WTW30: Ayaan Hirsi Ali Converts to Christianity to Fight the Woke
If you were a part of the New Atheism movement at all, you likely remember the person many called the 5th horse-person of atheism, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Welp. She recently wrote an essay revealing that she has converted to Christianity. Why, you might wonder? To fight the woke. For real. Well, and to hate Islam better. So we brought in Heath Enwright, of the Scathing Atheist, among other great shows, to help us break down this bizarre conversion! Feel free to email us at lydia@seriouspod.com or thomas@seriouspod.com! Please pretty please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/wherethereswoke!
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Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
This is episode 30.
We've hit the big 3-0.
I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and I've got a fun one for you today.
So around about a month, a little more than a month ago, something significant happened to, at least for those in the old atheist community, now or ever in the past.
So back in the day, I was a member of the atheist community.
I suppose I still am, but I was part of that kind of new atheist movement in a way.
I've identified with a lot of those goals and with those leaders and such.
Some of that I very much regret.
Some of it I very much don't regret.
Just depends on kind of which parts of the argument we're focused on.
But one of the significant leaders in that, so there's the four horsemen of atheism, so-called, of new atheism.
Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett.
And then there was someone who many, not everybody, but many considered to be like the fifth beetle, you know, the fifth horse person of atheism, of new atheism.
And that was Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
By my memory, she sort of burst onto the scene in like 20, I don't know, 10 or something.
That isn't quite right.
We go through it in the recording you're going to hear.
But when she sort of burst into the scene, Hitchens and Dawkins and others really latched on to her and promoted her.
And she was an inspiring leader for people who were not really for people who were atheists, but more for people who hated Islam because she's an ex-Muslim.
And there's a whole story there.
So anyway, picture being the fifth horse person of New Atheism, and then flash forward to around a month ago in this year, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali has written an essay declaring that she is now a Christian.
So you might be thinking at this point, why are we talking about this on Where There's Woke?
Well, I don't think there's any way to avoid tipping this off in the naming of the episode, so you probably already know this, but that is because she cites as one of the foremost Problems, threats, challenges facing the world.
She cites wokeism and somehow becoming a Christian is going to help that.
So here to help break that down, a sort of a marriage of our shows.
We've got Heath Enright from The Scathing Atheist, and of course, Lydia and I. And so the three of us will put our heads together and figure out what's going on here and talk about this Ayaan Hirsi Ali conversion to Christianity.
Here you go.
Don't put down that shakshuka, everybody.
It's Heath Enright back for another visit.
Hello, everybody.
It's a very sad day.
We lost an atheist.
Did we?
Yeah.
Can't wait.
This is perfect overlap of our areas of interest.
Shakshuka for one.
Wait, no, I guess there's no connection there, but we'll just, that's our forever connection.
But also, yeah, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
I guess was an atheist, maybe?
It's actually unclear, but she was- Allegedly.
Anyone who was around for the atheist movement from 2000 circa, 2005 till now, will remember that she was a huge deal.
Christopher Hitchens kissed her ass to an uncomfortable degree.
I remember thinking, that was my impression of the time.
I was like, all right, man, this is weird.
This is getting to a weird degree.
And that was like 2007?
I sure hope Hitchens dies so he doesn't become horribly, horribly problematic for the rest of his life.
And he did.
Yeah, he had the decency.
He tapped out.
Not a day goes by.
Well, actually, that's not true.
Sometimes I think about that very thing.
I wonder where Christopher Hitchens would be, because I just...
Well, we'll get to it.
But that's actually part of the conversation today because Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to get back to the basic description, was an atheist.
She was more than anything anti-Islam, which was the most important thing to be in 2006-ish when she came up.
And she wrote an article for unheard.com, which I think also has a show.
I don't know.
I saw a little bit out about it, but I don't care enough.
There's too many things.
The unheard mentality podcast.
Yeah, kind of.
It is actually that.
The intro is like, combating heard mentality.
So it is like the unheard mentality podcast.
Oh, she's an unheard columnist.
Wow.
It's so popular.
It has columns too.
And so she came out and said, why I'm a Christian.
She wrote that recently, this month actually.
And naturally in our circles, that made a bit of a splash.
But I thought it was perfect for this show because A, We've got someone from Scathing Atheist, of course.
You are semi-interested in the question of atheism, Heath, I assume.
Express passing interest in religion and irreligion.
Genuine answer, though, yes, but like, what's next is my real interest in that.
Sure, yeah.
Zero gods, cool, what's next?
Let's have some morality.
Exactly.
It's not as though Scathing Atheist, every episode now for fucking 100 years that you've been doing it is like, There's no God!
