Atheism and Christianity
After formally renouncing Islam, Ali identified as an atheist.
One of her decisions to stop believing in God was after reading the Atheïstisch manifest by Dutch philosopher Herman Philipse a year after the 9/11 attacks and that she agreed with arguments put forward by Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins on organized religion.
In November 2023,
Hirsi Ali converted to Christianity stating that "atheism can't equip us for civilisational war."[156][157] Explaining her decision in an essay for UnHerd Ali argued that the West was under threat from "the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of
woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation."
[157] Against such threats secular approaches, whether they be arguments, technologies or military force are, in her view, plainly inadequate.
[157] She concluded that upholding
Judeo-Christian traditions was the most credible answer for the Western society to survive.
[157] The essay generated criticism both from Christians, because it only argued that Christianity was culturally useful; and from atheists, "baffled" that she had not addressed what they considered materialist rebuttals of the Christian faith.
[158]
Some commentators, such as Sarah Jones writing for
New York magazine suggested that for Hirsi Ali,
"atheism only ever propped up her career as a culture warrior". Abandoning a New Atheist movement "in terminal decline" for a new vehicle, "she remains on the same crusade, inveighing against Islam and having simply exchanged one banner for another".[9]
