stupidity, promoting the “freedom to think and express ideas.” He argued that we can know good and evil without having them writ on stone blocks. Yet I wonder…

What is the empirical evidence for evil?

What scientific proof would demonstrate humanism?

What test may be run to prove injustice?

Or even, how can you scientifically prove the authority or validity of science? (qua Hume’s criticism of induction)

Fry concluded with a quaint sentiment: “It is not the job of an atheist to be smug, to hold the truth, to bull, tyrannize, dominate arguments, to say that we have the truth of the universe.” And yet he lambasted religion throughout his speech, discussing “some God whom they cannot prove exists, and whom they cannot with any reason, be convinced to believe in.” Fry must then think that Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Francis Collins, C.S. Lewis, the list goes on and on, must all be quite unreasonable men. Yet his butchering of intellectual history didn’t stop there.

Fry announced that “it is one of the most piteous facts in the world that the country founded in the greatest spirit of the Enlightenment and the age of Reason, of education, of principled free thought, should be perhaps, in all the Western world, the country now most threatened by spirits who are working actively and urgently and self-consciously against the sights of this country, who are active to extinguish the light that lit America, that lit Harvard, and that lit the world for 150 years.”

This is historical reaching on Fry’s part at best. The founders of the American Revolution – Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson – were all deists, if not Christian. Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes were all Christian men. The ideas which sparked the American Revolution were all grounded in ideas about God. The founders believed not simply in human rights, but that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Harvard was not founded by humanists for the purpose of promoting Enlightenment principles, but by Puritans to devote mens’ minds to the service of God. Our motto is Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae. The first rule of Harvard’s first student handbook was about admission, and the second two rules were as follows:

“2. Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisedome, Let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seeke it of him (Prov. 2:3).

3. Every one shall so exercise himselfe in reading the Scriptures twice a day, that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in Theoreticall observations of Language and Logick, and in practical and spiritual truths, as his Tutor shall require, according to his ability; seeing the entrance of the word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple (Psalm 119:130).”

Stephen Fry is flat out wrong. I cannot demonstrate this with the empirical evidence that he demands, but I can rely on the testimony of historical sources. I must reject the principle “I will not be told” that he so lauded, for it is better to trust the annals of history than to simply invent facts to suit my needs.

The saddest part is that his ideals of Truth, of Injustice, of religious Freedom and Tolerance – they all come from thinkers who grounded these ideals in God. It’s like building up a skyscraper and then removing the foundation. Fry’s secular humanism is little more than the incoherent rubble that he tries to pass off as the tallest building in history.

I would have asked him about these contradictions and accuracies, were I given the opportunity. Alas, I was the fifth person in line, and the questioners in front of me decided instead that knowing Fry’s favorite type of cheese was more important than actually using their free thought to disagree with him. I would be interested in hearing how a secular humanist would respond to such criticisms, but in my experience, the secularist spends more time attacking perceived flaws in religion than actually questioning his own beliefs. And I say that humbly based upon my own experience as an atheist during the first 18 years of my life. If Fry is the best that secular humanism has to offer, it looks like I’ll be sticking with Christianity.

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6 Responses

  1. Josephine

    I would have been interested to hear the question and response. I wasn’t able to ask a question either, although, mine was on some aspect of humanism I wanted his opinion on.

    Two questions for you if I may, one is curiosity of other authors’s habits: why haven’t you signed your interesting article? The other, in earnest: why do you say secular humanism? Is there another identifier of humanism? Liturgical or Christian, perhaps?

    Thanks.

  2. Agnostic

    You said: “If Fry is the best that secular humanism has to offer, it looks like I’ll be sticking with Christianity”.

    Given that you found atheism unsatisfactory, why, might I ask, did you chose Christianity? Why not, perhaps, Hinduism? For surely repudiating atheism does not mean accepting Christianity.

    Furthermore, if, as you imply, that there might not be “empirical evidence for evil” and any “scientific proof would demonstrate humanism”, then are you suggesting that we should jettison our empirical burden and shake off our shackles of reason? If that is truly so, and I am not misinterpreting you, perhaps the solution is belief?

    Well then, my sincerest belief in a flying spaghetti monster who answers my prayers must then be commensurable with your beliefs.

  3. Jordan Monge

    Agnostic – Sorry for not responding sooner. We’ve been dealing with a lot of spam here at the Ichthus and I didn’t see your comment until this morning.

    As for why I chose Christianity, I chose it because I thought it was true. The weight of the historical and philosophic evidence fell on the side of Christianity. You can read some articles on this, including Joseph Porter’s apologetic for God in vol. 4.1 and my upcoming apologetic for the resurrection in our next issue.

    I’m not at all suggesting that we should reject an empirical burden, nor should we ignore reason. I am, and always will be, a philosopher at heart. But it would be foolishness to say that we can ONLY believe things for which we have empirical evidence. Stephen Fry clearly agrees, for he spoke a great deal about evil and injustice, both of which cannot be proven empirically. I would ask that he choose one or the other: either defend only empiricism and stop talking about injustice or recognize that other forms of knowledge are acceptable and persuade us to bring about justice in this world.

    Obviously I prefer the latter: that we recognize the VALUE of science and empirical data without deifying it and saying it’s the only legitimate source of belief. Because reason cannot be empirically demonstrated, nor can it be rationally proven (for that would be circular). History will never live up to the empirical standards of science, but that does not make me doubt that Abraham Lincoln was president nor does it make me wonder if Alexander the Great really did conquer a great deal of the world.

    So yes, the solution to the limitations of empirical evidence is to accept other forms of belief. But this doesn’t have to be blind belief, this doesn’t have to be belief in spite of the evidence (which Pastafarianism pretends to be). It simply has to be non-scientific belief, which includes reason, history, philosophy, ethics, and on and on.

  4. Jordan Monge

    Josephine, I think my previous response got deleted, because I’m certain that I answered these questions shortly after you posted. I’m not sure how that happened, but I’m reposting in case you missed it the first time. (We’ve really got to work on our comment moderation here at the Ichthus…)

    1. I did sign my article. We’re having some website issues and authors names don’t post with the article. They’re on the front page when they are recent, but not on the article itself. (It’s a problem. We’re working on it.)

    2. There are different types of humanism, yes. Renaissance humanism, Christian humanism, etc. Check out wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

  5. John Stackhouse

    Just stopping by at a friend’s request, but glad to read this indictment of Fry’s preaching to an adoring choir. I blogged on Richard Dawkins embarrassing himself similarly at the University of British Columbia here in Vancouver (stackblog.wordpress.com). It is NOT too much to hold people to the minimal standard of rational coherence, and especially if they choose to wrap themselves in the robes of Reason and pronounce millions of other demonstrably intelligent people to be rationally irresponsible.

    I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to Harvard this past spring, offering lectures at the Kennedy School. Here’s hoping I can come back and meet the good folk at this site.

    John Stackhouse, Regent College, Vancouver

  6. Dave Anthony

    Did Fry cite any scripture during his presentation? I’m reading all about secularism, humanism, atheism, agnosticism, etc., but not too much about Christianity. Based on the article, Fry seems perfectly content to take on the title ‘Christian’ and pour into that word whatever meaning he pleases to the exclusion of scripture. Perhaps the confusion in Fry’s ideas is due to that fact. Perhaps the crisis in Christianity is too many people want it without the Word. In other words. They want to make Christianity in their own image. Let’s see: I want to practice the muddled Christianity of Fry or….