Alright guys, it's episode 583.
Are we at zero Gods?
Yeah, we're all at zero Gods.
Because there are shows that are that bad.
Most of them have gone away, but for a while that was like what atheism was.
And also, if you did anything else, you had a bunch of angry neckbeards online being like, why don't you just stick to atheism?
And it's the very thing you're talking about where it's like, yeah, I mean... Shut up and dribble of atheism.
And so the tie-in to this show, you may be perhaps people listening are wondering, why are we talking about this?
Cause this is, you know, atheism and this isn't like an atheism show.
She cites as one of the three most important reasons for her conversion and the three biggest threats to like the world.
You're never going to guess what they are.
You're never going, Heath, you probably already know, otherwise I'd make you guess.
I bet it's going to be fun to circle the one that doesn't belong in this list.
Yeah.
Just as a rational person thinking, listener, what would you guess, listener?
What's the three biggest threats to the world?
Climate change would probably be number one to me, I think.
Climate change.
Because it kind of trumps all the other ones.
Nuclear proliferation.
Yeah.
Nuclear stuff, I'm not as worried about at this point.
Maybe the nukes would be good.
Maybe the nuclear winter helps with the global warming.
Have we thought of that?
So I think climate change, number one.
Number two would be like creeping authoritarianism and like fascism in every seemingly every government that ever caused by like just disproportionate reactions to immigration, like just absolute right wing fascism and fascistic reactions to people needing to migrate because of Reason number one, climate change, which is a huge, so it's like a reinforcing thing.
Economic injustice would be on my list for sure.
Yeah, I was going to say number three would be like that pervasive income inequality that feeds generational divide.
Yeah.
So let's see if we got any of the surveys.
Are we close?
Steve Harvey!
Do we get any of them?
Steve Harvey might agree with this list.
To be fair, I don't know if she says these are the biggest threats to the whole world, but she does say it's the biggest threat to, quote, Western civilization.
Well, and that's the only world that she cares about.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But it would be the same, like if somebody asked me what's the biggest threat to Western civilization, I'd be like, A, I don't, what is Western civilization?
Define that, please.
But B, if I answer your question, Subbing in like just civilization or like that.
It would be the same answers.
So I don't think it changes the question.
I think she said like life, humanity, freedom, and happiness or something like that.
Yeah.
It's the three biggest threats in a very big way is what she's claiming.
So what are they, hun?
The resurgent of great power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party.
And Vladimir Putin's Russia.
That's number one.
So TikTok.
I mean, authoritarianism, at least.
Yeah, like partial credit, you know, we could like.
She was doing OK for a second.
Yeah.
I mean, Chinese communist.
OK, isn't it weird how she's phrasing that already?
Like we should already just let's get into it, because this is this is down in the essay a bit.
But it's key point number one here is like what her threats to this are.
Yeah.
And it's literally, by the way, this part of the essay is under the sentence, so what changed?
Why do I call myself a Christian now?
So like, this is top, top thing going on here.
If you were to say, yeah, you know what's a major, I don't know if threat's a good word, but like a cause for concern, I could see discussion of China being well within that range, you know.
The Chinese government has found a way to both join the world markets, you know, and keep a tight lid on any sort of dissidents or anything like that.
Like, they've found a way to balance that seemingly.
And there is a real danger of this, like, techno-fascist kind of thing.
Like, that's certainly a concern.
But isn't it weird to say, like, yeah, you know what the threat is there?
The Chinese Communist Party.
It's like, is that really?
Yeah.
Isn't that weird?
Isn't that like, it just, I don't, I wouldn't even, that wouldn't be the top 10 things I'd think about listing about talking about China as an issue.
They're pretty heavily involved in international capitalism, so it's a weird way to frame it.
Yeah.
Bizarre.
I also think like, this is a weird thing.
Why a Christian now, and she cites Vladimir Putin's Russia, how long has he been in power?
There's this new country called China.
China's growing authoritarianism.
Like that's not, you know, post 2023.
They founded a new country called China.
And it's, it's so bad.
Tell you this.
How bad is it?
It's so bad.
I'm a Christian now.
That's how bad it is.
And Russia.
So she's thinking about starting some sort of, you know, Frigid war with Russia now, maybe.
Gosh, one more new country pops up, she's going to have to be like another religion.
What's the connection there between Christian and whatever?
I don't know.
We'll get to it.
So that's threat number one.
What's threat number two?
Threat number two is the rise of global Islamism.
The rise of global Islamism.
Which threatens to mobilize a vast population against the West.
That is, that's marvelous.
To quote the great Big Lebowski.
Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism.
