Halfway through and it honestly just feels like she found religion due to depression. More power to her for being happier now, but her blanket statements about atheists and how she found her way to jesus doesnt sound very enlightening.
It sounds like she never properly understood using reason to justify not believing in God if she was able to just surrender so easily and “start believing because she found her personal favorite religion”. She was never using reason to begin with.
I am thinking the same thing. Religions are designed to appeal to people who feel hopeless or depressed. They're especially attractive to people in addiction recovery who are of the opinion that they cannot overcome their issues without the help of a higher power. It's comforting. It claims to answer questions that we don't know the answers to. She's just wanting comfort. I could never bring myself to reason this way. I've had horrible existential crises before, precisely because I accept that reality/mortality can be terrifying.
Religion always attracts vulnerable people and people and in desperate situations that need hope. Which is fine, but you never see people join a religion because it logical make sense or the evidence for it is compelling. It's also a faith reason
New atheism NEVER said all religions are the same. How does she not know this? Sam Harris has been at pains to point out they're NOT all the same and that's one of the problems
Most of the atheist are not as intelligent as you, they just witness miracles of science and are lazy as hell to simply things and religions in one category.
@@Peyton1218makes no sense. Her reason for conversion is personal experience. Atheism is obviously not about that and that’s why she converted. If you had a breakthrough with God it would be the same.
I found Ayaan's characterization of atheists extremely disappointing. Firstly, where are these 'evangelical atheists' she talks so much about? Not once have I had an atheist come to my door trying to convert me, while I've had quite a few Christians do the same. Secondly, she insinuates all atheists are nihilists who believe 'there is nothing'. This is not true, plenty of atheists believe in subjective or objective value. Thirdly she makes the claim that atheists, or at least New Atheists, believe all religions are the same. This is patently false, as Sam Harris, one of the most prominent New Atheists, regularly warns against the dangers of Islam and believes that Islam is worse than Christianity.
She herself made her entire career as a new atheist by presenting as an "insider" who insisted that Islam is worse than other religions. That was her whole schtick. She's misrepresenting her old position in order to pretend that she's saying something new - because this whole gambit is just a rebranding strategy. She's trying to repackage her bigotry in a manner more consistent with the current resurgence of evangelical conservativism.
Just to clarify I don't think that is the majority of atheists at all, I think those tend to be immature people who haven't really explored their views well I was just saying that I have come across those types
Looking for an Evangelical atheist? Check the mirror dude. Every time a Muslim and a Christian is having a conversation an atheist appears mocking both the believers and tries to force their "truth" on them. Like dude you're not even part of the conversation it's a conversation between believers. why are you here? Lol
Right - even Darkwins and Hitchens at their height (20years ago) weren't actually evangelical at all… I feel she's half honest - in that she admitting its a political choice and not evidence one… in so many words
I don't know this woman, but my takeaway concerning her is that her positions are very susceptible to narratives, generally speaking but especially when in crisis, on 3 accounts: 1. Her being convinced of Christianity whilst in personal crisis, 2. Her voting for Hilary* because "the media" told her Trump was bad, and 3. Her voting for Trump because she fully bought into Republican propaganda
It's a the "easy way out" Any1 choosing Christianity than say other religions. The marketing is there "accept Jesus died for your sin = heaven = does nothing else or commit heinious atrocities if you want"
@@Pfyzer Oh! Not quite the explanation man. Christianity = suffer for one another to encompass the perception of Love so as to breed heaven from the Spirit (God). Christianity is one of the most selfless religious practices to date. If anyone does it differently then they're likely not Christian. Reguardless, Christianity isn't about the people, it's about Jesus. So shift your focus on Him, seek Him and I promise you'll find Truth, atheist or not, God bless.
@@Pfyzer also, with the concept of sin, its a relationship proposition, not a morality meter to measure "correctness". sin is characterized by ones willingness to seperate themselves from God. Not a specific act confined to "evil", though i know the misinterpretation can happen. Evil is only a judgment of the Lord. We as humans can only begin to perceive the complexities that are human morality and would therefore run into paradoxes at the ends of our understanding. Think "I'm a good person because I do good things for people", a paradoxical claim as the definition of good is entirely confined to the subjective person, therefore nullifying any truth claim to the matter of "true" goodness. Leaving one to either accept regarding subjective morality as myth/fantasy and accepting unreliability for truth administration or admittance to the concept of an objective, interpretive morality having hold on attainable establishment within Truth. That Truth being Jesus. John 14:6.
Her rationale for why she can support Trumps anti immigration stance, as a Christian, is not Trumps rationale for why he rejects immigrants. His attitude towards them is deeply unchristian, but she avoids that obvious truth by giving a perfectly good reason for opposing the immigration system (which Trump does not).
trump is in every aspect the antithesis to jesus. he cheated on all of his 3 wives. he lies all the time. he scams people. he slanders everyone he dislikes. he is racist. ...
Trump neither "rejects" immigrants nor opposes immigration. He is, and always has been, strongly opposed to "illegal" immigration, as most of the American population is. Try not to lie.
Plus she was an asylum seeker in the Netherlands. She was escaping a forced marriage in Canada but claimed to the Dutch government that she was escaping the Somali civil war (even though she had not lived in Somalia since her childhood). Still a valid cause for asylum IMO but you'd think she'd have a bit more empathy with those seeking it in the U.S.
Why do atheists want it both ways; demanding Christians keep their beliefs out of govt, but also criticizing Christians for not acting out their beliefs toward the poor through government?
Trump wants immigrants out bc they’re eating the dogs and cats he’s not doing it out of some benevolent autodidactic good that those poor immigrants just don’t understand
I could not finish this interview. Not only was her conversion testimonial unconvincing but her interpretation of American politics is absolutely baffling.
Her interpretation of American politics is exactly spot on. The Democratic Party has shifted far left. The democrats are now the party of the warmongering elites and the republicans are now the party of the people. Hence the red wave around the entire county. Yes, the entire county.
I had to shut it off as well. There was nothing to learn from this. She lacks true conviction and understanding, and it seeping through every word she speaks.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a prime example of why religion is so effective in influencing people who are stuck in crises or have had very traumatic childhoods. Religion provides them with the comfort of not feeling alone because they believe there is a benevolent God who loves them unconditionally. I find it sad that a clearly intelligent person like her has shifted her perspective so radically due to personal trauma in a pursuit to find peace for herself. She clearly understands that faith and reason are fundamentally incompatible, yet she willingly dives into this dissonance to avoid misery. Her arguments for Christianity, once again, do not go beyond politics, culture, and personal elements. To give an example, she raised a point at 34:50 where she argues that atheists are less open-minded than theists, especially those who promote their "atheism" in an evangelical manner. She points to the sense of certainty these individuals convey as something that bothers her. However, in my opinion, this is a very weak argument because it is subjective. Her assessment is as good as mine, and I can share from my own experience that, more often than not, it is the theists I encounter who are absolutely certain that their specific god and religion are true. It doesn't make either of our points good.
I have a great deal of compassion for her. I think that some people’s suffering is so great that they would rather believe anything than live with the pain. Psychologically, she probably has little choice but to seek comfort. It should go without saying that desperation and belief do not make things true.
If anything, prideful intelligence is precisely what keeps you from seeing God. It's about seeking the truth with a sense of humility. Humility. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
@@dennis4021 you don’t see a lack of humility and a surfeit of pride in your certainty? I am completely uncertain about the existence of god and the origins and workings of most of the universe. I don’t see how I can be demonstrating “prideful intelligence” by simply saying “I don’t know”.
@@dennis4021 It’s quite the opposite of pride to admit that one simply does not know whether a god exists or not. Acknowledging the limits of our understanding is an act of humility, not arrogance. On the other hand, it seems you are the one displaying pride by asserting with certainty not only that a god exists but that it is specifically the Christian God. Don’t you see the dissonance here? You’re calling for humility while claiming access to divine knowledge that is, by its very nature, unknowable to others unless revealed. This stance seems less about seeking truth with humility and more about defending a certainty that others are wrong for questioning. Belief and faith are deeply personal, but asserting absolute truths without evidence and then accusing others of pride for not sharing that belief, is both dismissive and contradictory. Shouldn't true humility involve recognizing that others might arrive at different conclusions in their own pursuit of truth?
@@jamesreynolds4811 Yes, I also feel sorry for her upbringing, and I genuinely wish her all the best. If Christianity helps her cope with her trauma, then so be it. However, as you have correctly pointed out, just because something has utility doesn’t mean it says anything about its truthfulness. There are many others who find the same comfort she does during a crisis, but their source is different-be it another religion or belief system. In a nutshell, this comfort is interchangeable and doesn’t validate the truth claims of any specific faith.
He does that with all his religious guests. Also, he lets them speak and dig their own irrational hole without interrupting much or with confrontations, and then nicely and politely asks a question that, following their irrational banter, they simply cannot answer with any coherence. Alex is exposing their intellectual void just by letting them speak, and they never even realize they had just massively shot themselves in the foot in public.
Alex knows when to push back and who to push back against. Ayaan's career is not about apologetics, it's more about personal testimony. From leaving Islam to coming to Christianity
I think he comment about athiests not being open to change is sadly, wrong. But its Christians that refuse to accept they may be wrong. Most athiests would gladly bend the knee, given evidence of the Creator. Ali sounds like she has spent long sessions with Peterson.
@@dvanaestcestica1135 This works with absolutely all guests, not just religious ones. Watch the interview with Dawkins. Many well-known atheists or religious people are not on such a high level of understanding of philosophy and arguments as Alex, so they cannot adequately respond, and those same arguments from Alex go unnoticed. Whether we agree or not with Dr. Craig or Mike from InspiringPhilosophy or Bart Ehrman, these are people who can "catch" every single thing that Alex deliberately and calculatedly includes in his tricky questions.
I’ve never understood why people say that atheists are closed minded and religious people are more open minded. How is it not the exact opposite? Ayaan literally says in this video that it’s important to keep reason and faith separate. I’m sorry, but that’s not being honest or open-minded. I’m not going to set aside reason in order to convince myself of something, whatever that thing is.
She’s using Christian/religious apologetics. When they say it they mean it in a very specific and abstract way that doesn’t seem rational. Like they would never argue the same thing about Jews, Muslims or Hindus but atheists are of a closed mind.
That’s the thing about religion… Not all the times, but sometimes… People have an emotional experience or a religious experience or an emotional, religious spiritual experience and… I mean you can’t argue against that. It’s beyond reason. I don’t think it’s good or bad or right or wrong it just exists in a category beyond reason.
The question that remains is, what do you trust, ultimately? That which you can't explain but cannot deny, or that which you can explain, but leads you to deny anything that you cannot? It all comes down to is there something rather than nothing.
More power to her and all that but this still feels like she found Christianity as a sort of political cudgel against Islam “wokeness” whatever rather than earnest discovery of faith
Still, she has a great point that Christianity is vastly superior to islam, and the rise of Islam in the west is partially because of new atheism and framing Christianity as the white straight man's religion. Islam is a much greater threat to LGBT and women's right, free speech etc than Christianity is now. I think we need to stop shitting on (most forms of) Christianity at this point and start combatting islam in the west hard if we want to secure liberal values in Europe. Europe is quickly loosing influence in the world and soon we have no leverage. We need to act now I believe.
Ali represents the Christian path as an alleviation of suffering, but if you take Christianity seriously you are simply trading one form of pain for another. I was a devout Christian for twelve years, and have now been an atheist for two years. I experienced more internal suffering as a Christian than I have as an atheist. Sure, now I have bleeding holes in my narrative explanation of the world. Do I now have trouble putting together a cohesive "driving purpose" for my life? Yes. But the intense anxiety and self-hatred I felt as a Christian has abated. I no longer have to wonder why my prayers weren't answered, why "promises from God" never came to pass, and inevitably conclude that it's because I'm not good enough. Compared to those years of intense noise and torture in my soul, the quiet of atheism is like cool water on a fevered brow. There is suffering on EACH road. Anyone who tries to sell Christianity OR atheism as a painless path is not fairly representing their experience.
@@connorbrown7455 read the book of Job, you might understand why prayers were not answered? You do understand that Jesus is returning to renew the earth? We are not supposed to have all things in this life, we are supposed to give up this life for the sake of hope in the future with Christ… Said with love ❤️ I hope you find your way back to following the king before he returns. He loves you.
@@connorbrown7455 also if I may say. Why did you have such intense self hatred when following Jesus? In choosing to follow him, you have his righteousness apply to your account! You are forgiven! What a joy!!! The king LOVES you Connor!! What more could he do to show you than to suffer and die for you!? Romans 8:1 There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What beautiful, wonderful, joyful news. It’s real Connor, go back to the loving, faithful and true King Brother!!
People join Christianity, because they expect to live a 'easy life' when Christianity, was not about living an easy life. For students that want to be a doctor, an esteemed profession which rewards substantial income, people will dedicate 10 years of late nights, study and effort for it. If heaven is a life devoid of suffering and evil, of comfort and happiness ETERNALLY, then how much more would we have to struggle to attain it? The early Christian philosophers, and church fathers always emphasized that being a Christian was to crucify your desires and flesh and to carry your individual cross, just as Christ carried ours. "The path of God is a daily cross. No one has ascended into Heaven by means of ease, for we know where the the way of ease leads, and how it ends." (Saint Isaac the Syrian) In afflictions and sufferings, endurance and faith, are concealed the promised glory and recovery of celestial blessing." (St. Makarious of Egypt) That obedience is salvic which is hard and that which you like and is easy is of little value." (Elder Michael of Valaam). "Even temporary ease, pauses and self-pity have decreased and will always decrease the pace of spiritual progress." (Saint Theophan the Recluse) "Paradisial blessedness is not given to anyone who has not first suffered." (Elder Ambrose of Optina) I do thank you my brother Connor, for being honest, that being a Christian, was significantly much harder than being an atheist (which atheists seldom admit). The Bible prophesized that those who who live a life in Christ would suffer: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." (1 Peter 4:12-14) As the pagan turned Christian philosopher, St. Justin Martyr (Christian who was martyred for refusing to deny Christ) once said: 'We do not seek to escape suffering.' Why do we suffer? Because longsuffering is the greatest form of love. When Christ died for His bride (the Church), he proved that His love for us was not merely theory, but implemented into action. His humiliation, at the hands of His creation, the spitting, the scourging, the insults, and the torture and his barbaric death He bore because of His love for us. For a radical love like that, suffering a minor insult is child's play compared to what He did for us. To reject a love like that, for the sake of temporal ease, and comfort, which you enjoy now, is the greatest form of betrayal and evil. It is better to of not experienced that beautiful love, in the first place, and to reject it than to of never ever experienced and reject it. God loves you brother. He sometimes won't answer our prayers for our own good. I remember the other day, I prayed to God everyday, for several months to marry a girl I liked at Church. We hung out, and she had a radiant personality. After several months of begging God, to marry her, I later learned that she was not the person she displayed herself out to be, and that she regularly mocked people in the open, and spread hurtful false, rumors about them, and asked guys out, along with their friends. I now thank God, because I was unaware of all this, and had I with my lack of omniscient knowledge, asked her out and eventually married her, I would of been miserable. I realized that God protects us from people and situations for our own good as He knows things we don't. Or if He does not answer your prayer in that moment, it's because our timing was too early, but He will answer it when the time is right. You are good enough for God, Connor. Search up the story of St. Mary of Egypt. She was a former prostitute, that slept with men, for the mere pleasure of it, and during a pilgrimage, would not even require payment as she was so addicted to lust. She partook in all this as a mere teen. Her life story is quite long, but she later found God, and lived a life of repentance for her sins, and suffered much in trying to refrain from sex to live a life as a nun, in a monastery, but after 14 years of struggle, finally defeated the passion, and through fasting, and physical labor, lived a life pleasing to God, and entered the kingdom of heaven. It goes to show, that no one is outside of the mercy of God as long as they promise to struggle in the spiritual life without giving up. Despair is a feeling brought from Satan, who wants to make us believe our efforts in pleasing God is futile, and that He will not forgive us, in order for us to give up and abandon the Christian life altogether, which He has succeeded with you. But as long as you are still living, you can renounce the works of Satan, and come back to eternal life with God. His mercy is greater than the magnitude of all the worst sins committed in the span of the entire existence of our world. Do not abandon Him, and give up, for temporal pleasure and comfort for an eternity of regret, wailing and torture in hell with the evil one, who being condemned there for eternity, wants everyone else to share the same fate as him. "The fire of eternal punishment in the afterlife is unlike fire here in this world - it being unquenchable, giving no light, and imposing suffering and dismay, eternally, for the souls of sinners in the afterlife will be immortal and thus continually be subject to unyielding, chastising punishments." -St John Chrysostom
@@radiantblue8001 "If heaven is a life devoid of suffering and evil, of comfort and happiness ETERNALLY, then how much more would we have to struggle to attain it?" Isn't the point that the Christ did the struggling for you?
