I always thought Ayaan Hirsi Ali belonged in the “fifth horseman” alongside Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris. After all, his arguments against religion were as strong and well expressed as those of the “four horsemen.” Perhaps it was because she focused most of her attacks on Islam rather than religion in general, but she was still an atheist and had no faith.
But things have changed, as shown Hurry up article below (click to read):
An excerpt, beginning with her discussing her own strict Muslim indoctrination, which was largely dispelled by reading Bertrand Russell’s essay, “Why am I not a Christian?»
You can understand why, to someone with such a religious upbringing, atheism seemed so appealing. Bertrand Russell offered a simple and free escape from an unbearable life of self-sacrifice and harassment of others. For him, there was no credible proof of the existence of God. Religion, Russell argued, was rooted in fear: “Fear is the basis of it all – fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. »
As an atheist, I thought I would lose this fear. I also discovered a whole new circle of friends, as different as one could imagine from the Muslim Brotherhood preachers. The more time I spent with them – people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins – the more I felt like I had made the right choice. Because atheists were intelligent. They were also a lot of fun.
So what has changed? Why do I consider myself a Christian now?
I don’t find the answer convincing: it is largely this: “only values derived from the Judeo-Christian religion can repel the pernicious values derived from this and other religions.” Witness it:
Part of the answer is global. Western civilization is threatened by three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the form of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilize a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating away at the moral fiber of the next generation.
We strive to repel these threats with modern, secular tools: military, economic, diplomatic and technological efforts to defeat, bribe, persuade, appease or monitor. And yet, with each new wave of conflict, we lose ground. Either we are running out of money, with a national debt running into tens of billions of dollars, or we are losing our lead in the technology race with China.
But we can only combat these formidable forces if we can answer the question: what unites us? The response “God is dead!” » seems insufficient. So is the attempt to find solace in the “liberal rules-based international order.” The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to preserve the heritage of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
No, all atheists are not united by the mantra “God is dead”. Most of us are secular humanists, adhering to a set of values largely developed by nonbelievers seeking to shape a better society. Furthermore, the basis on which many of these values are based predates the Judeo-Christian religion; in fact, some of them may include evolved tendencies that adapted to individuals living in small groups.
And why only the “Judeo-Christian” tradition? I can understand why Hirsi Ali leaves out Islam, but what about Buddhism or other “religious tradition legacies”? Anyway, all you need to know to refute this and what is below is that one cannot derive ethics from “religious tradition”, which may or may not ( but generally does) incorporate the so-called precepts of God, as in the Ten Commandments. , but from pure philosophical reflections which do not involve divinity.
Finally, as many religious people do, Hirsi Ali attributes any moralistic or philosophical advances in modern Western society to Judaism and Christianity, simply because the two faiths (primarily the latter) constituted the primary set of religious beliefs. In this society. But this does not mean that these religions were responsible for moral values, any more than they were responsible for them. scientist advanced, also widely developed in Judeo-Christian societies.
You would think that Hirsi Ali, who is not a stupid rabbit, would have heard of the dialogues of Euthphryo, in which Socrates asserts (via Plato) that one cannot derive piety (we can use the term “morality”) as “what the gods love”. “, for do the gods love piety simply because it is pious, or is something pious because the gods love it?
The point of this dialogue, translating “piety” into “morality”, is that we cannot convincingly argue that we derive, say, morality from “thou shalt not kill” simply because that is what the gods tell us to be good. If it was true, then everything the gods say must be moral, and if the gods said it was moral to kill people for no reason, well, that must be moral too. But this is not the case, because we can think of good (secular) reasons why it is wrong to kill people.
The conclusion is that our ideas about morality must be prior to the precepts of the gods. We do not need the gods to tell us what is right or wrong, because we have intuitive feelings, which can then be examined by secular examination, of what is right and what is wrong. false, and these feelings do not come from religion. (My view is that this is a social veneer, developed by trial and error, superimposed on morality developed when we lived in small groups.)
Ultimately, Hirsi Ali gives another reason for his deconversion, and it is the usual reason believers believe:
Yet I would not be honest if I attributed my embrace of Christianity solely to the realization that atheism is too weak and too divisive a doctrine to fortify us against our threatening enemies. I also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual comfort unbearable – almost self-destructive. Atheism has failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?
This didn’t seem to be a problem for Harris, Dennett, Dawkins or Hitchens!
Unfortunately, religion can give you meaning and purpose in life, but these are false. As you can see in 2018 in an article here titled “What is your meaning and purpose?“, 373 readers generally concluded that there is no “meaning and purpose to life” in religion except following God or Jesus. (This is one of the most popular articles most commented on than I’ve ever written.) In general, you define your own purpose and meaning.
Also see this later post for more thoughts on the matter.) Regarding religion in the later post I said this:
What people like (Ted) Peters and (Steve) Gould always forget is that religion is a source of meaning and purpose, but:
A. It is not the ONLY source of meaning and purpose in life; humanism is another (and better).
b. People in almost completely atheist countries, like Iceland or Denmark, don’t seem to be bored because they don’t have a religion to give them meaning and purpose. They get what they need from secular sources. I would rather spend time with a group of Danes than with a group of American theologians.
vs. Most importantly, religion doesn’t matter answer “why” in any agreed way. Yes, an individual can find “purpose” in slavish worship of Allah, but that is a personal response and not a general response. In fact, all answers to this question are subjective and personal and generally do not come from religion, although they may be supported by religion. It boils down to this: “Religion’s answers to questions of meaning and purpose all involve the will of God. » And there is no proof of the will of God, much less of God himself.
I will not return to the well-plowed grounds of this site. But it makes me ineffably sad when an incisive and skeptical thinker like Hirsi Ali concludes her article like this:
Unless we come up with something equally significant, I fear the erosion of our civilization will continue. And fortunately, there’s no need to seek out a new age concoction of medication and mindfulness. Christianity has everything.
This is why I no longer consider myself a Muslim apostate, but a fallen atheist. Of course, I still have a lot to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church every Sunday. But I recognized, during my long journey through a wilderness of fear and self-doubt, that there is a better way to deal with the challenges of existence than Islam or religion. disbelief had to offer.
Northern Europe is very atheist today, as is Scandinavia. Are these societies failing to meet the challenges of existence? I do not think so. These are some of the most empathetic and humane societies there are, and they are doing just fine without Christianity, thank you.
I would love to ask Hirsi Ali about the “truths” she learned while going to church. And I wonder if any of the three remaining riders ever will.
Here’s a video that begins around the time Hirsi Ali embraces her new faith; it was sent, with the link above, by a reader. The moderator, as you see, is also a believer, Jordan Peterson. I think Richard Dawkins would disagree with Hirsi Ali’s assertion that he is one of the most Christian people she knows, simply because he admires vespers and cathedrals!
