Police in Ireland are investigating a comment of blasphemy made against Stephen Fry for his comments about God on an Irish TV show.
A member of the public contacted police after the comedian spoke about God during an interview with Irish broadcaster RTE in February 2015, the Irish Independent reported.
The individual, who wished to remain anonymous, told the news outlet it was their "civic duty" to report the comments which he alleges were in breach of the Defamation Act. He said he had recently been contacted by police after following up the complaint with them late last year.
The footage, which showed Fry quizzed by Irish TV presenter Gay Byrne, went viral after it was aired and has now been seen more than seven million times on YouTube.
Here are Stephen Fry's comments in full
Gay Byrne: “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?”
Stephen Fry: “I’d say, bone cancer in children? What’s that about?
“How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not 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 that is so full of injustice and pain. That’s what I would say. ”
Byrne: “And you think you are going to get in, like that?”
Fry: "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?
"So, atheism isn’t not just about not believing there’s a God, but on the assumption there is one, what kind of God is he?”
Byrne: “That sure is the longest answer to that question I ever got in this entire series.”