Thanks to Ayaan Hirsi Ali i have given up my counterfaith and now believe in Odin. I find it very enriching and will not challenge that intellectually. Very cool.
Thanks to Ayaan I have now surrendered myself to Smurfism. I refuse to think about it rationally. I just believe it. Really. I really believe it. I choose it. May the Papa Smurf bless you all.
Comparing Odin to Jesus, is intellectually dishonest. Odin is portrayed is a god, that was created from matter, whereas we believe in a God is the creator of everything, including matter. Secondly, Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure, unlike the mythological greek gods.
what is disturbing is the left defending Islam and crazy identity politics. I used to be left leaning. It was reading Bakounine that played a big part in me becoming an atheist, but let be honest, the modern left is doing everything wrong.
He's too nonchalant for me these days. A couple of cleverly worded questions for them to tie their own noose, but I'd like to see him get in the ring like he used to. I found it very difficult to get through this interview since almost nothing she said was challenged - and she said a LOT of stupid shit.
@@Baun92he’s not a rude person. She’s giving personal testimony. Alex did have a good challenging conversation with a Catholic monastic recently and his conversations with apologists take a different tone
Weird that she describes atheists as constantly 'fortifying' themselves against faith. Like we're somehow constantly being tempted by religion. It's not hard to not beleive in something when there's no empirical evidence to support it. Very little effort required.
I believe she's projecting. Maybe that's what she actually felt until her 'fortification' finally failed her. Conversions on both sides do happen, after all. I think it's a good reminder that not all atheists are the same and some do find it harder to.. I don't know.. resist believing in whatever they think the bible has to offer.
@ I’ll defer to your experience since I’m not really in that group. But I think you might be confusing content creators with average people. The average people who don’t believe in god, I would imagine, don’t really think about it all that often, nor do they fortify themselves, like she says in the video
When she says that she chooses to believe in the resurrection, that tells me that she doesn’t actually believe it but pretends to because she likes the mythos. That’s fine if you want to do that, but don’t pretend like you care about truth.
You have to choose to believe a lot of things in the bible or about history in general. We don't have concrete proof of a lot of prehistoric findings but we have evidence that could lead to a POSSIBLE conclusion that we choose to believe. For example, we have proof that Neanderthals ate and raped humans, but we don't know that for sure, we just of some evidence that would support a conclusion. So we have faith that that conclusion is the right one. When it comes to the resurrection for example, even if you witnessed the restriction yourself, you'd have no way to prove that to people. Even if everyone in this comment section witnessed the resurrection, it would still be considered a myth because there is no verifiable proof, unless the Shorud of Turin is proven to be Jesus but that still wouldn't 100% prove he resurrected. So faith is required for the supernatural, the only way around it is to show EVERYONE the same thing at the same time. But by definition there are no natural methods to test the supernatural, so even if we witnessed them every day, there would be no way to examine them with the natural methods we have. It's like trying to find God with the tools God gave you, it's simply not possible unless a God shows himself to his creation. So you'd have to implement faith.
respectfully that take really removes all the intellectual free will in belief and in understanding. I'll never be able to prove the earth is round. Ill never be in a space ship above it, but there are plenty of people who have the instruments tools and research to verify it, so when I say the earth is flat I am choosing to assert something I can not personally prove, and I am doing so based off how well the research gels with my personal point of view. It is faith that I use to say the earth is round. It is true that you can not magically ascertain full understanding of something until you actually do the mental work to get it. But that is just it, there is no understanding without out faith first, you have to interact with a truth claim in your mind as if it really is true to verify whether it is or is not. People today with modern technology that we are familiar with are resurrected from death, it is not unreasonable to think some other form of technology or knowledge we , or just the people at the time , did not understand implemented the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Physical recordable phenomena does not have the sole rights to what is true. There are somethings that are true that atleast for now are outside our scope of being able to measure and record it. Regardless what ever you claim to understand, you ca not claim to understand it fully, and to even get to the understanding you have now, and moving forward to maintain your limited understanding, it requires an intellectual act of free will to choose to acknowledge it as a possibility and then fortify the possibility with what you can measure, test and record.
This seems to come down to, she found a religion that she views as better/more moral than Islam and she was like "wow! religion can look like this? I believe!"
@@marcustulliuscicero8405stop talking if you domt know what your talking about. Islam was spread by the sword. Affects women to this day. So dumb you have to be to say this even richard dawkins says islam is worse.
@@Amundbjerk most of this interview is literally about a bad mental state she has been in and Christianity giving her a sense of purpose/peace. I would like to use the word gullible, but it’s pretty clear her reasoning was intellectual and more to do with her mental state.
@@_Sloppyham Before dismissing her perspective as merely driven by her mental state, I’d recommend reading her works or watching her interviews. It might give you a fuller understanding of where she's coming from. Sorry if i was hurtful.
@@mikeldurant5249so god cant punish his own creation? Hes more of a god of love. He died for us so that he could live with us not above us. Terrible statement here. More reasearch needs to be done
God came and died for us yet he is a god of punishment. Even you who disrespects god rn would be forgiven by him in an instant. Thats how much he loves you. Yet hes a god of punishment. Terrible point
@@Hruebff God can't be just without punishment. You can't claim a criminal justice system is "just" or "fair" if criminals get off scot-free. So yes if God never punished he wouldn't be just or he would simply be absent.
@ which is foreign to me. I was a Southern Baptist for 20+ years and thought I had good reasons for thinking god was real and the believers I was around did as well. Believing something is true simply because you like the idea of it being true doesn’t make sense to me.
@@henningplogmacher5451 She never said that. I find it quite strange, that if atheism is true, why do atheists have to rely on the misrepresentation of Christianity, and intellectual dishonesty? Atheism cannot be defended. This is why atheists, rely on misrepresenting Christianity and intellectually dishonest statements to advance their materialist and quite cowardly religion.
All I see is a woman who was in crisis looking for relief. She didn’t come to this on a sleepy Tuesday when something clicked. I’m glad it helped her, but pretending you can pick and choose when to depend on reason is folly. Believing in things that aren’t real *is* dangerous. It’s been responsible for some of the worse atrocities in human history.
What is real? Do you realize that people who believe in things that are “real” also commit atrocities? It isn’t belief that is problematic, it is the human condition/mind/decision that is the problem
Please do tell us about the atrocities that were done by a christian that were not done by anyone else? The crusades?? Who defended europe against the muslim conquest?
You're not glad it helped her. You're literally criticizing her for her decision. Would you rather her go back to being atheistic and on the brink of suicide? You say that religion is dangerous, but here's an example of religion doing something good, and you don’t want to recognize it for what it is. Religiosity cannot be viewed within a vacuum.
I swear, her mind sounds broken. Her thoughts are barely coherent and jumps between topics that are so unrelated and not helpful at all in answering his questions. It's like she is trying to fit in as many talking points as possible and not actually trying to have a conversation.
It's time for her to retire. The most painful thing to me is that he didn't even want to challenge her out of pity I imagine, and she still didn't end up looking good.
I noticed that too. Very disturbing that she feels she needs to make a concerted effort to "choose" Christianity instead of just believing that it's true
I greatly appreciate the gentleness and consideration that Alex displayed during this interview. As an agnostic and a US citizen, I was initially frustrated by Alex not challenging some of her narratives. But by the end of the interview it was clear that Alex's approach was the correct one.
That's a really ignorant characterization. Statistics overwhelmingly show that Christians live better lives than atheists, and it doesn't seem like a coincidence that depression and the decline of Christianity follows each other fairly parallelly on a graph. She's made the decision for herself that her well-being is more important than truth.
@@radiantblue8001 "He who affirms the existence of God, has some reason for wishing that God does exist." - Me, former Christian, turned non-Christian, following St. Augustine's reasoning.
Ali always struck me as an angry atheist (with good reason given her story). But I never really bought that she seriously lacked a belief in God, rather that she hated the God worshipped by the people that abused her in his name. I've had Christian friends that went through a similar arch. Abused by the church to become vocal atheists only to revert to a softer form of religion down the line. For me, I always had good experiences with religious people. They've been fantastic influences in my life. I've never been angry at god or about religion. But I just don't reckon it's true.
I don't think she should do these anymore. I liked Ayaan, and I understand that she needs to be happy for once, even if that means lying to herself about reality. It's just a bad look especially since everyone feels the need to treat her with kids gloves because of what she went through.
Around 23:00 and a little after, she's discussing how Christianity, and the parables within it, teach this idea of evolving with the human condition. That the fundamental story is actually all about the human condition, something her original religion neglected by focusing on rules. Rules that held her down, that imprisoned her, and that ultimately ignore the human condition of sin. And while I think this is a beautiful thought process, I can't help but remark that the problems she described about her first religion were identical to what many christians have talked about with theirs. When I was much younger and a christian, everything was about rules. Breaking a rule puts a sin on your heart, on your soul, one that needs to be rectified with contrition. The worse the sin the more intense of a contrition and penance you needed. Your body is a temple, and doing these things damages and taints that temple -- a temple in which Jesus cannot enter if dirty enough, and thus one may be required to confess before undergoing the sacrament of the eucharist. My Christian faith when I was younger was one that wasn't really different than how she describes her old religion -- in fact, this was (and still is) true of a lot of people, they just didn't follow the rules and chose to break them. The difference is that one religion decided to accept many of the "issues" it threw at humans -- an acceptance that's relatively modern; while one is still struggling on that same ground. For me, as an atheist, that understanding of the "evolving human condition" is one that can be accepted without religion and a belief in god, precisely because it was those religions that held us back from evolving the human condition. That if your belief in god is really just a belief in this concept of evolution, and you are so blind to the atheists that accept that same meaning that you end up claiming them as actually being christian (like Jordan Peterson does), then you're ignoring this deeper meaning of human evolution in favor of maintaining frameworks that have been based precisely against it for so long. Instead I offer a different framework for her and people like her: Rather than focusing so intently on figuring out how to adapt, change, and evolve these religious beliefs to pull more humans into them, perhaps it's time for the human condition to instead evolve past these ancient religious concepts, understand and take what is useful for humans, and evolve and move on past them.
If any religion only focuses on sins and rules to avoid them, that religion does not acknowledge the human condition. The human condition is that we all sin. While certain denominations of Christianity likewise focus on sin and rules, Christianity itself says that God died for those sins and rose again, something we could not do. Making atheism a new religion doesn't address the human condition unless you believe people will one day evolve into being perfect. I think this is why she got a kick out of various Christians trying to woo her to their denomination. The denomination isn't what is important to her. When Jesus was born and the angels appeared to the shepherds, they didn't say, “God’s here to get you.”
I love the points you raised. I also grew up under a denominate really focused on rules and laws. The fact that she placed such an emphasis on this makes me feel she could very well have been Muslim again but for the trauma it has dished to her. Chowing to believe can apply to any religion so long as the denomination fits your standing bias. I’ve seen many a Muslim who are some of the kindest souls I’ve interacted with. Many of whom find ways to reinterpret the “toxic” aspects of the Quran. We can either try and fit a square peg into a round hole or just take out the valuable bits from the round hole and go in search of a square hole for your peg.
The problematic part of what you suggest at the end is this - "understand and take what is useful for humans". How do you discern what should be taken and what should be left? You may unknowingly leave behind the most important bits you don't recognize and instead take with you rather useless bits.
@ I think you're missing the surrounding context: that the religion and religious text is also part of the "human condition" and evolves with our improvements in understanding. That this is how someone like Ayaan ignores not only parts of the Bible that she doesn't like, but also ignore Christians who have had very similar experiences to her own when she was Muslim. That the bigger picture of Christianity and Jesus as part of this "evolving human condition", is really just a component of what us humans naturally do and ought to do: learn and understand the world, and self critique to improve those understandings. The process here is fundamentally inquisitive, human, and social. Not specific to Muslims or Christians. So your question: "How do you discern what should be taken and what should be left?" Is answered by using reason, empiricism, and intuition and judgement. Just as a Christian uses those to resolve interpretations of the Bible, or a Jew in interpreting the Torah, or a Muslim in interpreting the Quran, or even Ayaan in critiquing Islam and eventually pulling away from it. The way that we learn, evolve, adapt, and understand the world and ourselves, is fundamentally the human condition. And just as that condition is used to figure problems a Christian must resolve in the Bible surrounding: - Literal vs Figurative readings - Historical inconsistencies with better historical documents - How a given action pertains to modern ethical standards ...so too can that condition understand that some bits within the Bible are correct or good, while throwing away some of the crucial ideas that really would make one a Christian.
Alex is probably the most open Atheist I've ever seen; even obtaining a degree in Theology (and Philosophy)... I was waiting for any inkling of frustration in his demeanor while Ayaan was talking about how Atheists are closing themselves off (and just not open) yet, Alex didn't flinch. SUCH an amazing, gracious, receptive person and interviewer. Bravo :)) I honestly hope for the best for Ayann, however, I feel short of breath just watching her: she is so stiff, unyielding from the neck down, and looks terrified-- a demeanor, I'm certain the host has not triggered in her here-- God I hate God..lol~
Alex has probably not met a minister that can give proper answers to his questions. If and when he does, he will not be an atheist any more. He said he does not believe in the resurrection. Answer: the resurrection is only believable when you believe in a God who is all powerful and can do all things. If one believes in a God who created all things by just speaking, he will believe that God is able to resurrect the dead. We prayed once for a woman who was going to die. She had diabetes and other sicknesses. Someone even had a dream that she was going to die. But when we went and prayed for her, she became well and today she is still living and doing well. That is the God who believe in. Can atheism offer the same?
There's a lot of atheists that have an open mind - some have Theology degrees (self included). They just don't often get involved in activism so you may not see them so much.
