I haven't written much about Ayaan Hirsi Ali on this blog, although she is a named member of the Intellectual Dark Web, but I have to say something about her converting to Christianity and it's this: I'm not surprised.
I think Ali has always been a right-wing opportunist - she's had a gig with the Koch-funded AEI - and there are more opportunities in right-wing funding circles for Christian nationalists than for atheists.
Jerry Coyne notes the change:I always thought that Ayaan Hirsi Ali belonged as the “fifth horseperson” alongside Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris. After all, her arguments against religion were as strong and well expressed as those of the “four horsemen”. Perhaps it was because she concentrated most of her attacks on Islam instead of religion in general, but she was still an atheist, and had no faith.
Like the "four horsemen" Ali used atheism as a cover for anti-Muslim hatred - just like Jerry Coyne has done.
I have to take a moment to note Coyne's usual hypocrisy - Peter Thiel spewed insanity as the keynote speaker at a conference full of right-wingers - Coyne was an invited speaker - that ended with Thiel quoting the Bible.
This is the end of his speech, from my transcript:
...we need to never underestimate the danger of, you know, one world, totalitarian state. Once you get that, hard hard to see what it ends. But, you know, there's always. You know, I there's always sort of the, the frame where. First Thessalonians five, chapter 3. The the political slogan of the Antichrist is peace and safety. And and I think you know what I what I want to suggest is that and and you get it when you have sort of a homogenized one world totalitarian state and and what I want to suggest in closing is perhaps we would uh do well to be a little bit more scared of the Antichrist and a little bit less scared of Armageddon, thank you very much.
And from a New Yorker article:
Thiel’s faith, which is under-examined in “The Contrarian,” also seems central to his world view and appeal. In 2015, at a talk hosted by the Newbigin House of Studies, Thiel told the audience that Christianity was “the prism with which I look at the whole world.”
Coyne has never said word one against Thiel.
And why not? My guess is because Coyne is getting money, directly or indirectly, from Thiel. We know his travel and Thiel conference buddy Anna Krylov gets money from Thiel - at the very least because she's published in Quillette.
UPDATE: P. Z. Myers was also not surprised, writing "...(Ali's) been working at the Hoover Institute with a lot of wealthy conservative Republicans, it was just going to take time to realize who was buttering her bread."
