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Great Stephen Fry Interview!

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emanon

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Ha... you either didn't listen to the entire video or you completely ignored the context, especially for the Humanist references.

They were prince arch bishops who employed Mozart. These were not spiritual beings who inculcated these composers with a sense of the divine that makes the music divine. The glory of Verde’s Requiem or Mozart’s Requiem or Bach’s pieces is that they are fantastic, incredibly human and like all great human’s thing they reach for the infinite. They reach for beauty. A religious person would call that the divine. You could call it the humanist.

&

The most important philosophy I think is that even if it isn’t true you must absolutely assume there is no afterlife. You cannot for one second I think, abbragate the responsibility of believing that this is it...

That alone seems to refute any claims that he is Kantian or Humanist in the toohey sense of the word...

He uses the word humanist to mean that he doesn't believe in God, he believes in the potential of humans and human creation...

And can't forget:

I have no quarrel with individuals who wish… who are devout and who have faith. I don’t want to mock them. I really don’t, but damned if I’m going to be told by them what to do with my body or damned if I’m going to have the extraordinary battles won by enlightenment over the past 400 years, to have those battles abdicated by a new dark ages. It’s you know. The battle lines must be drawn.

and the priceless way he ends the interview:

It’s terrible. I don’t want to come over as some terrible anti-ecclesiastical figure, but.
The End.

:lol:

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a lot of people use the word "humanist" or "secular humanist" and refer to a "duty to humanity". sounds to me like collectivism

But do you think, given the context in which he uses the word, especially at the end of the video, that this is what he meant when he said "humanist"?

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The glory of Verde’s Requiem or Mozart’s Requiem or Bach’s pieces is that they are fantastic, incredibly human and like all great human’s thing they reach for the infinite. They reach for beauty. A religious person would call that the divine. You could call it the humanist.

This really sounds like someone referring to a "Duty to Humanity"?

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Am I to take it that no one else is a Stephen Fry fan?

If not, I'm curious what in particular views you are particularly adverse to?

- Chris

No, I love Stephen Fry. Thanks for posting this.

I just didn't respond because it seemed to me to stand on its own.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I love Stephen Fry. I haven't parsed his commentary for collectivist tendencies (but now I will...); I just really enjoy his personality. :)

Oh, and I'm married to an englishman, and we have five half-englishlings-- and they are all faaaabulous!

Edited by Imogen
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