@@Scarletpimpanel73 No doubt. Nothing better than an open minded atheist..I'm sure you are one of them, probably... I'm not even an atheist per se (more agnostic/pagan, as I've had a number of psychic/mystical experiences). But I do think they should run the world... It would be better run by a pack, a pod, a murder, a colony, or a troop of atheists :)) Hmmm what would that be called I wonder: leave in the comments lol ~
@ Having a theology degree and yet be an atheist shows how seminary schools actually don’t do what they are supposed to do - train ministers to do the work of the LORD. Instead they teach human philosophy, reason, and other nonsense which have nothing to do the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever wants know Christ, his righteousness and to receive the Kingdom of Heaven must have a personal SPIRITUAL encounter with him. Otherwise, it is all a wasted human effort when it comes to theology or other religious efforts to try to connect with Christ or God.
I'm 30 minutes in and I can't take this anymore. All she talks about is politics and flowery vague stuff about love. If you're concerned about "the woke left" then there are secular libertarian types who agree with you that you could align yourself with. You don't need religion. If you are "missing love in your life" then there are plenty of communities you can find that in. She acts like Christianity has a monopoly on love. She straight up dodges Alex's question about difficult verses and says she leaves those up to theologians. She's literally ignoring all the problems she used to have with them and is outsourcing her mind instead of thinking for herself. You don't need theologians to do mental gymnastics for you. You can read it for yourself. If God has a message for you why would it require consulting a third party? Surely he'd either tell you himself or he'd make the scripture clear. She even says that you have to separate faith and reason. That might be the most ridiculous thing she said (at least in the first 30 minutes). Everything she says is void of reason, logic, and rationality. It's entirely political and about emotions. This is an extremely disappointing transformation. I met her 14 years ago and she autographed two of her books for me. Now look where she's at. If this is the only way she could cure her depression then I guess she can justify it from a pragmatic angle, but not from a truth angle. I also want to believe, but I value the truth more than feeling good.
THe way she says "I choose to believe". That sounds problematic. Alec is right in that we cannot wish glass of water is spaghetti just because we want it to. We really have to have some kind of evidence to tell us to believe something. I think it comes down to the amount of evidence such as in in a criminal case. Can we reasonably come to the conclusion that there is a God based off the limited evidence there is for Him? What makes no sense is to just believe because we want there to be a god. That is strictly delusional.
The mystery of how the universe was made how the first human and animal was also made is not something that science can explain and even then know that. Atheists and religious people are no different they don’t have answers for everything but still choose to believe of what is logical for them. That the distinction you should make.
@@samanthaadjaho6243 What I am saying is that as a believer myself, I do have evidence for God. I interpret the facts of the world to reach that conclusion (in addition to personal experience). It is wrong to just believe with zero evidence. I, in fact, do believe there is evidence, and it is reasonable to believe in God. What I am pushing back against is this notion that we believe something to be true because we want it to be true. That is unhealthy and wrong. I may not like gravity, but I respect the laws of gravity enough not to jump off a bridge to prove it doesn't exist. Just because I hate gravity doesn't mean I get to choose not to believe in it. It is the same with the believe in God.
Quick, choose to believe that Joe Biden was president of the United States on April 23rd 2005. Can’t do it? If not, why can someone just choose to believe in god?
@@samanthaadjaho6243nope! See, I don’t make claims about how life or the universe came to be (although there is strong evidence for certain processes such as evolution and the Big Bang which are NOT claims about how things came to be, just processes after the fact). Saying “I don’t know” is a perfect valid position if you do not have sufficient evidence for a claim or position. The same cannot be said for theists who believe in a specific religion, as that religion is likely to make claims about how everything came to be without evidence for it (with there likely being a lot of counter evidence). Just because science does not explain something, does not mean in any way that a religious answer is true or even worth considering.
I can’t believe I idolized this woman back in the day. Listening to her now makes me realize how performative she sounds, like a corrupt politician. Oh well, in a way she is, so that makes sense.
@@johnlawton4106 Oh yeah... *sigh* the same. He has become a living talking axiom I use whenever I need reminding how much appearances lie and little what a person say actually reflect who they are. I know he had some serious accusations made against him pushing him to the far right, but I also think when he saw an uptick in views whenever he started spouting anti-establishment stuff, he got such a dollar boner his fried brain made a house makeover.
Wild that she thinks Islam is the only one that categorizes certain things as permissible and others as not permissible. Like ma'am, have you actually read the Bible? Not to mention the fact that Islam doesn't teach original sin, which is an insane idea on its own.
The latest secular liberal gay Jewish biblical scholarship has actually demonstrated there are no laws in the bible but I don't expect someone who doesn't understand not all branches of Christianity believe in original sin to be aware of mainstream academic literature.
@ honestly based on the way you phrase these comments I’d guess your either a bot or a nut, but sure, I’ll bite. Hot take that the Bible doesn’t have laws when there are ten of them so important that people literally carved them in stone. Also never said that all denominations of Christianity teach original sin. Just that zero denominations of Islam do.
@@hbarz1066 The original Sin only means, that when Adam And Eve committed the first Sin, every one of us would've acted the same way it could've been you or me it doesnt matter because it comes from our sinful Nature, because if there is a God he created us with free Will letting us choose good or evil, i find it quite disturbing when Alex for example wants a world that only has Good And we only capable of doing good things, that Sounds like a post apocaliptic horror to me where there is nothing but plain enjoyment there is no bravery, no virtue nothing but only enjoyment which would make us become numb very soon
@ The idea of a purely ‘good’ world is certainly an intriguing thought experiment. But I find it odd that you said God gives us free will, but also that “every one of us would’ve acted the same way” as Adam and Eve in their sin. On a fundamental level, I just disagree that humans are sinful by nature (or in other words, born in sin).
@@hbarz1066 God is outside of Time And space if we follow the Christian doctrine, meaning he knows what we are going to do even before we do it but that doesn't mean that we don't have our own choices, God doesn't force you to do anything I can help people in need, but I can go rob a Store without God influencing me right? Now I don't want to convince you to believe in this, its your choice what I mean is I don't Think that it's a contradiction. My interpretation of the Original Sin is God showing us that we are not better than each other, thats why I believe that every human would have done the same. As for the world that would only have joy And happiness, we wouldnt know we are happy at all we would became humanoid Robots, who would want to live in a world like that? Now Atheists like to say that in Heaven wouldnt we be in that state? But through the whole Bible we see that free will in Heaven still exists you can still turn against God in Heaven
A great interview. I loved Ayan so much . She has understood so much. When she talked about humility, as a sinner was touching . When she spoke about the fact that all religions are not the same, and when she talked about the difference between Ayan the atheist and Ayan the Christian was awesome .
Christianity believes in reason. It is why we believe in a God, who became God incarnate, walked among humans, and was crucified visibly for all to see, and later resurrected in the open. We believe in Christianity (faith) because of the overwhelming evidence that supports it. This is no different from atheism, as atheists believe that the world and universe existed on it's own, without evidence to prove this, requiring faith to believe that the world existed out of nothing. Albeit the only difference is, atheists require more faith to believe the universe existed out of nothing, whereas we require less faith, because we possess more evidence for Christianity being true.
@radiantblue8001 why do theists continue to promote this falsehood. As a rule, atheists do not believe the universe came out of nothing. In fact theists believe their God made it out of nothing.
@@radiantblue8001When a Christian gives me a rational explanation of the holy trinity I will consider that there may be logic in Christianity. Until then everything Christians say about reason is just empty talk.
@@YorgosSimeonidisthen don't talk to them, but it's hard for an atheist to do that. Cause they always insert themselves in conversation wanting attention.
@@YorgosSimeonidis That's intellectual dishonesty. You do not believe in God, not because you haven't been given a explanation of the Trinity. You believe in atheism, despite there not existing any evidence that the earth existed from nothing. You rely on faith. But you cry foul, when a Christian believes in Christ, with ample evidence for His existence and resurrection. You not being able to understand the Trinity, does not have any bearing on whether God exists. That's a personal incredulity fallacy.
@@chasevl1227 let me guess. Rapist? Like... What do you think you win by just saying shit like that? Why not engage and try to understand what they found so contentious about the interview?
39 mins in just after she's finnished saying she things new atheists are arrogant, she says she told Dawkins he's a 'christian but doesnt know it' becasue hes moral and all morality is from Christ... I think Ayaan ought to look back on that with abit of self reflection.
Ayaan is a new Christian, so she is not equipped to represent or defend Christianity. She became a Christian less than 2 years ago. Some of the things she mentions about Christianity are not what Christians actually believe in. No one is good, including Dawkins. Dawkins himself, believes cheating is moral, and sees nothing wrong with it, and also justified pe*****. She is just being biased, because he is her friend. Atheists get wrong the idea of being 'good' or 'moral.' No one is good. Atheists don't even have an objective worldview about what makes someone 'good.' For someone to be good (in the Christian worldview), they would have to of never sinned. Sin is an immoral act, or evil committed. But because everyone in the world, has committed an immoral or bad act, no one is good. So, no atheists cannot be good people, because they are not good. Christians also, are not good, because we too, have committed sins. Our conscience, which informs us between good and bad, which was created by Christ, is the reason why, we are able to distinguish and have a common understanding of what is good or bad. So if an atheist, were to a good thing, it is a result of their conscience, which came from God. Even them, performing the good act, was because God created them. Atheists, did not create themselves, their brains or anything they possess, so they cannot boast of something that was given to them by God. The reason why our sense of good and wrong comes from God is, because if humans decided arbitrarily what was good or bad, then murder or rape would be morally good, as people have believed in before, in order to suit their own ends. When Mao killed over 70 million people in China, he believed he was doing a virtuous act for the sake of helping China. Or a person, struggling with lust, would justify cheating on their partner, with the justification, that they needed to satisfy their sexual drive. This is why, morality cannot come from humans. Because when it does, it leads to chaos. It is why it has to come from God, who is objective, meaning humans cannot say tomorrow that murdering innocent people is right because, God says it's wrong, and his objective Law does not change, unlike society's perception on what is good and bad.
Fact champ In summary; she spent most of her years as an anti-Islam (which a lot of people mistook for being atheist. She’s barely studied the structures of Christianity… Her argument is simple “Christianity is way better than the Islam that messed my childhood and led me into atheistic ideas. It was atheism towards allah not the idea of God itself that she had. Lastly. I am happy she’s using Christian creed as a coping mechanism at this tough time in her life, she’s indeed a strong queen❤️
@happykoinonia8119 That all seems true enough. But it just isn't very interesting. The bar has been set pretty high on Alexs podcast. I dont always expect to agree with his guests, but im usually intrigued on some level. Even apologists who seem borderline insane (craig) usually provoke some reflection on my views or my understanding of the subject. I didnt find even a shred of that here. The only thought i had was "why do people keep talking about this person?" Half the people from any given church will have this same story. Life sucked, god helped. And thats fine, but hardly worthy of the amount of attention she's gotten.
Making some assumptions. Do you watch he in her entire personal life? Interviews about these topics are nerve-wracking and English is her second language so doubly nerve-wracking I'd imagine
Alex, you did a great job, you were so respectful and cautious in how you engaged. Religion gave her happiness, and it wouldn’t be right to stomp on that, no matter how much we disagree with the belief itself.
Stiffnecked atheism is inappropriate. Everybody has an innate inclination to talk to God personally, and nobody can prove God is not real when we are mysteriously existing here in space. A big bang doesnt explain nothing.
This one is the world’s number one champion in grifting! First she was a self proclaimed ex-Muslim, then an atheist, and now she’s a Jesus lover! Please! What’s next?
Thank you Ayaan for your testimony, Its awesome to hear what God is doing in your life. I'll be praying that you continue to find healing and strength in Jesus
Out of pity. They know she went through a lot, so they don't feel like destroying her depression cure. I feel for her as well, she deserves to be happy, but should probably stop doing these.
@@martinmoffat5417Because ideology sucks and gives people too much meaning. At least the guy was being, as far as I know, peaceable and perhaps consistent with his beliefs. There’s many Atheistic persons who claim moral superiority over the religious but go ravenous whenever their own pivots to something non-atheist. It’s not unique to atheism but it is telling.
Dawkins pushed back some in a moderated debate (I think) after her conversion and he mostly got reamed out for being insensitive to someone who was talking about her alcoholism, depression, and suicidal ideation. So it may be somewhere between Alex is being his usual non-confrontational self and her mental health problems. I have no doubt that her mental health struggles are real, but I do think it being the key to her change of heart makes it very socially awkward to press her on this flip, and I can't tell if she's using that to her advantage on purpose or not.
Listen, Ayaan! Going through a major depression is bloody hell. I’ve been there. But it only 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝘆 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵. It didn’t send me running to the empty promises of religion. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s transition to Christianity because of depression is beyond frustrating and deeply disappointing. This isn’t enlightenment. It’s the result of the same religious conditioning she’s spent years criticizing. Depression is devastating, I know that firsthand, but turning to faith for comfort doesn’t make her decision profound or respectable-it makes it horribly weak. Her shift isn’t a failure of atheism. It’s a failure to address her emotional and existential needs without clinging to an outdated crutch like religion. Instead of building resilience or seeking secular solutions, she’s chosen a path that undermines everything she once stood for. This doesn’t prove Christianity is right. It proves that even brilliant people can fall into old, comforting narratives when they’re at their lowest. It’s frustrating because it reinforces the false idea that religion is the answer to life’s struggles. If anything, this should highlight the 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 for secular support systems; better mental health resources, stronger communities, and tools to find meaning without turning to faith. Her personal choice doesn’t change the fact that atheism remains rational and true, no matter how much she might try to frame this as some “awakening.” She isn’t enlightened! She’s running back to the same kind of thinking she spent years tearing down. It’s disappointing, and it deserves to be criticized for what it is: a betrayal of her own principles.
@auroravanessa221 >if anything this should highlight the urgent need for secular support systems; better mental health resources, stronger communities and tool to find meaning without turning to faith! - this 👆🏻👏🏻
@@andrew5680It’s inspiring to hear how atheism pulled you through your darkest times. It takes strength to confront life’s hardships head-on and find hope and meaning in reality itself. Glad you’ve found clarity and courage in reason - hail atheism indeed 👏🏻
Hirsi Ali always struck me as more anti-Islam than anti-religion. At the very least she arrived at fame from another direction than the rest of the New Atheists.
This is what happened to the liberal and non-theist people who began to define themselves as anti-woke. They got so deep into it that they hung out with the most anti-woke conservatives who flattered them so much they ended up drinking the kool-aid.
I feel like Ayaan Hirsi Ali is "choosing Christianity" as a strategic choice rather than a logical one. Or she's just trying to stand out for financial gain? I have never heard of her before this controversial conversion. I really dont care about her, really.
She was born in Somalia in an Islamic family. Her dad was more liberal, but her grandma wasn't. Her dad traveled a lot, because he was quite gifted, so her grandma got her circumcised. She became a refugee at 6 in Saudi Arabia and later in Kenya. Her dad arranged a marriage for her, so she fled to the Netherlands and basically lied about everything to not get caught for the marriage. After that she became a member of the right wing liberal party VVD and created with Geert Wilders the movie Vitna. Unfortunately, a party member responsible for immigration found out she lied, and got her deported. That's why she became a us citizen. So she got married and was an outspoken critic of the islam and atheist, but woke and anti-social justice, and this is where we are. It's actually ironic how much she hates the left when her own party stabbed her in the back.
