Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s powerful conversion

It was the primary public meeting between infamous atheist scientist Prof Richard Dawkins and his friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Last yr the creator and activist announced that she had grow to be a Christian after years of rejecting religion and the Islam that she grew up with in her native Somalia.

Organised by web magazine Unherd and moderated by editor Freddie Sayers, the extraordinary discussion and its transcript is available online.

Despite a friendly hug in the beginning, Dawkins didn’t pull his punches and put to rest the recent misunderstandings about his own claim to be a “cultural Christian”, rattling off a series of insults about “nonsense” and “bullsh**t” Christian belief.

Ayaan began together with her personal story and the way she had felt suicidal before her conversion. “I lived for a few decade with intense depression and anxiety and self-loathing, I hit all-time low,” she said. Then a therapist suggested she is likely to be experiencing “spiritual bankruptcy” which resonated together with her.

“Having reached a spot where I had absolutely nothing to lose, I prayed and I prayed desperately,” she told the group. “And for me, that was a turning point. And what happened after that may be a miracle in its own right. I feel connected to something higher and greater than myself, I feel I… my zest for all times is back. And that have has filled me with humility, I actually have to say it and it’s something that is very subjective, it’s extremely difficult to elucidate.”

Although she didn’t experience “big banging lights” or “spectacular experiences”, she repeatedly affirmed her faith.

Dawkins described her story as moving, but went on to ridicule her beliefs. “You go to church now and take heed to the vicar. Do you notice what a number of nonsense he talks? I mean, do you actually take it seriously that Jesus is the Son of God? That Jesus rose from the dead? Jesus was born of a virgin?”

Ayaan said that while Dawkins had been a “mentor” to her, “for me God turned me around. I believe what the vicar is saying now not sounds nonsensical, it makes an important deal of sense… it is also layered with the wisdom of millennia. I did mock faith typically, probably Christianity specifically. But I do not try this any more.”

Dawkins replied: “I’ve called you a political Christian, but from what you have just said.. it sounds as if you really consider it.”

Ayaan said that it was subjective and that she had made a alternative to consider. “I select to simply accept Jesus Christ, the teachings of Jesus Christ, the story of Jesus Christ.”

The pair agreed on their dislike of Islam and there was some discussion of the merits of Christianity as a bulwark against the spread of Islam.

However Dawkins was incredulous that Ayaan couldn’t see that Christian doctrines of original sin or the atonement of Jesus were “obvious nonsense”. “This is all theological bulls**t,” he said. “The concept that humanity is born in sin and must be cured of sin, by Jesus being crucified, Jesus being punished for all our sin is a morally very unpleasant idea.”

Ayaan gave a strong response that Christianity had led to the “flourishing of Western civilization”. “I find that Christianity is definitely obsessive about love,” she said. “That is within the figure of the teaching of Christ. As I see it, and again, I’m a brand recent Christian, but what I’m checking out is that that is the other of growing up as a Muslim and the message of Islam.

“The message of Christianity I get is that it is a message of affection. It’s a message of redemption. And it is a story of renewal and rebirth. So, Jesus dying and rising again for me symbolises that story. In a small way I felt I had died and I used to be born. That story of redemption, and rebirth, I believe makes Christianity actually a really, very powerful story for the human condition and human existence.”

She identified that when she mocked religion, she needed protection from radical Muslims, but that Christians wrote to her saying they were praying for her. Her concerns about and severe criticism of militant Islam haven’t modified, and she or he expressed alarm at how young persons are adopting the faith.

She said young people now have a “vacuum of God” attributable to the rise of atheism in Western society, and “there are very awful forces today on the market which might be claiming the hearts and minds and souls of those young students.

“Everything that we inherited from [Christian faith], it’s just too casual to forged that aside. When we have done it, I believe we now have caused ourselves an important deal of harm.”

She went on: “You have this amazing civilization, you’ve this amazing society and it’s pretty frightening to see that the very best and the brightest are converting to the mind virus of woke-ism and the mind virus of Islamism. And that as atheists nobody even seems to have woken as much as the concept.”

This refers back to the widespread protests on university campuses and elsewhere in support of Palestine recently, that in places have broken out into support for the terrorist group Hamas or collaborating in Islamic prayer.

Ayaan said she now has many friendships with moderate Muslims who dislike militants and don’t need to impose their religion on others, and who cannot understand why the West is just not defending its civilisation. “If the world is ruled in accordance with Sharia, if the people who find themselves advanced on this cult get what they need, we’re going to see women caged up, we’re going to see beheadings, we’re going to see civilization go down the drain.

“They’ve demonstrated it over and yet again. Al Qaeda has done it. ISIS has done it. Hamas is doing it today. I believe that we’d like to come back out of denial and see as plain as daylight and as plain as they hold. They keep showing us on a regular basis. If they prevail, that is what they’ll do.”

Heather Tomlinson is a contract journalist. Find her at www.heathertomlinson.substack.com or on twitter @heathertomli