Former atheist finds "true meaning"
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A Muslim who became an atheist has now explained why Christianity is the only way to find meaning and bring purpose to life.
In a personal reflection of her discovery, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (pictured above) recalls how, in 2002, she came across a 1927 lecture by Bertrand Russell entitled ‘Why I am not a Christian’.
She had no idea that one day she would be compelled to write an essay with precisely the opposite title.
The harsh strictures of her upbringing in Kenya under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with the 2001 attacks on New York’s twin towers in the name of her religion, led her to embrace Russell’s offer of “a simple, zero-cost escape from an unbearable life of self-denial and harassment of other people”.
The 54-year-old Somali-born Dutch-American is a research fellow at Stanford University.
Part of the reason she now calls herself a Christian is global. The only credible answer to the formidable forces ranged against us today – from the resurgence of authoritarian regimes along with the rise of Islam – lies in the Judeo-Christian tradition, she writes.
Read the whole story in New Life Newspaper issue 351