Alex, sir, you are incredibly compassionate and patient. It was difficult enough for me to listen from afar to this clearly broken woman abandon rationality for comfort - I don't think I could have made it through an actual conversation with her without banging my head on the nearest wall. "I've found Jesus and I'm good with Trump but it's not about politics" ???
I’m not so sure she was ever that rational to begin with. She was an anti-Islam voice more than anything and lacked the philosophical depth of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris. I was big into New Atheism 2006-2010 and she just never clicked with me like the others for some reason and now I think I understand why.
@@grgryocean I have to admit, this is the first time I've heard her speak. I just assumed a "former atheist" would have at least a basic grasp of reason.
@@danielmaher964 Few people are raised to be atheists, and generally speaking, people don't "convert" to atheism for emotional reasons. I guess I should challenge that assumption, though, as clearly some people do because they feel misled or abused by whatever religion they were indoctrinated into, trading one belief for another, trying to find something that makes them feel good. This seems to be the case for Ms. Ali.
Well there it is in less than 10 minutes in. She was in an awful psychological space, and she gave in to her emotional side and became a "christian". Still no good reason to believe christianity is true. Too bad, so sad. Deal with it.
At around 11 minutes she starts discussing what I think is a really common misconception about atheists, that it's a construction against religion, rather than simply a freedom from it. Many Christians (iirc Peterson has a similar point) seem quite convinced that everyone is at heart a believer if they would only allow the ("true") spirit in. Honestly, claiming that atheists are evangelizing is I think a reflection of spending too much time around atheist thinkers/debaters and projecting her own faith onto others. Projection is the main problem with organized religion in my opinion. The point of accepting atheism is that you have a choice in life to practice what you believe without infringing on others
She specifically mentions new atheism i think. And honestly i see what she means. Im confused as to your last point? Many practice religion without infringing on others
@@RMarshall57 what I meant by that is accepting atheism as a valid belief or more accurately a lack of belief. I get the impression that atheism is viewed in a more organized way than it actually is
@@TheDragonageorigins I'm saying I see why she has the impression that atheism is proselyted so to speak because of new atheism but I don't think it largely reflects atheism. As to the second point, that is true but I would argue there are more individuals and institutions that seek to shape other individuals and institutions in the image of their religion--to varying degrees. The christian background of the pro life movement is an example
I know Alex has made a point of just conversing with his "opponents" these past few years and attempted to understand them rather than debate them, but I just can't help but lose interest in these talks so quickly when he so rarely challenges them on the absolute nonsense he allows them to spew. I probably won't be watching any more of his content until he reverts to type and becomes a bit more combative like he used to be. I think there's a middle ground between Cosmic Skeptic and Alex O'Connor that we aren't seeing right now. Just my two cents.
Alex is going in the logical direction of "less confrontation, more big-name guests, more viewers, more money" route. We get a lot of interviews, but can't help but feel left a bit unsatisfied by having Alex ask the same questions as any other one. If I want to hear Hirsi-Ali only say her talking points, then I can just watch her own channels or read her books.
There's more to the very general term of "right" than just grifting. Also, in the US, even the left will virtue signal christianity. We've never had an openly atheist president. I am hopeful though because Trump has at least been less religious than most republican presidents have been. And Elon Musk refuses to call himself a christian and stops at "cultural christian", which is the camp Dawkins is in at the moment.
I am glad she found comfort in her religion. Her deeply ignorant and underdeveloped political statements, as well as her reasoning regarding why Christianity is superior, however, reveals an abandonment of reason for (as she praises in Donald Trump) "common sense". It's all anecdotes and emotions, no analysis at all.
“To the atheists, it is a pity to constantly fortify yourself against faith” - Precisely the opposite, Ayaan. Many, and perhaps most, atheists in the Western World (or at least America, tried to hold on to their faith through the use of gimmicks like apologetics, but eventually lost faith due to the nature of, and understanding of, reality.
So if religion heals someones depression does that make it worse? Christianity healed her even if you are athiest you should want that. But you dont care for her well being only for your athiest team that you want.
Thank you for interviewing Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is always an inspiration, and she is one of the most brave and principled people around. I sure would like to know the reading list that she mentioned.
I thought this was a great interview. Really appreciated that you gave her an opportunity to talk freely. I thought it was thought provoking. Thanx for a great podcast Alex
I do not want to judge anyone, especially after I was diagnosed with cancer even though I'm just 20, but as a Christian, I really appreciate your interviews Alex, especially when it comes to exposing political and Liberal Christians like Dinesh and Ayaan and standing to the unhinged Christians who celebrate the conversion of any famous character even if they know that they are just using Christianity as a political tool, only shows how desperate are they, still, this was a really good conversation
Lost all respect for her. She is literally lying about believing. As we all know, you can’t choose what you believe. And the way she paints atheist is the absolute worst.
Honestly, I immediately clicked the video but then immediately decided that this was gonna be way too depressing. And then I scrolled down and saw that she's a Trump supporter too. My heart can't take this.
@@ThisDonut In summary; she spent most of her years as an anti-Islam (which a lot of people mistook for being atheist. She’s barely studied the structures of Christianity… Her argument is simple “Christianity is way better than the Islam that messed my childhood and led me into atheistic ideas. It was atheism towards allah not the idea of God itself that she had. Lastly. I am happy she’s using Christian creed as a coping mechanism at this tough time in her life, she’s indeed a strong queen❤️
Great conversation! I could continue listening to both of you for hours. Two loveable, highly intelligent and open-minded people meet and share their insights from the very spot they have currently come up to on their respective journeys. That's a rare and precious thing to witness.
I’ve always hoped to have an opportunity to use this Christopher Hitchens line, originally directed at Sean Hannity, but I never thought I’d feel inclined to use it against her, but as Hitch said “You give me the awful impression… of someone who hasn’t read any of the arguments against your position ever”
Ayaan has not thought through the politics of Christianity. She has correctly noted that Islam is a totalitarian political ideology, while failing to observe that all three Abrahamic religions are politically the same as you would expect as they have the same Abrahamic monotheism. They all have top-down authoritarian political structures and govern by totalitarianism. The questions for Ayaan are - Why have you merely exchanged one totalitarian political ideology for a different totalitarian political ideology? What is it you need that only Christian authoritarianism can supply for you? What utility does Christian totalitarianism supply you with that you cannot obtain elsewhere? She has not got anywhere near answering these core questions pertaining to a conversion from Islam to Christianity. But it is all politics as religion is politics by another name and having been a profession politician, Ayaan easily slips into giving a politician's answer to Alex’s questions - i.e. she evades, deflects and obfuscates with wordy emotive answers divorced from the political reality of monotheism.
I'm a muslim but a big fan of the channel and Alex. Ayaan is a textbook grifter. Out of all these new Atheist islamaphobes, she lacks the most depth and is simply uninspiring. Honestly just a confused and lost individual.
I understand what Alex is doing in these conversations and why, but I do miss hearing his opinions on topics outside of the occasional politely worded question.
Already 20 minutes in and she seems to rather try and ignore the problems found within the Bible. Alex asked what she thinks about the issue of slavery and other problems now as a christian, to which she replies that she is full of curiosity now, compared to when she was an atheist. 21:10
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, your journey from being Muslim to atheist and now embracing Christianity is truly fascinating. It highlights the profound search for meaning and truth that many individuals experience. As you’ve explored these paths, one question stands out to me: What are the core differences between Islam and Christianity? Both faiths teach the importance of compassion, justice, and devotion, but they differ significantly in their understanding of God, salvation, and scripture. I admire your courage to share your story, and I’m eager to learn from your perspective on these differences. Thank you for sparking such meaningful conversations!
I disagree. You can tell she is new to the faith, people don't argue themselves into faith. Because if you can be argued in you can be argued out. She seems to be dealing with an experience that negates logical explanation, and that experience aligns with Christianity. I would not ask strong questions to someone who has been a Christian for a short period of time, all the critiques atheist gives to people of faith are old, and there are no real new arguments just repackaged. So it's better to speak to someone who deals with these often. Over time she will likely have stronger reasonings for her faith.
Fantastic job, Alex. I don't agree with Ayaan on much, but I had a similar experience to her with Buddhism, so it's important to me that people treat her experience with respect and curiosity, as you did here, rather than badgering.
Get all sides of every story and be better informed at ground.news/AlexOC - subscribe for 50% off unlimited access during the holiday season.
1 million!!!!
Alex stop spamming sales crap.
Thanks
You are such a well-spoken gentleman, Alex. The way you conduct yourself is to be commended. ✨️
@@sophiesince1995 Yeah he's cute, but if he wants to sell us GROUND news, I think we can both agree, he'd better first GROUND the moustache
@@marioluigi9599 I really like his moustache.
Halfway through and it honestly just feels like she found religion due to depression.
More power to her for being happier now, but her blanket statements about atheists and how she found her way to jesus doesnt sound very enlightening.
Exactly. That and fitting in with her new conservative friends.
All about culture, outcomes, philosophy. Nothing about what is true. This is why we say it’s irrational.
It sounds like she never properly understood using reason to justify not believing in God if she was able to just surrender so easily and “start believing because she found her personal favorite religion”. She was never using reason to begin with.
I am thinking the same thing. Religions are designed to appeal to people who feel hopeless or depressed. They're especially attractive to people in addiction recovery who are of the opinion that they cannot overcome their issues without the help of a higher power. It's comforting. It claims to answer questions that we don't know the answers to. She's just wanting comfort. I could never bring myself to reason this way. I've had horrible existential crises before, precisely because I accept that reality/mortality can be terrifying.
Religion always attracts vulnerable people and people and in desperate situations that need hope. Which is fine, but you never see people join a religion because it logical make sense or the evidence for it is compelling. It's also a faith reason
New atheism NEVER said all religions are the same. How does she not know this? Sam Harris has been at pains to point out they're NOT all the same and that's one of the problems
If she represented atheism honestly she wouldn't be able to explain why she decided to choose to believe in God.
@@Peyton1218 good point
Most of the atheist are not as intelligent as you, they just witness miracles of science and are lazy as hell to simply things and religions in one category.
@@Peyton1218makes no sense. Her reason for conversion is personal experience. Atheism is obviously not about that and that’s why she converted. If you had a breakthrough with God it would be the same.
@@chasevl1227but still no evidence to believe - still the instinct that led our stone age ancestors to believe in mythical beings
I found Ayaan's characterization of atheists extremely disappointing. Firstly, where are these 'evangelical atheists' she talks so much about? Not once have I had an atheist come to my door trying to convert me, while I've had quite a few Christians do the same. Secondly, she insinuates all atheists are nihilists who believe 'there is nothing'. This is not true, plenty of atheists believe in subjective or objective value. Thirdly she makes the claim that atheists, or at least New Atheists, believe all religions are the same. This is patently false, as Sam Harris, one of the most prominent New Atheists, regularly warns against the dangers of Islam and believes that Islam is worse than Christianity.
She herself made her entire career as a new atheist by presenting as an "insider" who insisted that Islam is worse than other religions. That was her whole schtick.
She's misrepresenting her old position in order to pretend that she's saying something new - because this whole gambit is just a rebranding strategy.
She's trying to repackage her bigotry in a manner more consistent with the current resurgence of evangelical conservativism.
I agree that implying all atheists are nihlists is ridiculous but there are definitely what you could call evangelical atheists.
Just to clarify I don't think that is the majority of atheists at all, I think those tend to be immature people who haven't really explored their views well I was just saying that I have come across those types
Looking for an Evangelical atheist? Check the mirror dude.
Every time a Muslim and a Christian is having a conversation an atheist appears mocking both the believers and tries to force their "truth" on them. Like dude you're not even part of the conversation it's a conversation between believers. why are you here? Lol
Right - even Darkwins and Hitchens at their height (20years ago) weren't actually evangelical at all…
I feel she's half honest - in that she admitting its a political choice and not evidence one… in so many words
I don't know this woman, but my takeaway concerning her is that her positions are very susceptible to narratives, generally speaking but especially when in crisis, on 3 accounts: 1. Her being convinced of Christianity whilst in personal crisis, 2. Her voting for Hilary* because "the media" told her Trump was bad, and 3. Her voting for Trump because she fully bought into Republican propaganda
It's a the "easy way out"
Any1 choosing Christianity than say other religions.
The marketing is there "accept Jesus died for your sin = heaven = does nothing else or commit heinious atrocities if you want"
@@Pfyzer Oh! Not quite the explanation man. Christianity = suffer for one another to encompass the perception of Love so as to breed heaven from the Spirit (God). Christianity is one of the most selfless religious practices to date. If anyone does it differently then they're likely not Christian. Reguardless, Christianity isn't about the people, it's about Jesus. So shift your focus on Him, seek Him and I promise you'll find Truth, atheist or not, God bless.
@@Pfyzer also, with the concept of sin, its a relationship proposition, not a morality meter to measure "correctness". sin is characterized by ones willingness to seperate themselves from God. Not a specific act confined to "evil", though i know the misinterpretation can happen. Evil is only a judgment of the Lord. We as humans can only begin to perceive the complexities that are human morality and would therefore run into paradoxes at the ends of our understanding. Think "I'm a good person because I do good things for people", a paradoxical claim as the definition of good is entirely confined to the subjective person, therefore nullifying any truth claim to the matter of "true" goodness. Leaving one to either accept regarding subjective morality as myth/fantasy and accepting unreliability for truth administration or admittance to the concept of an objective, interpretive morality having hold on attainable establishment within Truth. That Truth being Jesus. John 14:6.
You should read her autobiography, Infidel.
@@nathanielquinones1895 bless your heart
Ironically, her conversion has made me question my own bias as an atheist, because I’m struggling to see how this woman could have ever impressed me.
Don't be too hard on yourself man, she's an A-class grifter.
💀
Atheists love to throw stones
she seems very limited? was this always the case? she sounds like an old person
she jumped on the media landscape established post 9/11 and many people bought into everything there without investigation
Her rationale for why she can support Trumps anti immigration stance, as a Christian, is not Trumps rationale for why he rejects immigrants. His attitude towards them is deeply unchristian, but she avoids that obvious truth by giving a perfectly good reason for opposing the immigration system (which Trump does not).
trump is in every aspect the antithesis to jesus. he cheated on all of his 3 wives. he lies all the time. he scams people. he slanders everyone he dislikes. he is racist. ...
Trump neither "rejects" immigrants nor opposes immigration. He is, and always has been, strongly opposed to "illegal" immigration, as most of the American population is.
Try not to lie.
Plus she was an asylum seeker in the Netherlands. She was escaping a forced marriage in Canada but claimed to the Dutch government that she was escaping the Somali civil war (even though she had not lived in Somalia since her childhood). Still a valid cause for asylum IMO but you'd think she'd have a bit more empathy with those seeking it in the U.S.
Why do atheists want it both ways; demanding Christians keep their beliefs out of govt, but also criticizing Christians for not acting out their beliefs toward the poor through government?
Trump wants immigrants out bc they’re eating the dogs and cats he’s not doing it out of some benevolent autodidactic good that those poor immigrants just don’t understand
I could not finish this interview. Not only was her conversion testimonial unconvincing but her interpretation of American politics is absolutely baffling.
Her interpretation of American politics is exactly spot on. The Democratic Party has shifted far left. The democrats are now the party of the warmongering elites and the republicans are now the party of the people. Hence the red wave around the entire county. Yes, the entire county.
I had to shut it off as well. There was nothing to learn from this. She lacks true conviction and understanding, and it seeping through every word she speaks.
