Ariane Sherine The Atheist Bus Girl And Ex-Unitarian*Universalist Zoroastrian *Probably* Should Enter Into A Free And *Responsible* Search For Truth
Just saying. . .
Herewith the comment that I just submitted to Luiza Sauma's interview of "The Atheist Bus" girl Arian Sherine in The Independent On Sunday -
The Blind Atheistic Faith Of Ariane Sherine
robinedgar wrote:
Sunday, 1 February 2009 at 09:07 am (UTC)
:Having parents with different religions [Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian] meant I could believe in neither. And that caused me to reject the whole thing.
This statement does a fine job of illustrating the stunningly simplistic, irrational, and even *ridiculous* "reasoning" of some of the more "devout" atheists aka "fundamentalist atheists". Apparently it does not occur to Ariane Sherine that maybe, just maybe, both Unitarian*Universalism aka U*Uism and Zoroastrianism, to say nothing of the major monotheistic religions of the world, may individually and collectively preserve and present some very valid and valuable theistic religious beliefs even though they may not be entirely compatible with each other. This overly simplistic throwing out the baby with the bathwater of theistic religion is typical "fundamentalist atheist" thinking aka *faith*. Ariane Sherine appears to be every bit as much a "faith head" in her poorly thought through atheism as any blindly devout religionist. Even if Zoroastrianism and Unitarian*Universalism were fundamentally and completely contradictory and incompatible with each other, which is not the case by any means, would that justify rejecting both of these religions? If two different scientific theories prove to be contradictory and incompatible do scientists reject both theories, or do they make an effort to determine which of the two theories is most flawed?
:"Where are you from and what religion are you?" were the first things anybody would say to me growing up. I could never answer either adequately.
Well in that one of Ariane's parents is a Unitarian*Universalist and Unitarian*Universalist "theology" is a confusing mess these days, if U*Uism has any bona fide theology at all, it is not really all that surprising that she could never adequately answer what religion she was. Quite regrettably a great many contemporary Unitarian*Universalists would be hard pressed to adequately explain their "religion" these days. The same cannot be said about Zoroastrianism which has a well developed theology that is thousand of years old, predating both Christianity and Islam as well as many other more recent theistic religions.
I am none the less glad to see that Ariane is hedging her Pascalian wager a bit and acknowledging that she wouldn't go beyond saying that there *probably* isn't a God. I guess she is not a "fundamentalist atheist" in the fullest sense of the phrase even though her overly simplistic "reason" is none-the-less typical of "fundamentalist atheists". I would politely urge Ariane to reexamine her Zoroastrian religious heritage. I am confident that she will find that the ancient Persian prophet Zoroaster was right about a lot of things even if his theology may not have been absolutely perfect. What prophet has ever been perfect? I know of none. . .
Herewith the comment that I just submitted to Luiza Sauma's interview of "The Atheist Bus" girl Arian Sherine in The Independent On Sunday -
The Blind Atheistic Faith Of Ariane Sherine
robinedgar wrote:
Sunday, 1 February 2009 at 09:07 am (UTC)
:Having parents with different religions [Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian] meant I could believe in neither. And that caused me to reject the whole thing.
This statement does a fine job of illustrating the stunningly simplistic, irrational, and even *ridiculous* "reasoning" of some of the more "devout" atheists aka "fundamentalist atheists". Apparently it does not occur to Ariane Sherine that maybe, just maybe, both Unitarian*Universalism aka U*Uism and Zoroastrianism, to say nothing of the major monotheistic religions of the world, may individually and collectively preserve and present some very valid and valuable theistic religious beliefs even though they may not be entirely compatible with each other. This overly simplistic throwing out the baby with the bathwater of theistic religion is typical "fundamentalist atheist" thinking aka *faith*. Ariane Sherine appears to be every bit as much a "faith head" in her poorly thought through atheism as any blindly devout religionist. Even if Zoroastrianism and Unitarian*Universalism were fundamentally and completely contradictory and incompatible with each other, which is not the case by any means, would that justify rejecting both of these religions? If two different scientific theories prove to be contradictory and incompatible do scientists reject both theories, or do they make an effort to determine which of the two theories is most flawed?
:"Where are you from and what religion are you?" were the first things anybody would say to me growing up. I could never answer either adequately.
Well in that one of Ariane's parents is a Unitarian*Universalist and Unitarian*Universalist "theology" is a confusing mess these days, if U*Uism has any bona fide theology at all, it is not really all that surprising that she could never adequately answer what religion she was. Quite regrettably a great many contemporary Unitarian*Universalists would be hard pressed to adequately explain their "religion" these days. The same cannot be said about Zoroastrianism which has a well developed theology that is thousand of years old, predating both Christianity and Islam as well as many other more recent theistic religions.
I am none the less glad to see that Ariane is hedging her Pascalian wager a bit and acknowledging that she wouldn't go beyond saying that there *probably* isn't a God. I guess she is not a "fundamentalist atheist" in the fullest sense of the phrase even though her overly simplistic "reason" is none-the-less typical of "fundamentalist atheists". I would politely urge Ariane to reexamine her Zoroastrian religious heritage. I am confident that she will find that the ancient Persian prophet Zoroaster was right about a lot of things even if his theology may not have been absolutely perfect. What prophet has ever been perfect? I know of none. . .
Comments