At least it's an ethos.
No, I don't think that's what she was going for.
I mean, I don't like that Islam has power anywhere, nor do I like that any religion has power anywhere, but.
It's a weird thing to add to your list of the top three problems of the world.
The rise of global Islamism.
And the language on that clause that she follows it with, right, which threatens to mobilize a vast population against the West, is stoking, like, real fear images.
You know what this is like?
I don't know if you've had this experience.
Maybe you have, Heath.
You know when you go back to your hometown, After a really long time, you're like, fuck, I don't want to be here.
I don't want to see.
And then you see somebody and you're like, oh man, okay, well, I got to talk to this person.
And they're asking you what's going on with your life.
And you're like, yeah, no, doing so-and-so.
I've got the kids, got the whatever.
What's going on in your life?
And you find like, they're still just living there in the hometown that you grew up in, that you went to high school in.
Hanging out with Squooch.
We had some beers yesterday.
All right.
They're doing the same thing that they were doing there.
This is like that, because I haven't thought about Ayaan for a very long time.
And this is like, oh, you're in the news again.
What you been doing?
She's like, Islamism is a threat.
You're like, fuck, man, that's 2007.
You're still doing 2007, but now?
She's like, not only yes, but more yes.
We'll get to her biography.
She hates Islam.
She has good reason.
Valid for sure.
But, like, the rise of global Islamism in the year of our Lord 2023?
I don't even know what she's referring to.
Like, what in her mind?
What is rising?
What's the indicator that, like, shit, you know, it's on the rise?
Islamism.
What is that, do you think?
I think there's some elements of this that's related to the Israel-Hamas war and like the, I don't know, like support, I guess, that you're seeing in the West for Palestine.
And I think that that is probably concerning to her.
And that's kind of what's driving some of this.
Humanitarian support for the people of Palestine is like a big red flag for her.
You know the only thing that could explain that, Heath?
Islamism.
The only thing that could explain people being like, hey, maybe don't genocide this powerless population right now.
Like maybe don't kill all of them.
That person must be under the influence of extreme Islam.
I mean, yeah, a lot of my opinion on that avenue is based on my knowledge of Islam, for sure.
Yeah, no, you're right.
That probably is what, timing-wise, maybe is going on.
Yeah.
But what's the pillar number three, hun, in the threats to civilization?
The viral spread of, what do you think?
Drumroll!
Yeah.
Woke ideology, which is feeding into the moral fiber of the next generation.
First of all, I'd like to thank the Academy for this.
Good job, everybody listening.
We have achieved viral spread that is eating into the moral fiber of the next generation.
I didn't know we had done that quite yet.
It was on our list of things to do, but we've officially eaten into the moral fiber of the next generation.
And I just, for one, I'd like to say it takes a team.
It takes a team.
It's not me alone.
It takes, you know, like it's, there's all kinds of people that I need to thank for this.
Unbelievable.
Ayaan, pro tip, don't make lists of three.
That's fucking it.
Your already crazy thing is even crazier when you put it in this list form.
Just be like, I'm against woke ideology because I'm kind of an asshole.
But then you can make your argument, but like, it's one of the top three threats to humanity in your opinion.
And she's been feeling that way actually for a long time.
Yep.
That's what we want to talk about.
Yeah.
I mean, and I'm sure we'll get into it, but you, you go poking around and you'll find a lot of stuff.
I think that's what maybe the goal of today's show.
We should go, we'll go through more of this and we'll talk about some history of Ayaan.
But I think the kind of one of my goals for the show is showing a little bit how this is absolutely the most predictable fucking thing in the world.
Because I think there will be a lot of casual atheists or whatever, because I don't know how many like normies have heard of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Like she's pretty niche, maybe depending on where you are, like maybe in Dutch parliament or whatever the fuck like you've heard of her.
For the average listener, I don't know, unless you were there for atheism in that time, like you maybe haven't heard of her.
And I suspect that a lot of people, maybe this would have come as a surprise to a lot of people.
Maybe this would have been like, oh, whoa, wow, that person that Christopher Hitchens was best friends with apparently until he died and like was propping up, she's now converting to Christianity.
And it's actually looking back, not only with hindsight, but with like present sight, it was super predictable.
You know, and looking at the signs and looking at what she said back then, I think that a lot of what motivates me in all this is looking at how omnipresent this ideology has been in a lot of society, but also right down to even the atheist movement that I was a part of.
Like, a lot of this Right-wing reactionary viewpoints.
A lot of those viewpoints have been there the whole time.
But I, for one, did not notice them at the time, really.
I didn't.
I'll confess.