Anyone who says “wokeism” is not someone to listen to lol
My thoughts as well.. shame..
@mrscoot595 You are denying it's a thing despite the fact it is.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a prime example of why religion is so effective in influencing people who are stuck in crises or have had very traumatic childhoods. Religion provides them with the comfort of not feeling alone because they believe there is a benevolent God who loves them unconditionally.
I find it sad that a clearly intelligent person like her has shifted her perspective so radically due to personal trauma in a pursuit to find peace for herself. She clearly understands that faith and reason are fundamentally incompatible, yet she willingly dives into this dissonance to avoid misery. Her arguments for Christianity, once again, do not go beyond politics, culture, and personal elements. To give an example, she raised a point at 34:50 where she argues that atheists are less open-minded than theists, especially those who promote their "atheism" in an evangelical manner. She points to the sense of certainty these individuals convey as something that bothers her. However, in my opinion, this is a very weak argument because it is subjective. Her assessment is as good as mine, and I can share from my own experience that, more often than not, it is the theists I encounter who are absolutely certain that their specific god and religion are true. It doesn't make either of our points good.
I have a great deal of compassion for her. I think that some people’s suffering is so great that they would rather believe anything than live with the pain. Psychologically, she probably has little choice but to seek comfort. It should go without saying that desperation and belief do not make things true.
If anything, prideful intelligence is precisely what keeps you from seeing God. It's about seeking the truth with a sense of humility. Humility.
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”
At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
@@dennis4021 you don’t see a lack of humility and a surfeit of pride in your certainty?
I am completely uncertain about the existence of god and the origins and workings of most of the universe. I don’t see how I can be demonstrating “prideful intelligence” by simply saying “I don’t know”.
@@dennis4021 It’s quite the opposite of pride to admit that one simply does not know whether a god exists or not. Acknowledging the limits of our understanding is an act of humility, not arrogance. On the other hand, it seems you are the one displaying pride by asserting with certainty not only that a god exists but that it is specifically the Christian God.
Don’t you see the dissonance here? You’re calling for humility while claiming access to divine knowledge that is, by its very nature, unknowable to others unless revealed. This stance seems less about seeking truth with humility and more about defending a certainty that others are wrong for questioning.
Belief and faith are deeply personal, but asserting absolute truths without evidence and then accusing others of pride for not sharing that belief, is both dismissive and contradictory. Shouldn't true humility involve recognizing that others might arrive at different conclusions in their own pursuit of truth?
@@jamesreynolds4811 Yes, I also feel sorry for her upbringing, and I genuinely wish her all the best. If Christianity helps her cope with her trauma, then so be it. However, as you have correctly pointed out, just because something has utility doesn’t mean it says anything about its truthfulness.
There are many others who find the same comfort she does during a crisis, but their source is different-be it another religion or belief system. In a nutshell, this comfort is interchangeable and doesn’t validate the truth claims of any specific faith.
Alex politely put her in front of her contradictions and she never saw it pass.
He does that with all his religious guests. Also, he lets them speak and dig their own irrational hole without interrupting much or with confrontations, and then nicely and politely asks a question that, following their irrational banter, they simply cannot answer with any coherence. Alex is exposing their intellectual void just by letting them speak, and they never even realize they had just massively shot themselves in the foot in public.
@@dvanaestcestica1135lmao bro what interviews have you watched with irrational banter and Alex exposing intellectual voids of religious guests?
Alex knows when to push back and who to push back against. Ayaan's career is not about apologetics, it's more about personal testimony. From leaving Islam to coming to Christianity
I think he comment about athiests not being open to change is sadly, wrong. But its Christians that refuse to accept they may be wrong. Most athiests would gladly bend the knee, given evidence of the Creator. Ali sounds like she has spent long sessions with Peterson.
@@dvanaestcestica1135 This works with absolutely all guests, not just religious ones. Watch the interview with Dawkins.
Many well-known atheists or religious people are not on such a high level of understanding of philosophy and arguments as Alex, so they cannot adequately respond, and those same arguments from Alex go unnoticed.
Whether we agree or not with Dr. Craig or Mike from InspiringPhilosophy or Bart Ehrman, these are people who can "catch" every single thing that Alex deliberately and calculatedly includes in his tricky questions.
I’ve never understood why people say that atheists are closed minded and religious people are more open minded. How is it not the exact opposite? Ayaan literally says in this video that it’s important to keep reason and faith separate. I’m sorry, but that’s not being honest or open-minded. I’m not going to set aside reason in order to convince myself of something, whatever that thing is.
I think they say open minded instead of saying believing things without evidence. It just sounds better
She’s using Christian/religious apologetics. When they say it they mean it in a very specific and abstract way that doesn’t seem rational. Like they would never argue the same thing about Jews, Muslims or Hindus but atheists are of a closed mind.
@@tomasort-y1d they also tend to suggest that being open minded means being easily convinced of things
That’s the thing about religion… Not all the times, but sometimes… People have an emotional experience or a religious experience or an emotional, religious spiritual experience and… I mean you can’t argue against that. It’s beyond reason. I don’t think it’s good or bad or right or wrong it just exists in a category beyond reason.
Yea, her whole talking point about open and closed minds is just strange. What's so open about being sure you are right without any proof.
Love the way Alex constructs his questions and argument, it constitutes both curiosity and firmness to his core of Atheism.
I was struck by the part of being able to choose to believe. I am not convinced that Alex will never go down that path.
@@martifingers True, Alex seems very easily charmed by a number of his guests. If he converts, just for the friends, I won't be surprised at all.
a deeply profound and emotional experience overrides all reasoning.
Well said.
as stated by an emotional being.
The question that remains is, what do you trust, ultimately? That which you can't explain but cannot deny, or that which you can explain, but leads you to deny anything that you cannot? It all comes down to is there something rather than nothing.
@parak00pa well said. I appreciate and will continue thinking about this. Cheers.
Search and you will find, my friend. That’s a promise from God. God bless you all!
More power to her and all that but this still feels like she found Christianity as a sort of political cudgel against Islam “wokeness” whatever rather than earnest discovery of faith
🤔 Sooo how would you know what an earnest discovery of faith looks like?
Still, she has a great point that Christianity is vastly superior to islam, and the rise of Islam in the west is partially because of new atheism and framing Christianity as the white straight man's religion. Islam is a much greater threat to LGBT and women's right, free speech etc than Christianity is now.
I think we need to stop shitting on (most forms of) Christianity at this point and start combatting islam in the west hard if we want to secure liberal values in Europe. Europe is quickly loosing influence in the world and soon we have no leverage. We need to act now I believe.
What?
@@slytheguy6761 We would know by common sense.
How Islam is put together with wokeness?! Do you even know what Islam teaches?!
Hats off to Alex, such a gracious and respectful interviewer, this was a great watch.
he was like a nurse in a mental asylum
Agreed. He’s really good at asking revealing questions and letting fools tie their own binds.
@@scottgodlewski306 Atheists just can't help themselves 😂
@@scottgodlewski306Can't agree more
Too bad she has become such a crazed cultist
That’s interesting. I had the same feeling as her, but after leaving Christianity
What a shame, friend, I would like to know what turned you away from Christianity.
@@wraves693mostly the slavery
Did they try to enslave you??
@@wraves693 It's likely to be the abscence of evidence for god.
@@wraves693 Why is it a shame if it has made them happier?
It's incredible how little empathy she can have for a group she was once a very vocal part of. Not an accusation, but it smells like grifter to me.
Ali represents the Christian path as an alleviation of suffering, but if you take Christianity seriously you are simply trading one form of pain for another. I was a devout Christian for twelve years, and have now been an atheist for two years. I experienced more internal suffering as a Christian than I have as an atheist. Sure, now I have bleeding holes in my narrative explanation of the world. Do I now have trouble putting together a cohesive "driving purpose" for my life? Yes. But the intense anxiety and self-hatred I felt as a Christian has abated. I no longer have to wonder why my prayers weren't answered, why "promises from God" never came to pass, and inevitably conclude that it's because I'm not good enough. Compared to those years of intense noise and torture in my soul, the quiet of atheism is like cool water on a fevered brow.
There is suffering on EACH road. Anyone who tries to sell Christianity OR atheism as a painless path is not fairly representing their experience.
Thank you for saying this. I have been browsing the comments first on like this that I saw
@@connorbrown7455 read the book of Job, you might understand why prayers were not answered?
You do understand that Jesus is returning to renew the earth? We are not supposed to have all things in this life, we are supposed to give up this life for the sake of hope in the future with Christ…
Said with love ❤️ I hope you find your way back to following the king before he returns. He loves you.
@@connorbrown7455 also if I may say. Why did you have such intense self hatred when following Jesus?
In choosing to follow him, you have his righteousness apply to your account! You are forgiven!
What a joy!!! The king LOVES you Connor!! What more could he do to show you than to suffer and die for you!?
Romans 8:1
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
What beautiful, wonderful, joyful news.
It’s real Connor, go back to the loving, faithful and true King Brother!!
People join Christianity, because they expect to live a 'easy life' when Christianity, was not about living an easy life.
For students that want to be a doctor, an esteemed profession which rewards substantial income, people will dedicate 10 years of late nights, study and effort for it. If heaven is a life devoid of suffering and evil, of comfort and happiness ETERNALLY, then how much more would we have to struggle to attain it?
The early Christian philosophers, and church fathers always emphasized that being a Christian was to crucify your desires and flesh and to carry your individual cross, just as Christ carried ours.
"The path of God is a daily cross. No one has ascended into Heaven by means of ease, for we know where the the way of ease leads, and how it ends." (Saint Isaac the Syrian)
In afflictions and sufferings, endurance and faith, are concealed the promised glory and recovery of celestial blessing." (St. Makarious of Egypt)
That obedience is salvic which is hard and that which you like and is easy is of little value." (Elder Michael of Valaam).
"Even temporary ease, pauses and self-pity have decreased and will always decrease the pace of spiritual progress." (Saint Theophan the Recluse)
"Paradisial blessedness is not given to anyone who has not first suffered." (Elder Ambrose of Optina)
I do thank you my brother Connor, for being honest, that being a Christian, was significantly much harder than being an atheist (which atheists seldom admit).
The Bible prophesized that those who who live a life in Christ would suffer:
"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." (1 Peter 4:12-14)
As the pagan turned Christian philosopher, St. Justin Martyr (Christian who was martyred for refusing to deny Christ) once said: 'We do not seek to escape suffering.'
Why do we suffer? Because longsuffering is the greatest form of love. When Christ died for His bride (the Church), he proved that His love for us was not merely theory, but implemented into action. His humiliation, at the hands of His creation, the spitting, the scourging, the insults, and the torture and his barbaric death He bore because of His love for us. For a radical love like that, suffering a minor insult is child's play compared to what He did for us. To reject a love like that, for the sake of temporal ease, and comfort, which you enjoy now, is the greatest form of betrayal and evil.
It is better to of not experienced that beautiful love, in the first place, and to reject it than to of never ever experienced and reject it.
God loves you brother. He sometimes won't answer our prayers for our own good. I remember the other day, I prayed to God everyday, for several months to marry a girl I liked at Church. We hung out, and she had a radiant personality. After several months of begging God, to marry her, I later learned that she was not the person she displayed herself out to be, and that she regularly mocked people in the open, and spread hurtful false, rumors about them, and asked guys out, along with their friends. I now thank God, because I was unaware of all this, and had I with my lack of omniscient knowledge, asked her out and eventually married her, I would of been miserable. I realized that God protects us from people and situations for our own good as He knows things we don't. Or if He does not answer your prayer in that moment, it's because our timing was too early, but He will answer it when the time is right.
You are good enough for God, Connor. Search up the story of St. Mary of Egypt. She was a former prostitute, that slept with men, for the mere pleasure of it, and during a pilgrimage, would not even require payment as she was so addicted to lust. She partook in all this as a mere teen. Her life story is quite long, but she later found God, and lived a life of repentance for her sins, and suffered much in trying to refrain from sex to live a life as a nun, in a monastery, but after 14 years of struggle, finally defeated the passion, and through fasting, and physical labor, lived a life pleasing to God, and entered the kingdom of heaven. It goes to show, that no one is outside of the mercy of God as long as they promise to struggle in the spiritual life without giving up.
Despair is a feeling brought from Satan, who wants to make us believe our efforts in pleasing God is futile, and that He will not forgive us, in order for us to give up and abandon the Christian life altogether, which He has succeeded with you.
But as long as you are still living, you can renounce the works of Satan, and come back to eternal life with God. His mercy is greater than the magnitude of all the worst sins committed in the span of the entire existence of our world.
Do not abandon Him, and give up, for temporal pleasure and comfort for an eternity of regret, wailing and torture in hell with the evil one, who being condemned there for eternity, wants everyone else to share the same fate as him.
"The fire of eternal punishment in the afterlife is unlike fire here in this world - it being unquenchable, giving no light, and imposing suffering and dismay, eternally, for the souls of sinners in the afterlife will be immortal and thus continually be subject to unyielding, chastising punishments." -St John Chrysostom
@@radiantblue8001 "If heaven is a life devoid of suffering and evil, of comfort and happiness ETERNALLY, then how much more would we have to struggle to attain it?"
Isn't the point that the Christ did the struggling for you?
Thanks to Ayaan Hirsi Ali i have given up my counterfaith and now believe in Odin. I find it very enriching and will not challenge that intellectually. Very cool.
Red herring?
Shout out to huginn and muninn
Thanks to Ayaan I have now surrendered myself to Smurfism. I refuse to think about it rationally. I just believe it. Really. I really believe it. I choose it.
May the Papa Smurf bless you all.
Comparing Odin to Jesus, is intellectually dishonest. Odin is portrayed is a god, that was created from matter, whereas we believe in a God is the creator of everything, including matter. Secondly, Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure, unlike the mythological greek gods.
My male, doll-faced Persian cat’s name is Odin! I can attest to the fact and truth of his feline existence!
She already answered a question JBP couldn’t: How are you?
"what do you mean how? What about are? Who is you? What is you?"
.
Well. Its complicated
😅
I don't know what you mean by the question
Her gravitation towards the "anti-woke" and Trump crowd is disturbing.
How so ? You think Democrats are gonna prevent Islam from spilling into the void New Atheists made ?
what is disturbing is the left defending Islam and crazy identity politics.
I used to be left leaning. It was reading Bakounine that played a big part in me becoming an atheist, but let be honest, the modern left is doing everything wrong.
Christians aren’t welcome on the left. They’ve made that abundantly clear.
Lol
Why? There are two and only two choices. Why do you percieve wokeness to be the lesser of the two potential evils?
Alex, I have been watching you for a while, just wanted to say you are doing a great job! Really proud of seeing your growth! Keep it up! :)
She is a notorious liar!
Really? Where's the push back? These are fluff interviews.
He's too nonchalant for me these days. A couple of cleverly worded questions for them to tie their own noose, but I'd like to see him get in the ring like he used to. I found it very difficult to get through this interview since almost nothing she said was challenged - and she said a LOT of stupid shit.
@@Baun92he’s not a rude person. She’s giving personal testimony. Alex did have a good challenging conversation with a Catholic monastic recently and his conversations with apologists take a different tone
Weird that she describes atheists as constantly 'fortifying' themselves against faith. Like we're somehow constantly being tempted by religion. It's not hard to not beleive in something when there's no empirical evidence to support it. Very little effort required.
So do you not believe in logic because its not empirical?
