Russell Brand on Stephen Fry on Religion

A friend linked to this video of Russell Brand responding to some comments made by Stephen Fry in a recent interview on the topic of religion.

Brand describes Stephen Fry as “aggressively” not believing in God.  This attempts to immediately set-up a narrative in which Fry is the “aggressor” or oppressor and therefore by arguing against him, Brand is attempting to portray himself as a defender of the oppressed.  Fry certainly doesn't come across as “aggressive” to me in the clips shown in this video.  To be fair to Brand, I haven’t watched all of the Stephen Fry interview, so maybe there are moments when he does get more “aggressive”, although this would seem quite out of character for Fry.  How many people do you know who would be likely to describe Stephen Fry as “aggressive”?  I find such tactics underhand, manipulative and odious.

Stephen Fry’s response to the question of what he’d say to God if he exists was a statement about the problem of evil, which I am yet to see a convincing refutation to.  Brand’s response to this is to ignore it, instead preferring to talk a load of nonsense about “literalism” then segue into quoting from Robert Lanza’s book ‘Biocentrism’ regarding supposed “flaws” in received physics.  These “flaws” consisting of the fact that if any of 200 physical parameters, laws or forces in our universe (e.g. the strong nuclear force, gravity, etc.) were slightly different the universe as we know it, or at the very least the Earth and/or life would not be able exist and that it therefore  “strains credulity” that they are random.

Note that Brand hasn't presented any sort of an argument here one way or another re: the existence of God or the problem of evil.  He has completely ignored Stephen Fry’s point (why on Earth did he bother showing the first clip if he was going to talk about something completely different anyway?!), then presented an argument from incredulity (read: logical fallacy) re: the existence of the universe / life as we know it.

In response to the second and third clips, he rambles about a “connected consciousness” and an “unknown force” behind everything in the universe.  He doesn't present any evidence for such wild assertions.

I could go on, but this post is already long enough; besides it hardly seems fair to pick on Russell Brand intellectually - it’s like having a boxing match with a 5 year old and the 5 year old has his hands tied behind his back - it’s just not fair.  Brand would do well to stop his mouth for a few moments and engage his brain instead of spouting off this sophistry.  The man is a charlatan and an ignoramus.  He’s almost like the anti-Stephen Fry.

I baulk at the notion of giving Brand more publicity and traffic to his YouTube channel (not that he needs it) where he spreads his ridiculous views. Although, given how little traffic this blog gets, I don't think it's something I need worry much about.

On the plus side, I have developed a new heuristic: If Russell Brand says something, the opposite is highly likely to be true.

Assassin's Creed: Disclaimers

I've recently been playing through the Assassin's Creed game series, which I have enjoyed immensely (particularly Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood).  With it's realistic looking environments, from Jerusalem during the Third Crusade to Renaissance Florence and Rome; it's engaging storyline exploring themes of religion, mythology, free will, control and morality and featuring a Da Vinci Code scale conspiracy theory; it's immersive gameplay featuring ranged and close-quarters combat, running, jumping, climbing, hiding from guards, horse-riding and the occassional puzzle (some of which are extremely taxing for your average computer game) it's really been a joy to play.

However, there is one teeny tiny little thing that caught my eye - not a part of the games themselves, but a legal disclaimer of sorts, and it made me think.  It appears at the beginning of each of the games, before the main menu, as the game is loading.  Here's what the disclaimer says:

"This work of fiction was designed, developed and produced by a multicultural team of various religious faiths and beliefs."

In and of itself this is fairly innocuous and not unexpected given the nature of the overall plot of the series.  It makes it clear that the games are fictitious and none of what is contained within is intended to offend anyone.

What makes this stand out is that it is the only disclaimer of it's type in the games.  The developers, Ubisoft, clearly don't won't to offend anyone due to their religious beliefs, but what about other beliefs or opinions, political or economic opinions for example?

Not wanting to give away too many spoilers, the storyline presents particular elements of religious stories as false, essentially part of a huge conspiracy to control the human race.  They also, in some of the puzzles featured in the latter two games, present much of recent history in a similar manner, suggesting that wars have been planned and governments overthrown, etc. all as part of a much bigger plan.  In doing so they present particular political and economic viewpoints as wrong, or misguided at best.

I have no problems with any of this, this is not a complaint about the games or about Ubisoft, this is rather something to be categorised under the heading 'people are strange'.  Why the double standard?  Why the need for a religious disclaimer and not a political or economic one?  Are we to take from this that it's okay to offend people on the basis of their political or economic beliefs, but not on the basis of their religious ones?  Are we to take from it that those with strongly held religious beliefs are more easily offended than those with strongly held political beliefs"?*  Are we just over-sensitive about not offending people's faiths?

My suspicion is that it's the latter, but I think discussion on this is best saved for a future post.

For the meantime I'm not hoping that I'll see more disclaimers in the next game.  In fact, I'm hoping that I don't see any disclaimers at all - I want to live in a World where they're not necessary.

* Or that perhaps people in general just believe that those with strongly held religious beliefs are more easily offended than those with strongly held political beliefs?