I didn't notice them at the time, or I thought some of them were right.
And I don't know, Heath, if what your memory of history is, but what do you think about that?
Do you have any observations about how you felt about her and this kind of thing back then?
So I wasn't paying much attention to it in 2006 when she first emerged as, you know, one of those big atheist voices at that point.
But certainly during that moment, like say, if you would ask me something about woke ideology in 2006, my opinion would have been way less enlightened than it is now.
I'd like to believe I've, you know, improved a little bit and become a little more reasonable.
Yeah, because we can trace kind of the source here and show why this is ultimately the most predictable thing in the world.
But before we do that, do we want to go through any biography?
Do we want to kind of talk more about Aion?
Yeah, we can do a little bit of that.
You know, I'm not going to delve deep, deep, deep into her history, but just so everyone has some context, like you said, she is sort of a niche personality for the broader public.
So Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia.
Her father was involved in politics there, you know, pretty well-to-do family.
And there was political challenges within Somalia at a variety of times, but one of those occurrences, her dad was actually imprisoned when she was pretty young.
And while he was imprisoned, he was very much against female genital mutilation, and her grandmother was not.
Her grandmother was into it.
And so while dad was in prison... Holy shit.
I actually didn't know that specific part.
Yeah, the grandma had a man come and do FGM on her.
Wow.
When she was five.
Terrifying.
Horrible.
Like I said, personal valid reason to be mad at Islam.
Not going to take that away from her.
Really awful.
Apparently also her dad had been married like 18 times or something.
He's had 18 different wives.
He has like 19 children.
Yeah.
It's a lot of work.
It's a lot of work.
No Shakshuka in that household.
Or maybe they have to make a lot of Shakshuka to feed everybody.
But no Beyonce or whatever the other thing was.
Yeah, no Beyonce, no time.
So he's released from prison and there's still, you know, problems within Somalia and he ends up taking the family and they move.
They basically kind of exile themselves a little bit for protecting everybody.
They move to Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia.
And while she's in Kenya, her dad is able to kind of help rebuild a life for all of them.
They end up pretty upper class in Kenya, and she went to an English-speaking Muslim school.
And while she was there in Kenya, I guess that coincided with the Muslim Brotherhood rise there, and she was into it.
Oh, right.
Yeah, that was her deconversion kind of story.
Yeah.
Right.
So she was very sympathetic towards the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood.
She started wearing a hijab to school and, you know, every day she completely clothed and everything.
And it was something that she was pretty invested in as a teenager.
She supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
She thought that was appropriate.
And it really kind of helped give her meaning at this pretty formative part of her life.
The next thing that happens, the way that she tells it, she was supposed to be getting on a plane to fly to Canada in a forced marriage.
Yeah.
An arranged marriage to her cousin.
Oh, wow.
I didn't catch that part.
And when she was supposed to get on the plane to Canada, she ended up hopping off in the Netherlands instead because she didn't want to marry her cousin who she was being forced to marry.
Apparently.
Oh, okay.
If true, again, I get it.
I get the beef with Islam if that's related, like if that's what's making you do that.
Right, but now she's a Christian and she hates secular stuff, but she was able to escape the terrible oppression thanks to one of the most secular countries in the world, the Netherlands, who granted asylum.
No, they're Western civilization, Heath.
You know what powers the trains, planes, and automobiles?
Christianity.
That's what underlies Western civilization.
Yeah.
So she sought asylum in the Netherlands as part of this.
And apparently a few years into a, you know, she ended up doing very well for herself and she was elected to be an MP.
Yeah.
She was an MP in the Netherlands.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she was part of a party that was very anti-immigration.
Shall we talk about which party she was elected under?
A party that I think some characterize as like classic liberal, but I have seen some- Oh, that's not what I've seen.
No, I've seen some characterizations that it's like, it's pretty right.
And very anti-immigration, which I think is incredible coming from someone who, you know, was able to immigrate.
Amazing.
Hi, I'm an immigrant.
Which party should I join?
Do you want to join the one that's super anti-immigrant?
Sold!
Yeah, no problem.
I'll just burn this bridge behind me.
I got it.
I got it.
And they used her as evidence that they weren't racist.
They were like, hey, look who's in our party though.
And I also think, I was reading an interview that she did, I think this one was with the New York Times, where they had asked her about like, you know, her feelings on immigration.
And she was like, well, it looks so different from what it was when I immigrated to the Netherlands.
When I immigrated, it was, you know, like a really nice place.
And like, there was like a pool there and, you know, they were very kind.
It was like almost a resort style thing is what she was describing.
She's like, and now they like put people in this place that looks like a prison.