@ lol this one isn’t even that spicy, it’s too poorly phrased.
New atheists do seem to work hard at refuting religious claims for some reason
I believe she's projecting. Maybe that's what she actually felt until her 'fortification' finally failed her. Conversions on both sides do happen, after all. I think it's a good reminder that not all atheists are the same and some do find it harder to.. I don't know.. resist believing in whatever they think the bible has to offer.
@ I’ll defer to your experience since I’m not really in that group. But I think you might be confusing content creators with average people. The average people who don’t believe in god, I would imagine, don’t really think about it all that often, nor do they fortify themselves, like she says in the video
When she says that she chooses to believe in the resurrection, that tells me that she doesn’t actually believe it but pretends to because she likes the mythos. That’s fine if you want to do that, but don’t pretend like you care about truth.
I don't even know what it would mean to choose to believe something. That's such a foreign concept to me.
You have to choose to believe a lot of things in the bible or about history in general. We don't have concrete proof of a lot of prehistoric findings but we have evidence that could lead to a POSSIBLE conclusion that we choose to believe. For example, we have proof that Neanderthals ate and raped humans, but we don't know that for sure, we just of some evidence that would support a conclusion. So we have faith that that conclusion is the right one.
When it comes to the resurrection for example, even if you witnessed the restriction yourself, you'd have no way to prove that to people. Even if everyone in this comment section witnessed the resurrection, it would still be considered a myth because there is no verifiable proof, unless the Shorud of Turin is proven to be Jesus but that still wouldn't 100% prove he resurrected.
So faith is required for the supernatural, the only way around it is to show EVERYONE the same thing at the same time. But by definition there are no natural methods to test the supernatural, so even if we witnessed them every day, there would be no way to examine them with the natural methods we have. It's like trying to find God with the tools God gave you, it's simply not possible unless a God shows himself to his creation. So you'd have to implement faith.
Yup
@@iamfilleg Isn't this similar to one of Alex's views: act as if things are true? What's the difference?
respectfully that take really removes all the intellectual free will in belief and in understanding. I'll never be able to prove the earth is round. Ill never be in a space ship above it, but there are plenty of people who have the instruments tools and research to verify it, so when I say the earth is flat I am choosing to assert something I can not personally prove, and I am doing so based off how well the research gels with my personal point of view. It is faith that I use to say the earth is round. It is true that you can not magically ascertain full understanding of something until you actually do the mental work to get it. But that is just it, there is no understanding without out faith first, you have to interact with a truth claim in your mind as if it really is true to verify whether it is or is not. People today with modern technology that we are familiar with are resurrected from death, it is not unreasonable to think some other form of technology or knowledge we , or just the people at the time , did not understand implemented the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Physical recordable phenomena does not have the sole rights to what is true. There are somethings that are true that atleast for now are outside our scope of being able to measure and record it. Regardless what ever you claim to understand, you ca not claim to understand it fully, and to even get to the understanding you have now, and moving forward to maintain your limited understanding, it requires an intellectual act of free will to choose to acknowledge it as a possibility and then fortify the possibility with what you can measure, test and record.
Thanks for giving me a quick way to know that it is, in fact, all politics.
Willful blindness huh
This is immense cope for some reason
Exactly.
She is a notorious liar!
And emotions
This seems to come down to, she found a religion that she views as better/more moral than Islam and she was like "wow! religion can look like this? I believe!"
Also christianity is definitely not more moral or better than islam
@@marcustulliuscicero8405 as an atheist there are vast differences between the teachings, but both can be equally harmfully used.
@@marcustulliuscicero8405stop talking if you domt know what your talking about. Islam was spread by the sword. Affects women to this day. So dumb you have to be to say this even richard dawkins says islam is worse.
@@marcustulliuscicero8405 you are the only one left in the world right now thinking this. that is so 1990....
@@runarsale6116 sure, if by "the world" you mean "my extremely racist internet bubble" then you are correct
She seems very flattened. It’s sad to see. She just still seems a bit gullible to needing some set life practice wrapped up in a bow.
Haha, you dont know anything.
@@Amundbjerk most of this interview is literally about a bad mental state she has been in and Christianity giving her a sense of purpose/peace. I would like to use the word gullible, but it’s pretty clear her reasoning was intellectual and more to do with her mental state.
@@_Sloppyham Do you even know who Ayaan is? Do some research.
@@Amundbjerk please make an argument instead of asserting things. If not, you’re just a waste of time.
@@_Sloppyham Before dismissing her perspective as merely driven by her mental state, I’d recommend reading her works or watching her interviews. It might give you a fuller understanding of where she's coming from. Sorry if i was hurtful.
If you don’t think that the Christian god is a god of punishment, you don’t understand Christianity.
Very true, God can't be "God" without punishment. Or he could be, and just be an absent creator
@@mikeldurant5249so god cant punish his own creation? Hes more of a god of love. He died for us so that he could live with us not above us. Terrible statement here. More reasearch needs to be done
God came and died for us yet he is a god of punishment. Even you who disrespects god rn would be forgiven by him in an instant. Thats how much he loves you. Yet hes a god of punishment. Terrible point
How so? God is Holy and Just does that bother you? If so why?
@@Hruebff God can't be just without punishment. You can't claim a criminal justice system is "just" or "fair" if criminals get off scot-free.
So yes if God never punished he wouldn't be just or he would simply be absent.
I’m 30 minutes in and haven’t heard a single statement about why she thinks a god exists.
True, but she seems think that her faith doesnt need to be rationally explained.
@ which is foreign to me. I was a Southern Baptist for 20+ years and thought I had good reasons for thinking god was real and the believers I was around did as well. Believing something is true simply because you like the idea of it being true doesn’t make sense to me.
@@henningplogmacher5451 She never said that. I find it quite strange, that if atheism is true, why do atheists have to rely on the misrepresentation of Christianity, and intellectual dishonesty?
Atheism cannot be defended. This is why atheists, rely on misrepresenting Christianity and intellectually dishonest statements to advance their materialist and quite cowardly religion.
Even if she had, you probably wouldn't have noticed, let alone accepted it.
@@luckyboy9339 we don't know because she never gave any... making your argument silly and juvenile.
All I see is a woman who was in crisis looking for relief. She didn’t come to this on a sleepy Tuesday when something clicked. I’m glad it helped her, but pretending you can pick and choose when to depend on reason is folly. Believing in things that aren’t real *is* dangerous. It’s been responsible for some of the worse atrocities in human history.
What is real? Do you realize that people who believe in things that are “real” also commit atrocities?
It isn’t belief that is problematic, it is the human condition/mind/decision that is the problem
You reckon if people weren’t religious all those wars and battles wouldn’t of happened? That’s cuckoo to me
Please do tell us about the atrocities that were done by a christian that were not done by anyone else? The crusades?? Who defended europe against the muslim conquest?
You're not glad it helped her. You're literally criticizing her for her decision. Would you rather her go back to being atheistic and on the brink of suicide?
You say that religion is dangerous, but here's an example of religion doing something good, and you don’t want to recognize it for what it is. Religiosity cannot be viewed within a vacuum.
All you see is why you can’t see
I swear, her mind sounds broken. Her thoughts are barely coherent and jumps between topics that are so unrelated and not helpful at all in answering his questions. It's like she is trying to fit in as many talking points as possible and not actually trying to have a conversation.
It's time for her to retire. The most painful thing to me is that he didn't even want to challenge her out of pity I imagine, and she still didn't end up looking good.
She said she’s been reading Christian apologetics-most of which are just awful. She’s disconnected and going deeper and deeper into it.
I noticed that too. Very disturbing that she feels she needs to make a concerted effort to "choose" Christianity instead of just believing that it's true
She's not an apologist. Would you criticize her leaving Islam because of the wrong done at the hands of her Muslim family?
@@tandrew651
Leaving one religion does not require you to join another
I greatly appreciate the gentleness and consideration that Alex displayed during this interview. As an agnostic and a US citizen, I was initially frustrated by Alex not challenging some of her narratives. But by the end of the interview it was clear that Alex's approach was the correct one.
Tldr she believes in Christianity because it make her feel warm and fuzzy.
"He who denies the existence of God, has some reason for wishing that God did not exist." (St. Augustine, former non-Christian, turned Christian)
That's a really ignorant characterization. Statistics overwhelmingly show that Christians live better lives than atheists, and it doesn't seem like a coincidence that depression and the decline of Christianity follows each other fairly parallelly on a graph. She's made the decision for herself that her well-being is more important than truth.
@@radiantblue8001 "He who affirms the existence of God, has some reason for wishing that God does exist." - Me, former Christian, turned non-Christian, following St. Augustine's reasoning.
@@justzekebuildingasandcastl4265 yeah, so the reason why someone wants to believe in something is not a problem
I respect you for being honest. If you believe God exists, why do you not follow Him?
You've been so respectful and kind in this interview, thanks Alex!
Camus once said there are 3 responses to nihilism:
1. Physical Suicide
2. Philosophical Suicide
3. Rebellion
I see which one Ali fell into.
What is she rebelling against?
@@gideondavid30common sense
@@gideondavid30woosh
@@sp-niemandyou homosexual atheists need to repent and come back to Christ
i disagree
Thank you for having her. I find her worth listening to. Her search is our reward.
Ali always struck me as an angry atheist (with good reason given her story). But I never really bought that she seriously lacked a belief in God, rather that she hated the God worshipped by the people that abused her in his name. I've had Christian friends that went through a similar arch. Abused by the church to become vocal atheists only to revert to a softer form of religion down the line.
For me, I always had good experiences with religious people. They've been fantastic influences in my life. I've never been angry at god or about religion. But I just don't reckon it's true.
I don't think she should do these anymore. I liked Ayaan, and I understand that she needs to be happy for once, even if that means lying to herself about reality. It's just a bad look especially since everyone feels the need to treat her with kids gloves because of what she went through.
Around 23:00 and a little after, she's discussing how Christianity, and the parables within it, teach this idea of evolving with the human condition. That the fundamental story is actually all about the human condition, something her original religion neglected by focusing on rules. Rules that held her down, that imprisoned her, and that ultimately ignore the human condition of sin.
And while I think this is a beautiful thought process, I can't help but remark that the problems she described about her first religion were identical to what many christians have talked about with theirs. When I was much younger and a christian, everything was about rules. Breaking a rule puts a sin on your heart, on your soul, one that needs to be rectified with contrition. The worse the sin the more intense of a contrition and penance you needed. Your body is a temple, and doing these things damages and taints that temple -- a temple in which Jesus cannot enter if dirty enough, and thus one may be required to confess before undergoing the sacrament of the eucharist. My Christian faith when I was younger was one that wasn't really different than how she describes her old religion -- in fact, this was (and still is) true of a lot of people, they just didn't follow the rules and chose to break them.
The difference is that one religion decided to accept many of the "issues" it threw at humans -- an acceptance that's relatively modern; while one is still struggling on that same ground.
For me, as an atheist, that understanding of the "evolving human condition" is one that can be accepted without religion and a belief in god, precisely because it was those religions that held us back from evolving the human condition. That if your belief in god is really just a belief in this concept of evolution, and you are so blind to the atheists that accept that same meaning that you end up claiming them as actually being christian (like Jordan Peterson does), then you're ignoring this deeper meaning of human evolution in favor of maintaining frameworks that have been based precisely against it for so long.
Instead I offer a different framework for her and people like her: Rather than focusing so intently on figuring out how to adapt, change, and evolve these religious beliefs to pull more humans into them, perhaps it's time for the human condition to instead evolve past these ancient religious concepts, understand and take what is useful for humans, and evolve and move on past them.
If any religion only focuses on sins and rules to avoid them, that religion does not acknowledge the human condition. The human condition is that we all sin. While certain denominations of Christianity likewise focus on sin and rules, Christianity itself says that God died for those sins and rose again, something we could not do. Making atheism a new religion doesn't address the human condition unless you believe people will one day evolve into being perfect. I think this is why she got a kick out of various Christians trying to woo her to their denomination. The denomination isn't what is important to her. When Jesus was born and the angels appeared to the shepherds, they didn't say, “God’s here to get you.”
I love the points you raised. I also grew up under a denominate really focused on rules and laws. The fact that she placed such an emphasis on this makes me feel she could very well have been Muslim again but for the trauma it has dished to her. Chowing to believe can apply to any religion so long as the denomination fits your standing bias. I’ve seen many a Muslim who are some of the kindest souls I’ve interacted with. Many of whom find ways to reinterpret the “toxic” aspects of the Quran. We can either try and fit a square peg into a round hole or just take out the valuable bits from the round hole and go in search of a square hole for your peg.
The problematic part of what you suggest at the end is this - "understand and take what is useful for humans". How do you discern what should be taken and what should be left? You may unknowingly leave behind the most important bits you don't recognize and instead take with you rather useless bits.
@
I think you're missing the surrounding context: that the religion and religious text is also part of the "human condition" and evolves with our improvements in understanding. That this is how someone like Ayaan ignores not only parts of the Bible that she doesn't like, but also ignore Christians who have had very similar experiences to her own when she was Muslim. That the bigger picture of Christianity and Jesus as part of this "evolving human condition", is really just a component of what us humans naturally do and ought to do: learn and understand the world, and self critique to improve those understandings. The process here is fundamentally inquisitive, human, and social. Not specific to Muslims or Christians.
So your question: "How do you discern what should be taken and what should be left?" Is answered by using reason, empiricism, and intuition and judgement. Just as a Christian uses those to resolve interpretations of the Bible, or a Jew in interpreting the Torah, or a Muslim in interpreting the Quran, or even Ayaan in critiquing Islam and eventually pulling away from it. The way that we learn, evolve, adapt, and understand the world and ourselves, is fundamentally the human condition. And just as that condition is used to figure problems a Christian must resolve in the Bible surrounding:
- Literal vs Figurative readings
- Historical inconsistencies with better historical documents
- How a given action pertains to modern ethical standards
...so too can that condition understand that some bits within the Bible are correct or good, while throwing away some of the crucial ideas that really would make one a Christian.
Alex is probably the most open Atheist I've ever seen; even obtaining a degree in Theology (and Philosophy)... I was waiting for any inkling of frustration in his demeanor while Ayaan was talking about how Atheists are closing themselves off (and just not open) yet, Alex didn't flinch. SUCH an amazing, gracious, receptive person and interviewer. Bravo :))
I honestly hope for the best for Ayann, however, I feel short of breath just watching her: she is so stiff, unyielding from the neck down, and looks terrified-- a demeanor, I'm certain the host has not triggered in her here--
God I hate God..lol~
Alex has probably not met a minister that can give proper answers to his questions. If and when he does, he will not be an atheist any more.
He said he does not believe in the resurrection. Answer: the resurrection is only believable when you believe in a God who is all powerful and can do all things. If one believes in a God who created all things by just speaking, he will believe that God is able to resurrect the dead.
We prayed once for a woman who was going to die. She had diabetes and other sicknesses. Someone even had a dream that she was going to die. But when we went and prayed for her, she became well and today she is still living and doing well.
That is the God who believe in. Can atheism offer the same?
There's a lot of atheists that have an open mind - some have Theology degrees (self included). They just don't often get involved in activism so you may not see them so much.
@@Scarletpimpanel73 No doubt. Nothing better than an open minded atheist..I'm sure you are one of them, probably...
