The creedal tradition is no match for this critique because they don’t have a good answer for it.
The only way out of the problem of evil is to posit constraints on God and is right to point this out.
The creedal view of God leads to atheism because that God either does not exist or is evil.
This video nails the problem they can’t solve.
Stephen Fry’s critique of God and divine morality
Here's the transcript from the video, which appears to be an excerpt from an interview with Stephen Fry discussing his views on God and atheism. I've compiled and lightly edited it for clarity and flow based on the subtitles (correcting obvious OCR errors like typos and punctuation while preserving the original wording as closely as possible). The video features Fry speaking passionately, with brief interjections from the interviewer (Gay Byrne).
Interviewer: [Presumed off-screen setup: Suppose you arrived at the pearly gates... what would you say to God?]
Stephen Fry: I'd say, bone cancer in children? What's that about? How dare you! How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that isn't 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.
Interviewer: And do you think you're going to get in?
Stephen Fry: No, but I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't wanna go on his terms. They're wrong. Now, if I died and it was... it was Pluto, Hades, and if it were the 12 Greek gods, then I would have more truck with it. Because the Greeks were... they didn't pretend not to be human in their appetites, and in 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 god, is quite clearly a maniac. Utterly selfish. Totally. 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's simply not acceptable.
So, atheism isn't just about not believing there is a god, but on the assumption that there is one, what kind of god is he? It's perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, your life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living.
It's true. The world doesn't feel like God IS at the helm of things. If God IS the kind of creator he is described to be. It's impossible for any creator - to be as destructive as the current version is. Whoever was supposed to run things is locked up somewhere.
It's so simple to understand the creedal idea of God is evil. Remove creation out of nothing and insert "we are co-eternal with God" and "God is bound by eternal law" and the problem of evil is fixed.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you,
None of you are Christians until you profess a creed that won't exist for another 300 years."
- Jesus
The biblical texts cited speak of shared divine attributes (light, life, glory), not explicitly of numerical identity of substance
The phrase "one being" is not a biblical term but a post-biblical metaphysical interpretation imposed on the text
LDS theology can fully affirm perfect unity, indwelling, and shared divine life between the Father and the Son without collapsing them into a single metaphysical substance
That Creed was a summary of what was already believed. It is a summary of apostolic Christianity which safeguarded the faith and spoke up when it needed to to Define things clearly. You guys believe in polygamous space marriage and fake hieroglyphic texts.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you,
None of you are Christians until some guy named Joseph Smith comes along and creates My religion in 1800 years."
- Jesus
P.s. You’re about to corrupt this message
The “Mormons aren’t Christians” movement is nothing more than a small but loud corner of American evangelicalism.
That argument has now lost.
Not faded. Not weakened. Lost.
It no longer persuades the public, and it no longer commands moral authority.
What remains is noise, produced for self-confirmation rather than persuasion, repeating claims the rest of the country has already moved past.
The reason is simple. Americans know what Christians look like. And they know Latter-day Saints.
They know Latter-day Saints as people who worship Jesus Christ openly and constantly. Who pray in His name. Who center weekly worship on His atoning sacrifice. Who teach their children to follow Him. Who organize their entire religious life around His resurrection.
For almost everyone who is asked, that settles the question.
Repeated surveys confirm it. A clear majority of Americans regard Latter-day Saints as Christian, including many who disagree with their theology or would never join the Church. They still recognize Christian faith when they see it.
The real fight is not over Jesus Christ. Latter-day Saints affirm His divinity, His Atonement, and His literal resurrection without hesitation. That is not where the argument lives.
The disagreement turns on something else. When evangelicals say Latter-day Saints aren’t Christian, they are often defending a philosophical definition of God shaped by Greek thought. When Latter-day Saints say they are Christian, they are pointing to something simpler and older: worship of Jesus Christ as the resurrected Savior.
You can disagree with that claim. But you cannot honestly say it places Latter-day Saints outside the Christian story altogether.
Teachings evangelicals portray as wildly unchristian, including belief in an embodied Father or distinct divine persons, were taught and believed by many early Christians. Scholars have shown these ideas were common in the first centuries, before later church authorities narrowed acceptable belief through frameworks shaped heavily by Greek philosophy. They are not historical oddities. They are part of Christianity’s early record.
That is why the heresy label now rings hollow. It is not grounded in how Christianity began, but in how certain groups later decided its boundaries should be enforced.
And enforcement is exactly how it feels.
The most telling feature of today’s “Mormons aren’t Christian” rhetoric is its irrelevance. It persists in online echo chambers and almost nowhere else.
Outside those circles, the verdict is already in. Latter-day Saints are widely recognized as Christians. Their faith is visible, durable, and centered on Jesus Christ. The attempt to deny that reality no longer persuades anyone who is not already committed to denying it.
America has spoken. Ancient history is on its side. And momentum points the same way.
Latter-day Saints are Christian.
We don’t need to play defense, nor do we need to worry about what folk Christianity thinks about anything. They have closed the heavens to themselves since 90 A.D., and as a result can’t see the light until they let go of the absurd confusion and darkness of their creeds.
Mormons have always and continue to reject the 3 ecumenical creeds because they continue to reject what those creeds teach about Jesus, the Trinity, etc. Which is an obvious reason why Mormons cannot be considered Christians.