And I was like, I'm so confused.
Yeah.
Nothing you're saying makes sense with the other things that are happening in your life and the things that like you're pushing towards.
So yeah, I love that idea that like, here's why we can't support immigration anymore.
They're separating children at the border.
So you don't want like people to migrate into that.
And you're like, wait, why are they doing that though?
Is it 'cause they're anti-immigration?
It's like, what do you mean you're complaining about the facilities that, how was that even meant?
How did she mean that?
Like, 'cause that's- - I don't know. - That is being done in order to stop, like to make it harder for immigrants. - Exactly. - It's not a cause of why immigration is bad. - And so she also was, you know, much later, super supportive of Trump's Muslim ban.
You know, some critics have said, how does this jibe with your stance that women and children in Islam are being just horribly deprived of these things, but then you're so incredibly in this camp of like, The Muslim ban is appropriate, and it's preventing then, you know, women and children from being able to escape, right?
Maybe that's the word she would use, in the same way that she did.
Kind of going back to when she was MP, apparently a film crew went and was interviewing her family, and they were like, we don't know what she's talking about.
Ooh, yeah.
And I would say her family is very much of the mindset, like, no one was forcing her to get married to her cousin.
I think they said that there was talk of the marriage to the cousin, but that she got on the plane, seemed excited.
I mean, who knows, right?
Yeah, I don't know.
Who knows?
They were only mildly encouraging marrying the cousin?
Like, I don't understand how that's a good walk back.
But they said, you know, she was free to leave at any time.
But her response to that, when that became known, you know, the Netherlands was like, you need to revoke her citizenship.
I was going to say, it's important context here.
She, I believe, had to have some story like that in order to get asylum in the Netherlands.
She also said that she was coming from Somalia, but she wasn't.
She was coming from Kenya.
So, she like left that out in a particular way.
She changed her name, which ended up being fine because she used her grandfather's name.
And apparently, another fun fact, they had a hard time tracking down her grandfather's name and kind of that lineage because he was born in like the 1800s.
And they were like, how is this possible?
And it's because her grandpa had her dad when he was 90 years old.
Yeah, it seems like she comes from a family of people who have a lot of kids and marriages.
So maybe, you know, one of those later ones.
But her response to that, the government was going to revoke her citizenship.
They actually didn't.
They investigated it and they didn't take her citizenship away.
They did something, didn't they?
Or did they just threaten it?
Because I saw coverage of like... Yeah, I think they threatened it.
They were looking into it.
And then I think the government eventually, like, there was a motion to, you know, let it go kind of thing because they were able to verify the name.
That wasn't illegal.
And then I think they were kind of like, well, what does it matter?
You know, she was from Somalia.
Like, wouldn't you also, you know, lie if you're trying to escape the situation?
She said that this information had been known since 2002.
This film thing happened in 2006.
And she was like, this has been in the public since 2002.
And she didn't really refute her family's characterization there of the marriage.
So I don't know.
Put that again in the box of it's all very confusing.
Back when I was involved in this kind of movement, I think the storyline, now it's coming back to me, she did that documentary, it was called Submission, and it's very anti-Muslim, obviously, and the director was assassinated by a Muslim, so, again, I get it, I get why she doesn't like Islam, you know, like, I understand it, but sort of, I remember the storyline among atheists being
Well, this effort to discredit her after the fact is because of like the progressive left that wants to apologize for Islam all the time is trying to discredit her by pointing out these lies.
But, you know, her story is like, yeah, this has been known since 2002.
It's not a secret.
It's, you know, it's no coincidence.
It's coming up now.
So that's what I remember.
It was like, and I remember like buying into that where it's like, yeah, this is politically motivated.
To try to discredit her because she's really anti-Muslim and she's making a documentary that's very anti-Muslim.
So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot going on there.
There's a lot going on there.
And a part of the assassination was the murderer pinned a note to his chest.
Yeah.
Incorporating death threats to Hirsi Ali.
And the Dutch government then started funding security detail for her.
That followed her around everywhere.
And a couple of years later, she got picked up to be a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, our friends over at AEI.
Yeah.
They come up all the time.
And then the Netherlands was paying for her security detail to travel with her to the United States, live there.
They were doing that over and over and over again, and it got very pricey.
And eventually they were like, "Hey, we can't do this unless, like, you keep living here." Right.
And she was like, I'm being forced to choose, you know, to like stay in the Netherlands or like risk being murdered was her characterization of that.
So.
Right.
So yeah, I mean, anti-radical Islam, sure.
But she doesn't seem to be able to parse out the difference between that and anti-Muslim people, which is ridiculous.
