This past Thursday, English comedian and actor Stephen Fry startled television host Gay Byrne when interviewed for RTÉ One's "The Meaning of Life." According to The Independent, the show features discussions about the purpose of life, religion, and what happens after death. Fry, who is an atheist, was quick to share his blistering views on God.

Byrne asked Fry, "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 responded, "I'll say: bone cancer in children, what's that about? How dare you, how dare you create a world where there is such misery that's not our fault? 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?"

An astonished Byrne asked Fry a second question, stating, "And you think you are going to get in [to heaven], like that?"

Fry replied, "But I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to get in on his terms. They are wrong. Now, if I died and it was Pluto, Hades, and if it was the 12 Greek gods then I would have more truck with it, because the Greeks didn't pretend to not be human in their appetites, 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 that created this universe, if it was created by god, is quite clearly a maniac... utter maniac, totally selfish. 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."