I'm not even an atheist per se (more agnostic/pagan, as I've had a number of psychic/mystical experiences). But I do think they should run the world... It would be better run by a pack, a pod, a murder, a colony, or a troop of atheists :))
Hmmm what would that be called I wonder: leave in the comments lol ~
A gaggle...?... of atheists?
@ Having a theology degree and yet be an atheist shows how seminary schools actually don’t do what they are supposed to do - train ministers to do the work of the LORD. Instead they teach human philosophy, reason, and other nonsense which have nothing to do the Kingdom of Heaven.
Whoever wants know Christ, his righteousness and to receive the Kingdom of Heaven must have a personal SPIRITUAL encounter with him. Otherwise, it is all a wasted human effort when it comes to theology or other religious efforts to try to connect with Christ or God.
You don’t need a religion. You just need to be part of something bigger than you
I dont really think the meaning of life has to be beyond yourself(im an existentialist)
why
It absolutely does.
Otherwise you will be narcissistic
Its not enough. Without religion nihilism is a fact
Wait till this guy finds out what religion is
I'm 30 minutes in and I can't take this anymore. All she talks about is politics and flowery vague stuff about love.
If you're concerned about "the woke left" then there are secular libertarian types who agree with you that you could align yourself with. You don't need religion.
If you are "missing love in your life" then there are plenty of communities you can find that in. She acts like Christianity has a monopoly on love.
She straight up dodges Alex's question about difficult verses and says she leaves those up to theologians. She's literally ignoring all the problems she used to have with them and is outsourcing her mind instead of thinking for herself.
You don't need theologians to do mental gymnastics for you. You can read it for yourself. If God has a message for you why would it require consulting a third party? Surely he'd either tell you himself or he'd make the scripture clear.
She even says that you have to separate faith and reason. That might be the most ridiculous thing she said (at least in the first 30 minutes).
Everything she says is void of reason, logic, and rationality. It's entirely political and about emotions. This is an extremely disappointing transformation. I met her 14 years ago and she autographed two of her books for me. Now look where she's at. If this is the only way she could cure her depression then I guess she can justify it from a pragmatic angle, but not from a truth angle.
I also want to believe, but I value the truth more than feeling good.
"outsourcing her mind"
Good one!
THe way she says "I choose to believe". That sounds problematic. Alec is right in that we cannot wish glass of water is spaghetti just because we want it to. We really have to have some kind of evidence to tell us to believe something. I think it comes down to the amount of evidence such as in in a criminal case. Can we reasonably come to the conclusion that there is a God based off the limited evidence there is for Him?
What makes no sense is to just believe because we want there to be a god. That is strictly delusional.
The mystery of how the universe was made how the first human and animal was also made is not something that science can explain and even then know that. Atheists and religious people are no different they don’t have answers for everything but still choose to believe of what is logical for them. That the distinction you should make.
@@samanthaadjaho6243 What I am saying is that as a believer myself, I do have evidence for God. I interpret the facts of the world to reach that conclusion (in addition to personal experience). It is wrong to just believe with zero evidence. I, in fact, do believe there is evidence, and it is reasonable to believe in God.
What I am pushing back against is this notion that we believe something to be true because we want it to be true. That is unhealthy and wrong. I may not like gravity, but I respect the laws of gravity enough not to jump off a bridge to prove it doesn't exist. Just because I hate gravity doesn't mean I get to choose not to believe in it. It is the same with the believe in God.
@ yes that right
Quick, choose to believe that Joe Biden was president of the United States on April 23rd 2005.
Can’t do it? If not, why can someone just choose to believe in god?
@@samanthaadjaho6243nope! See, I don’t make claims about how life or the universe came to be (although there is strong evidence for certain processes such as evolution and the Big Bang which are NOT claims about how things came to be, just processes after the fact). Saying “I don’t know” is a perfect valid position if you do not have sufficient evidence for a claim or position. The same cannot be said for theists who believe in a specific religion, as that religion is likely to make claims about how everything came to be without evidence for it (with there likely being a lot of counter evidence). Just because science does not explain something, does not mean in any way that a religious answer is true or even worth considering.
I can’t believe I idolized this woman back in the day. Listening to her now makes me realize how performative she sounds, like a corrupt politician. Oh well, in a way she is, so that makes sense.
Dear oh dear! What does that make you then?
@@homemaintenance1234 why would it make her anything in particular other than someone who notices a corrupt politician?
@@DarkMatter2525 or simply close-minded and tribal.
I know how you feel, there was a time russel brand was my hero
@@johnlawton4106 Oh yeah... *sigh* the same. He has become a living talking axiom I use whenever I need reminding how much appearances lie and little what a person say actually reflect who they are. I know he had some serious accusations made against him pushing him to the far right, but I also think when he saw an uptick in views whenever he started spouting anti-establishment stuff, he got such a dollar boner his fried brain made a house makeover.
This is just plain sad. Hearing such incredibly basic apologetics and logical fallacies coming out of her mouth is just plain sad… 😞
Wild that she thinks Islam is the only one that categorizes certain things as permissible and others as not permissible. Like ma'am, have you actually read the Bible? Not to mention the fact that Islam doesn't teach original sin, which is an insane idea on its own.
The latest secular liberal gay Jewish biblical scholarship has actually demonstrated there are no laws in the bible but I don't expect someone who doesn't understand not all branches of Christianity believe in original sin to be aware of mainstream academic literature.
@ honestly based on the way you phrase these comments I’d guess your either a bot or a nut, but sure, I’ll bite. Hot take that the Bible doesn’t have laws when there are ten of them so important that people literally carved them in stone. Also never said that all denominations of Christianity teach original sin. Just that zero denominations of Islam do.
@@hbarz1066 The original Sin only means, that when Adam And Eve committed the first Sin, every one of us would've acted the same way it could've been you or me it doesnt matter because it comes from our sinful Nature, because if there is a God he created us with free Will letting us choose good or evil, i find it quite disturbing when Alex for example wants a world that only has Good And we only capable of doing good things, that Sounds like a post apocaliptic horror to me where there is nothing but plain enjoyment there is no bravery, no virtue nothing but only enjoyment which would make us become numb very soon
@ The idea of a purely ‘good’ world is certainly an intriguing thought experiment. But I find it odd that you said God gives us free will, but also that “every one of us would’ve acted the same way” as Adam and Eve in their sin. On a fundamental level, I just disagree that humans are sinful by nature (or in other words, born in sin).
@@hbarz1066 God is outside of Time And space if we follow the Christian doctrine, meaning he knows what we are going to do even before we do it but that doesn't mean that we don't have our own choices, God doesn't force you to do anything I can help people in need, but I can go rob a Store without God influencing me right? Now I don't want to convince you to believe in this, its your choice what I mean is I don't Think that it's a contradiction. My interpretation of the Original Sin is God showing us that we are not better than each other, thats why I believe that every human would have done the same. As for the world that would only have joy And happiness, we wouldnt know we are happy at all we would became humanoid Robots, who would want to live in a world like that? Now Atheists like to say that in Heaven wouldnt we be in that state? But through the whole Bible we see that free will in Heaven still exists you can still turn against God in Heaven
I saw the title and ALMOST had a heart attack
Bit to attached to his belief system no?
@darealkezz806 that's what I'm saying 😭
I was so surprised! Didn't expect it from the newly mustached skeptic
@@darealkezz806??? his channel was about atheism for YEARS. ofc it would be crazy to see a title like that
Lmao true.
A great interview. I loved Ayan so much . She has understood so much. When she talked about humility, as a sinner was touching . When she spoke about the fact that all religions are not the same, and when she talked about the difference between Ayan the atheist and Ayan the Christian was awesome .
The "religion of reason" is near top of the list for one of the most oxymoronic things I've heard 🤷♂️
Christianity believes in reason. It is why we believe in a God, who became God incarnate, walked among humans, and was crucified visibly for all to see, and later resurrected in the open.
We believe in Christianity (faith) because of the overwhelming evidence that supports it. This is no different from atheism, as atheists believe that the world and universe existed on it's own, without evidence to prove this, requiring faith to believe that the world existed out of nothing. Albeit the only difference is, atheists require more faith to believe the universe existed out of nothing, whereas we require less faith, because we possess more evidence for Christianity being true.
@radiantblue8001 why do theists continue to promote this falsehood. As a rule, atheists do not believe the universe came out of nothing. In fact theists believe their God made it out of nothing.
@@radiantblue8001When a Christian gives me a rational explanation of the holy trinity I will consider that there may be logic in Christianity. Until then everything Christians say about reason is just empty talk.
@@YorgosSimeonidisthen don't talk to them, but it's hard for an atheist to do that. Cause they always insert themselves in conversation wanting attention.
@@YorgosSimeonidis That's intellectual dishonesty. You do not believe in God, not because you haven't been given a explanation of the Trinity.
You believe in atheism, despite there not existing any evidence that the earth existed from nothing. You rely on faith. But you cry foul, when a Christian believes in Christ, with ample evidence for His existence and resurrection.
You not being able to understand the Trinity, does not have any bearing on whether God exists. That's a personal incredulity fallacy.
I’ve never watched an hour long interview before with my eyes rolled back in my head. Until now.
Let me guess. Liberal?
@ Rational. Humanist.
@@MMAGamblingTipsliberal
@@AzimuthTao no not so much an insult as noticing the obvious bias
@@chasevl1227 let me guess. Rapist?
Like... What do you think you win by just saying shit like that? Why not engage and try to understand what they found so contentious about the interview?
39 mins in just after she's finnished saying she things new atheists are arrogant, she says she told Dawkins he's a 'christian but doesnt know it' becasue hes moral and all morality is from Christ... I think Ayaan ought to look back on that with abit of self reflection.
Ayaan is a new Christian, so she is not equipped to represent or defend Christianity. She became a Christian less than 2 years ago. Some of the things she mentions about Christianity are not what Christians actually believe in.
No one is good, including Dawkins. Dawkins himself, believes cheating is moral, and sees nothing wrong with it, and also justified pe*****. She is just being biased, because he is her friend.
Atheists get wrong the idea of being 'good' or 'moral.'
No one is good. Atheists don't even have an objective worldview about what makes someone 'good.' For someone to be good (in the Christian worldview), they would have to of never sinned. Sin is an immoral act, or evil committed. But because everyone in the world, has committed an immoral or bad act, no one is good. So, no atheists cannot be good people, because they are not good.
Christians also, are not good, because we too, have committed sins.
Our conscience, which informs us between good and bad, which was created by Christ, is the reason why, we are able to distinguish and have a common understanding of what is good or bad. So if an atheist, were to a good thing, it is a result of their conscience, which came from God. Even them, performing the good act, was because God created them. Atheists, did not create themselves, their brains or anything they possess, so they cannot boast of something that was given to them by God.
The reason why our sense of good and wrong comes from God is, because if humans decided arbitrarily what was good or bad, then murder or rape would be morally good, as people have believed in before, in order to suit their own ends. When Mao killed over 70 million people in China, he believed he was doing a virtuous act for the sake of helping China.
Or a person, struggling with lust, would justify cheating on their partner, with the justification, that they needed to satisfy their sexual drive.
This is why, morality cannot come from humans. Because when it does, it leads to chaos.
It is why it has to come from God, who is objective, meaning humans cannot say tomorrow that murdering innocent people is right because, God says it's wrong, and his objective Law does not change, unlike society's perception on what is good and bad.
Such a wonderfully respectful interview, so rich in content. Thank you both.
Maybe one day we'll here from a genuine, thoughtful, and rational person who converts to Christianity. Today is not that day.
womp womp
Fact champ
In summary; she spent most of her years as an anti-Islam (which a lot of people mistook for being atheist.
She’s barely studied the structures of Christianity…
Her argument is simple “Christianity is way better than the Islam that messed my childhood and led me into atheistic ideas.
It was atheism towards allah not the idea of God itself that she had.
Lastly.
I am happy she’s using Christian creed as a coping mechanism at this tough time in her life, she’s indeed a strong queen❤️
@happykoinonia8119 That all seems true enough. But it just isn't very interesting.
The bar has been set pretty high on Alexs podcast. I dont always expect to agree with his guests, but im usually intrigued on some level. Even apologists who seem borderline insane (craig) usually provoke some reflection on my views or my understanding of the subject.
I didnt find even a shred of that here. The only thought i had was "why do people keep talking about this person?" Half the people from any given church will have this same story. Life sucked, god helped. And thats fine, but hardly worthy of the amount of attention she's gotten.
This reminds me of pop singers moving to country music. "There's something beautiful about country music." [I.e., the money/opportunities.]
She doesn't look happy after seeing Jesus. She looks depressed and terrified.
Making some assumptions. Do you watch he in her entire personal life? Interviews about these topics are nerve-wracking and English is her second language so doubly nerve-wracking I'd imagine
@@tandrew651 "well you weren't there for every second of her life so you can't tell she's behaving differently than the past" 😂
@@johns1625 So is it reasonable to judge her by her body language in a recorded interview about her personal thoughts and feelings?
@@tandrew651 In comparison to who she used to be, yes.
She is still terrified of Islam and sees everything outside of Trump to pander to Islam in the US, so she grasps MAGA for comfort.
Alex, you did a great job, you were so respectful and cautious in how you engaged. Religion gave her happiness, and it wouldn’t be right to stomp on that, no matter how much we disagree with the belief itself.
👍🏽
Stiffnecked atheism is inappropriate. Everybody has an innate inclination to talk to God personally, and nobody can prove God is not real when we are mysteriously existing here in space. A big bang doesnt explain nothing.
Incredible how she didn't answer a single question
As an atheist... I mean it's ok, we need to look for happiness in this time.. I wasn't happy being catholic and she wasn't happy being an atheist.
This one is the world’s number one champion in grifting!
First she was a self proclaimed ex-Muslim, then an atheist, and now she’s a Jesus lover!
Please! What’s next?
Of the 3, Christianity is the most lucrative.
Spot on!
Do people change?
@ they change their grift.
"When someone changes their position, immediately assume skepticism, especially if it suits the views I already hold."
Thank you Ayaan for your testimony, Its awesome to hear what God is doing in your life. I'll be praying that you continue to find healing and strength in Jesus
Why does no one seriously challenge her and ask her the hard questions? Alex gave her soft balls.
Out of pity. They know she went through a lot, so they don't feel like destroying her depression cure. I feel for her as well, she deserves to be happy, but should probably stop doing these.
@@martinmoffat5417Because ideology sucks and gives people too much meaning.
At least the guy was being, as far as I know, peaceable and perhaps consistent with his beliefs.
There’s many Atheistic persons who claim moral superiority over the religious but go ravenous whenever their own pivots to something non-atheist.
It’s not unique to atheism but it is telling.
There’s no need to. She’s telling on herself. This was incredibly revealing.
Dawkins pushed back some in a moderated debate (I think) after her conversion and he mostly got reamed out for being insensitive to someone who was talking about her alcoholism, depression, and suicidal ideation.
So it may be somewhere between Alex is being his usual non-confrontational self and her mental health problems. I have no doubt that her mental health struggles are real, but I do think it being the key to her change of heart makes it very socially awkward to press her on this flip, and I can't tell if she's using that to her advantage on purpose or not.
@@Jwight1984 are you serious?