It's very easy to parse that out.
You mentioned she was in favor of Trump's Muslim ban.
Yeah.
Which is ridiculous, obviously, after hearing that story of how she found asylum in the Netherlands.
What do you think she means by, like, does she supports a ban, but also she's in favor of, like, really clever people who, like, get around the ban and that that's the amount she wants to be able to go places?
If you happen to be maybe plausibly in an arranged marriage situation with a cousin, then and only then should you be able to leave Here's what you do.
You have a dad from the 1800s who had you when he was 150, and then the math is weird, so they're like, okay, you're in.
Those are the only people who should be allowed.
That's an interesting place to go, because the difference between her perception of Islam and other religions is a very big theme here.
And I have, again, I have something that was around at this time that I guess I don't know.
I don't remember if I watched this specifically, but interviews like this, I know I saw that.
Well, I'll just play, I'm going to play some, uh, some clips of an interview from 2007.
This interview, watching this with today's mindset for me anyway, is pretty eyeopening.
Cause it's like, I'm endlessly impressed with the people who were pretty consistently liberal through all of the two thousands to now, you know?
I was not.
To circle back to what you were saying before, for sure.
When I was college age, at the beginning of the 2000s, I was, like, psyched about Ayn Rand.
I was such an asshole.
And then, you know, 9-11 happens and it's so easy to be an asshole in the wrong way about that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, and it's so easy to pretend like you didn't support any of that, even though we know from the polling that literally fucking everybody did except a few people.
And I'm not going to pretend like, yeah, I was, I was a kid, so I don't really blame myself that much.
But yeah, I was a conservative, super into that.
But even into 2007, 8, 9, 10, getting into the atheism part of it, I was not, I wouldn't say I was like super conservative by then, but the key overlap here is The Islamophobia is the hardcore hatred of Islam.
Again, some of which against radicals, against certain people.
Yeah, some of it's justified.
They're literally assassinations based on documentaries.
That should never fucking happen.
Like, I get it.
I get it.
But this was something that very much appealed to the atheist movement of the time because more than anything, hatred of Islam was like the motivating There are many versions of Islam, like there are many versions of Christianity, of Judaism, of all major religions.
later but listen to this interview from 2007 looking at this question of painting with a broad brush when it comes to islam but not other religions uh is a very is kind of what made me want to play this clip now really there are many versions of islam like there are many versions of christianity of judaism of all major religions
you're presenting it as one thing and it's just obviously not islam as a faith as a doctrine defined by what's in the quran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad and unreformed, unchallenged, is a monolith.
I could point to other things in other holy books that are equally offensive.
The other holy books, the Old Testament, the Bible, have become almost obsolete.
This is the best.
I'm sorry.
I have to just hype this for a sec because I literally laughed out loud.
Sorry.
Did she say the Bible has become obsolete to Christian and Jewish people?
Yeah.
So the response, yeah, just to set this up in case I know the audio is a little rough.
So she has made a bunch of assertions.
I'm trying not to play the whole clip because, you know, you don't want to just play another show on your show, but she has made some assertions and this is in, mind you, 2007.
She's made all kinds of assertions about Islam, and this guy, whose name is Avi Lewis, who I don't remember, but we'll have to check on him, see how he's doing.
Again, pretty amazing to see somebody pushing back on these talking points that long ago, at a time when certainly a lot of the world was pretty anti-Islam.
But anyway, he pushes back with like, yeah, but aren't there different kinds of Islam, or no?
And also, isn't there bad shit in the Bible, essentially?
Yeah, I mean, he was a step ahead of me.
I was like, hold on, no, there's a bunch of, like, definitely do murders because of the Old and New Testament.
Yeah, but it doesn't count for the following reasons, Heath.
As a faith, as a doctrine, defined by what's in the Quran and the example of the Prophet Muhammad, and unreformed, unchallenged, is a monolith.
I could point to other things in other holy books that are equally offensive.
Thank you.
The other holy books, the Old Testament, the Bible, have become almost obsolete.
There are no Christians who want to have the Bible replace any constitution in the Western world.
Oh my God.
They think the Constitution is the Bible here in the United States.
There are no Christians who want to have the Bible replace the Constitution.
That was one of those things where you're like, did somebody insert this back in time from now?
Like, there's no way that I heard that back then and was like, yeah, right?
Mike Pompeo wanted to probably literally do that and he's way more recent.
The Speaker of the House is literally a guy who wants to do that.
Like, it's a joke.
And it's so much of a joke that even this guy back then, I think, has a good response.
Let's see.
Okay, whoa.
You live in the United States.
This is a country where evangelical Christianity has ascended to the highest ranks of power, where conservative social values, drawn and justified by the Bible, are imposed on people every single day.
I think you're exaggerating.
They shoot abortion doctors in the United States of America.
Homophobia is rampant.
When abortion doctors in the United States were shot, the federal government reacted to it by going after the perpetrators, putting them on trial, and jailing them.
When in Iran, two men went after a woman and a man holding hands and shot them, they were acquitted by the Supreme Court.
That is the core difference.
Yeah, that's her counter argument.
There was a difference there, she highlights.
But then she, I'm guessing, completely skips the homophobia part of the question entirely.
Yeah, we'll get to that too.
That's another argument in another clip I have even today.
But yeah, this is the type of bad argument that I think you don't notice when it's on your side maybe as much that I'd like to point out, which is it's setting an unrealistic standard for one side versus the other.
The question is not, is the United States literally Iran but for Christians?
Like if that's the question, like if someone was like, yeah, Iran, United States, same country, just the different religion.
We'd be like, well, no, that's fucking stupid.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a nobody, nothing.
And then Ali, Iran and the United States are different.
And it's like, yeah.
Yeah.
No, we get that.
But like the point you made was that nobody anywhere wants to make the Bible the constitution.
That was your, your argument.
And then he's like, well, what about all these examples of precisely that?
And there are more that he didn't bring up, obviously.
And there's more every day.
It's actually getting worse.
What about all these examples?
And then she's like, here's the difference.
In Iran, it's totally an Islamic Republic.
And here it's not quite that.
It's like, yeah, OK, but that wasn't the standard that we were setting up.
Right.
The response from the FBI is not the key to this question.
It's the fact that somebody who's a religious fundamentalist was willing to murder people at an abortion clinic.
That's the point.
And even now, in her essay about that she's now a Christian, one of the quotes is, unlike Islam, Christianity outgrew its dogmatic stage.
This is in 2023 she's saying that.
It became increasingly clear that Christ's teaching implied not only a circumscribed role for religion as something separate from politics, Sorry.
Sorry.
Christians all agree that we should have a separation of church and state in the United States.
Not Mike Johnson.
Literally Speaker Mike Johnson.
Literally the Supreme Court doesn't believe in him.
Ion, when are you?
What are you talking about?
Are you a time lord?
But also, there's no time in which that actually made sense.
Right.
It's insane.
I could play this whole fucking interview.
It's so good.
It's short, but so good.
But I just have to play the end because it's brilliant.
And like, I just laughed out loud here.
Stolen elections.
that the democracy is completely always five minutes and i tell them you shouldn't you shouldn't have those about a motion you know democracy to be stolen my point is not so much when the democrats and office everyone's happy for when the public and saying office everything is bad it's that both republicans and uh...
democrats and the majority of americans fortunately that they can count for office they can get power as long as you're staggering the rich totally connected.
Yes.
In the pockets of your donors, you can do anything you want in America.
In America, you can come with no penny, nothing, no money, and you can become very wealthy.
Tell me which machine company you can do.
Is there a school where they teach you these American clichés?
Is it part of your application process?
That you have to also accept that I'm losing my...
It's got rules.
I can't believe you just said that.
I read Alex Tocqueville and I read it.
I read about democracy and I lived in countries that had no democracy, that had no founding fathers, that could not, have not invented or could not resolve.
So I don't find myself in the same luxury as you do.
You grew up in freedom and you can spit on freedom because you don't know what it is like to have freedom.
I haven't.
I know that there are many things wrong with America and I know that there are many things that are wrong with Americans.
But I still believe it's the best nation in the world.
Thanks for coming.
God, I love that.
De Tocqueville was writing in like 1835 about how great America was and the land of opportunity.
I think it's a little different now.
Conservatives love to cite De Tocqueville because for one, it makes you sound smart.
And for two, yeah, it's like, boy, this 60 year old country, here's some observations about it or whatever the fuck it was.
It's like, do you think any of that is remotely relevant now?
We didn't even have, like, by the way, when he wrote, when was that?
I actually don't know the precise year.
Alexis de Tocqueville, like, mid, early, mid-1800s was when that, right?
So, yeah, women couldn't vote, black people were still enslaved, so that, like, that country that is great and free, that one, that, okay, sure.
Nuts.
But I love him because he was like, I'm sorry.
I'm like, he's clearly so polite.
I think he might be Canadian.
I'm not sure.
But he was like, I'm sorry.
This is, I can't believe you said that.
I'm losing my, that was him losing his chill.
Was like, is there a school you go to where they teach you these?
Are you looking at a list of memes?
Yeah.