She picked religion because it is a cash cow
She searched for enlightenment
She wasn’t ready
Dollar signs 🪧
Listen, Ayaan! Going through a major depression is bloody hell. I’ve been there. But it only 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝘆 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵. It didn’t send me running to the empty promises of religion. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s transition to Christianity because of depression is beyond frustrating and deeply disappointing. This isn’t enlightenment. It’s the result of the same religious conditioning she’s spent years criticizing. Depression is devastating, I know that firsthand, but turning to faith for comfort doesn’t make her decision profound or respectable-it makes it horribly weak.
Her shift isn’t a failure of atheism. It’s a failure to address her emotional and existential needs without clinging to an outdated crutch like religion. Instead of building resilience or seeking secular solutions, she’s chosen a path that undermines everything she once stood for.
This doesn’t prove Christianity is right. It proves that even brilliant people can fall into old, comforting narratives when they’re at their lowest. It’s frustrating because it reinforces the false idea that religion is the answer to life’s struggles. If anything, this should highlight the 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 for secular support systems; better mental health resources, stronger communities, and tools to find meaning without turning to faith.
Her personal choice doesn’t change the fact that atheism remains rational and true, no matter how much she might try to frame this as some “awakening.” She isn’t enlightened! She’s running back to the same kind of thinking she spent years tearing down. It’s disappointing, and it deserves to be criticized for what it is: a betrayal of her own principles.
@auroravanessa221 >if anything this should highlight the urgent need for secular support systems; better mental health resources, stronger communities and tool to find meaning without turning to faith! - this 👆🏻👏🏻
Lol cope
Atheism is the cure to all of life’s problems! Atheism saved me from my darkest moments of life as well. Hail Atheism my friend!
@@andrew5680It’s inspiring to hear how atheism pulled you through your darkest times. It takes strength to confront life’s hardships head-on and find hope and meaning in reality itself. Glad you’ve found clarity and courage in reason - hail atheism indeed 👏🏻
But some believe truth, reason and religion are convergent.
Hirsi Ali always struck me as more anti-Islam than anti-religion. At the very least she arrived at fame from another direction than the rest of the New Atheists.
Yup, her entire life revolves around opposing Islam. Can't blame her, as compared to Islam even Christianity is an improvement.
This is what happened to the liberal and non-theist people who began to define themselves as anti-woke. They got so deep into it that they hung out with the most anti-woke conservatives who flattered them so much they ended up drinking the kool-aid.
She was traumatized by it and can’t see how Christianity fucked over many. Selfish behavior
I feel like Ayaan Hirsi Ali is "choosing Christianity" as a strategic choice rather than a logical one. Or she's just trying to stand out for financial gain? I have never heard of her before this controversial conversion. I really dont care about her, really.
She was born in Somalia in an Islamic family. Her dad was more liberal, but her grandma wasn't. Her dad traveled a lot, because he was quite gifted, so her grandma got her circumcised. She became a refugee at 6 in Saudi Arabia and later in Kenya. Her dad arranged a marriage for her, so she fled to the Netherlands and basically lied about everything to not get caught for the marriage.
After that she became a member of the right wing liberal party VVD and created with Geert Wilders the movie Vitna. Unfortunately, a party member responsible for immigration found out she lied, and got her deported. That's why she became a us citizen. So she got married and was an outspoken critic of the islam and atheist, but woke and anti-social justice, and this is where we are. It's actually ironic how much she hates the left when her own party stabbed her in the back.
“ perhaps you were spiritually bankrupt and perhaps you should do something about that “
soooo powerful!!
#blessings 🙏🏽
Alex, sir, you are incredibly compassionate and patient. It was difficult enough for me to listen from afar to this clearly broken woman abandon rationality for comfort - I don't think I could have made it through an actual conversation with her without banging my head on the nearest wall. "I've found Jesus and I'm good with Trump but it's not about politics" ???
I’m not so sure she was ever that rational to begin with. She was an anti-Islam voice more than anything and lacked the philosophical depth of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris. I was big into New Atheism 2006-2010 and she just never clicked with me like the others for some reason and now I think I understand why.
@@grgryocean I have to admit, this is the first time I've heard her speak. I just assumed a "former atheist" would have at least a basic grasp of reason.
@Humcrush why would you think that?
@@danielmaher964 Few people are raised to be atheists, and generally speaking, people don't "convert" to atheism for emotional reasons. I guess I should challenge that assumption, though, as clearly some people do because they feel misled or abused by whatever religion they were indoctrinated into, trading one belief for another, trying to find something that makes them feel good. This seems to be the case for Ms. Ali.
@@Humcrush you must live in a religious country
Well there it is in less than 10 minutes in. She was in an awful psychological space, and she gave in to her emotional side and became a "christian". Still no good reason to believe christianity is true. Too bad, so sad. Deal with it.
as Camus said, philosophical suicide is a reaction to nihilism
Sucks for you I guess
I am dealing with it. It's such a burden believing that the God of the universe loves me and created me with a purpose. Oh woe is me.
She is a notorious liar!
thats just atheist hurt emotion kicking in big time 😂😂😂😂
She gave the same lane reasons as any other theist.
It's a shame you think that way friend.
Well you clearly dont interact with many theists then lol
Maybe they all give the same response because they've all seen something you don't see
How so?
Worse reasons than the reasons most theists Alex has on his channel. Her arguments are hollow strawmen with no substance whatsoever.
I really struggle every time to klick on your videos. But they are always worth it. Thx Alex!
At around 11 minutes she starts discussing what I think is a really common misconception about atheists, that it's a construction against religion, rather than simply a freedom from it. Many Christians (iirc Peterson has a similar point) seem quite convinced that everyone is at heart a believer if they would only allow the ("true") spirit in. Honestly, claiming that atheists are evangelizing is I think a reflection of spending too much time around atheist thinkers/debaters and projecting her own faith onto others. Projection is the main problem with organized religion in my opinion. The point of accepting atheism is that you have a choice in life to practice what you believe without infringing on others
So atheism is a "belief" that you "accepted"
She specifically mentions new atheism i think. And honestly i see what she means.
Im confused as to your last point? Many practice religion without infringing on others
@@RMarshall57 dont you love freudian slips?
@@RMarshall57 what I meant by that is accepting atheism as a valid belief or more accurately a lack of belief. I get the impression that atheism is viewed in a more organized way than it actually is
@@TheDragonageorigins I'm saying I see why she has the impression that atheism is proselyted so to speak because of new atheism but I don't think it largely reflects atheism. As to the second point, that is true but I would argue there are more individuals and institutions that seek to shape other individuals and institutions in the image of their religion--to varying degrees. The christian background of the pro life movement is an example
The fact that your first question was "how are you doing?" makes me respect you that much more Alex
You think he did that on accident? It's a move to manipulate the audience and you fit right in
@@JordanMSevernssome arm chair psychology going on here
@@JordanMSeverns that was a pretty rude thing to say
@@_Sloppyham don't be naive
@@JordanMSeverns don’t be a pseudo intellectual
I know Alex has made a point of just conversing with his "opponents" these past few years and attempted to understand them rather than debate them, but I just can't help but lose interest in these talks so quickly when he so rarely challenges them on the absolute nonsense he allows them to spew. I probably won't be watching any more of his content until he reverts to type and becomes a bit more combative like he used to be. I think there's a middle ground between Cosmic Skeptic and Alex O'Connor that we aren't seeing right now. Just my two cents.
Alex is going in the logical direction of "less confrontation, more big-name guests, more viewers, more money" route.
We get a lot of interviews, but can't help but feel left a bit unsatisfied by having Alex ask the same questions as any other one. If I want to hear Hirsi-Ali only say her talking points, then I can just watch her own channels or read her books.
Thank you both for this beautiful interview
Its just politics. To succeed in the right wing grift you have to virtue signal Christianity.
There's more to the very general term of "right" than just grifting. Also, in the US, even the left will virtue signal christianity. We've never had an openly atheist president. I am hopeful though because Trump has at least been less religious than most republican presidents have been. And Elon Musk refuses to call himself a christian and stops at "cultural christian", which is the camp Dawkins is in at the moment.
This is a very close-minded perspective
Of course my post would disappear for no reason. Thanks google.
What bullshit
Pathetic.
I am glad she found comfort in her religion. Her deeply ignorant and underdeveloped political statements, as well as her reasoning regarding why Christianity is superior, however, reveals an abandonment of reason for (as she praises in Donald Trump) "common sense". It's all anecdotes and emotions, no analysis at all.
why are you glad that this evil person is comforted?
So you’re temperamentally a Leftist, we get it!
@homemaintenance1234 would you care to elaborate? I have never heard of "temperament" ascribed to an ideology
Congrats for 1M subs Alex!
“To the atheists, it is a pity to constantly fortify yourself against faith” - Precisely the opposite, Ayaan. Many, and perhaps most, atheists in the Western World (or at least America, tried to hold on to their faith through the use of gimmicks like apologetics, but eventually lost faith due to the nature of, and understanding of, reality.
Been looking forward to this one!!
I'd love to hear a debate with her and Matt Dillahunty.
"She found religion due to depression" is precisely the type of fortified closed-mindedness that Ayaan is talking about
So if religion heals someones depression does that make it worse? Christianity healed her even if you are athiest you should want that. But you dont care for her well being only for your athiest team that you want.
but that is what she did
@adamborowicz7209 She found Christ. Christ is not a religion.
Thank you for interviewing Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is always an inspiration, and she is one of the most brave and principled people around. I sure would like to know the reading list that she mentioned.
I thought this was a great interview. Really appreciated that you gave her an opportunity to talk freely. I thought it was thought provoking. Thanx for a great podcast Alex
Choosing to believe in something is an admission of self delusion
I chose to believe my senses give me reliable information about reality
I believe you believe this comment is helpful
@cuirmoustache4803 yea but you could be wrong, so it's still a form of self delusion
@@louisgomez182 then everything is a form of self-delusion and your position is essentially solipsist and, in practice, meaningless.
Who cares?
A refreshingly polite and civil conversation.
And it accomplished absolutely nothing. "Polite and civil" isn't the be-all and end-all...
Beautiful conversation
I do not want to judge anyone, especially after I was diagnosed with cancer even though I'm just 20, but as a Christian, I really appreciate your interviews Alex, especially when it comes to exposing political and Liberal Christians like Dinesh and Ayaan and standing to the unhinged Christians who celebrate the conversion of any famous character even if they know that they are just using Christianity as a political tool, only shows how desperate are they, still, this was a really good conversation
I wish you the best 🙏
Sorry to hear of your diagnosis. Hope you recover soon. ❤️
As an atheist, I wish you the best!
I hope you get better. Treatments improve every year.
@@dominationsalpha1978 ditto!
Lost all respect for her. She is literally lying about believing. As we all know, you can’t choose what you believe. And the way she paints atheist is the absolute worst.
Me: Oh, Alex uploaded. I'll se that late-
"Why I Converted to Christianity - Ayaan Hirsi Ali"
Me: _Grabs glasses_
me: *oh boy*
Fr I was like HE CONVERTED TO WHAT and then I saw Ayaan and I was like oh eh.
So whatd ya think of the interview
Honestly, I immediately clicked the video but then immediately decided that this was gonna be way too depressing. And then I scrolled down and saw that she's a Trump supporter too. My heart can't take this.
@@ThisDonut In summary; she spent most of her years as an anti-Islam (which a lot of people mistook for being atheist.
She’s barely studied the structures of Christianity…
Her argument is simple “Christianity is way better than the Islam that messed my childhood and led me into atheistic ideas.
It was atheism towards allah not the idea of God itself that she had.
Lastly.
I am happy she’s using Christian creed as a coping mechanism at this tough time in her life, she’s indeed a strong queen❤️
Great conversation! I could continue listening to both of you for hours. Two loveable, highly intelligent and open-minded people meet and share their insights from the very spot they have currently come up to on their respective journeys. That's a rare and precious thing to witness.
I’ve always hoped to have an opportunity to use this Christopher Hitchens line, originally directed at Sean Hannity, but I never thought I’d feel inclined to use it against her, but as Hitch said “You give me the awful impression… of someone who hasn’t read any of the arguments against your position ever”
Ayaan has not thought through the politics of Christianity. She has correctly noted that Islam is a totalitarian political ideology, while failing to observe that all three Abrahamic religions are politically the same as you would expect as they have the same Abrahamic monotheism. They all have top-down authoritarian political structures and govern by totalitarianism.
The questions for Ayaan are -
Why have you merely exchanged one totalitarian political ideology for a different totalitarian political ideology?
What is it you need that only Christian authoritarianism can supply for you?
What utility does Christian totalitarianism supply you with that you cannot obtain elsewhere?
She has not got anywhere near answering these core questions pertaining to a conversion from Islam to Christianity.
But it is all politics as religion is politics by another name and having been a profession politician, Ayaan easily slips into giving a politician's answer to Alex’s questions - i.e. she evades, deflects and obfuscates with wordy emotive answers divorced from the political reality of monotheism.
I'm a muslim but a big fan of the channel and Alex. Ayaan is a textbook grifter. Out of all these new Atheist islamaphobes, she lacks the most depth and is simply uninspiring. Honestly just a confused and lost individual.
Thank you for stating your obviously unbiased opinion about her by letting us know youre a muslim 😂
I don't think she's smart enough to be a grifter, thoroughly uncompelling
@@imagination1170 bizarre conclusion to come to based on no context whatsoever
@@matt69nice You do not see the irony of a muslim calling her a grifter?
I understand what Alex is doing in these conversations and why, but I do miss hearing his opinions on topics outside of the occasional politely worded question.
Already 20 minutes in and she seems to rather try and ignore the problems found within the Bible. Alex asked what she thinks about the issue of slavery and other problems now as a christian, to which she replies that she is full of curiosity now, compared to when she was an atheist. 21:10
Alex seems a very thoughtful interviewer.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, your journey from being Muslim to atheist and now embracing Christianity is truly fascinating. It highlights the profound search for meaning and truth that many individuals experience. As you’ve explored these paths, one question stands out to me: What are the core differences between Islam and Christianity? Both faiths teach the importance of compassion, justice, and devotion, but they differ significantly in their understanding of God, salvation, and scripture. I admire your courage to share your story, and I’m eager to learn from your perspective on these differences. Thank you for sparking such meaningful conversations!
The fact that she’s not an atheist after she’s seen the horrors of religion is wild.
I am a Christian and I like Alex. Very nice atheist. I think he might be more Christian than many "Christhians"
You cannot gatekeep Christians. If you believe the Christian doctrine then you are in and if you don't then you are out.
This is hard to watch in real time see someone strip themselves of generalizable and scalable critical thinking.
I am happy to see someone find meaning and happiness…
@ if that’s the only way for her to be happy go for it, I’m talking about the pretzel twist of sentences she’s doing to justify her current beliefs.
@ or maybe they appear to be pretzel twists because you can’t or choose not to follow her reasoning
@@philipmildenberger2772 yeah you’re probably right, it just comes down to what you value as always. I personally value reasoning through information
I disagree. You can tell she is new to the faith, people don't argue themselves into faith. Because if you can be argued in you can be argued out.
She seems to be dealing with an experience that negates logical explanation, and that experience aligns with Christianity. I would not ask strong questions to someone who has been a Christian for a short period of time, all the critiques atheist gives to people of faith are old, and there are no real new arguments just repackaged. So it's better to speak to someone who deals with these often.
Over time she will likely have stronger reasonings for her faith.
Fantastic job, Alex. I don't agree with Ayaan on much, but I had a similar experience to her with Buddhism, so it's important to me that people treat her experience with respect and curiosity, as you did here, rather than badgering.