But it's so perfect where that kind of argument, and this was very prevalent back then, you say, okay, my side or Ayaan's side or Richard Dawkins' side or Hitchens or Sam Harris would be like, here's a problem with Islam.
And then someone would be like, yeah, but like, kind of look at the US.
And there is an element in which you can be like, yeah, there's matters of degree.
And that's where I try to be now and be like, yeah, there are some areas where obviously things are a bigger problem in Iran than the US.
Like, duh, like, of course.
But also the response back of, Well, yeah, but this is the greatest country in the world, and oh, you're complaining about these minor things that are actually not quite minor.
I didn't grow up with freedom.
You spit on freedom.
It's like, is that him spitting on freedom?
Yeah.
She literally says he's spitting on freedom.
Is that what he's spitting on?
Or was he like, yeah, this is what you're saying is kind of bullshit for these reasons.
You can easily hold the view that like, yeah, this system, this current state of the country is better than fucking, I don't know, Iran, Somalia, whatever you want to say.
Sure.
Okay.
The democracy might be in better shape.
Yeah, maybe.
But when she's like, look, I know there's problems with the US.
Like, genuinely, do you?
Because I feel like she has to take this totalizing view that either you're Islamic, fascist, whatever, or you're perfect freedom.
Like, I'm not sure she acknowledges that there's problems with the U.S.
I think she just says that.
Right.
And at the end of the day, she's equating good things that she sees about the U.S.
from 1835 or whatever as Christianity, not just there's some different types of economic opportunity, United States versus, for example, Iran.
Yeah.
I really wonder how much of the Christian part was always there, is what I've kind of wondered.
Like, I've known, like, for a while I've known she's always been conservative as fuck.
Like, pretty quick.
Like you said, she joined up with the American Enterprise Institute right away.
That was 2006.
Yep.
Very early.
Hoover Institution now.
And so it's like, were they always conservative?
That's what I wonder, you know?
Because for a while, I believed that Hitchens... I mean, Hitchens was really lefty at one time.
He was like far, far left at a certain time.
And I know he eventually turned into more of a conservative.
The Iraq War was a major thing there.
I want to do more on that, but it's such a big project that I don't know when I will.
But like, this is 2006, she's barely made the stage in terms of the U.S.
Yes, she's notable other places, but in terms of the U.S., she's barely even anything at this time.
She's just coming into prominence a little bit, and she's already, bam, I'm with the American enterprise.
You know what I mean?
It's not like she had an image for a while and then like a lot of people we know, not personally, but like a lot of these people where they're like, OK, now they're cashing in on the right wing money because they're whatever.
It's like that seems like from the start she was in with the right wing, hardcore right wing, whatever.
And people just didn't see it.
Like broadly, the atheist movement did not see that, I don't think, at this time.
I think they were just literally oblivious to it.
No, we were just psyched about anti-Islam as a movement.
Coming from a non-white woman.
Right, it was a good way to dunk on it.
Can we talk about several times in her essay where she does that thing of like describing how amazing Christianity is, but really she's describing the same problems that both Islam and Christianity have.
Like, it's so many times.
So early in her essay, she says something like, when I became an atheist, I liked not having a God who does everlasting punishment.
Sure.
But the title of the essay is, I'm a Christian now or something like that.
So then she has to be like, but now I like everlasting punishment again, but with a different name for God.
So it's great.
But I'm into hell.
Yeah.
She talked about how, okay, when she was involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, she was like, yeah, we did charity work, and during that time, we would demand that people convert to our religion.
Now I'm a Christian, though, and we don't do that.
It's all the same shit.
She's describing all the problems with Islam.
Another one, like getting to heaven, it can be used to manipulate people, but with Christianity, it's next paragraph.
It's so much of that.
Fucking bizarre.
Well, once again, under the theory that this is not new and this was inevitable, would you like me to play a clip from 2011, Heath, that has strong, strong implications or shows the roots of that very thing you're talking about?
Yeah, please.
Well, I'm going to leave a bit of a teaser there, a bit of a cliffhanger there, because Heath was kind enough to stay long so that we could do another whole part on this.
It was too much fun.
There's too much to analyze and poke fun at.
So you'll hear the video I'm referencing in the next part.
Thank you so much for listening.
As always, please support the show.
Avoid the auto ads at patreon.com slash where there's woke.
And we'll see you next time.
You know, some critics have said, how does this jive with apparently your opinion?
Sorry.
Otherwise I'll have to divorce you.
How does this jive with... Maybe I'm doing the hand jive.
You don't know what I'm doing in my little closet right now.
You can't say jive instead of jibe in front of Heath.