Frequently, progressive Christians complain because atheists only address the extreme religious people. It’s not true, but anyway, here ya’ go. You can’t get anymore progressive than Ayaan. She is an intellectual powerhouse who escaped her fundamentalist family and rose from nothing to international fame. All the tropes and truisms are covered. Dawkins is very respectful but does not use kid gloves. This is historic.
This is ironic. It’s a great opportunity to introduce everyone to a newly released book by Dan Ariely called “Misbelief.” I have to take a moment to commend him for incorporating research in his book and showing us the findings rather than expressing opinions.
In the book, the author helps us understand what drives “rational” people to believe irrational things, such as conspiracy theories. He observed one mother who recently lost her job and had a hard time working from home and taking care of her son during a lockdown. This accumulated stress and anxiety that derived from the economic and general uncertainty that Covid brought, caused her to become an advocate for Covid conspiracy theories. And it all started when her son was sent home because he lost his mask.
Ms. Ali experienced just that. There is probably the personality aspect that made her more prone to irrational beliefs. There is also an aspect of helplessness, which he also deeply analyzed as well. She even said she “chose to accept it,” clearly showing that you must put your brain to some kind of delusion in order to feel what religious people feel. To sum it up, building up resilience is something that helps in these situations, which she did end up finding in religion. When you don’t find support in your community, you search for it in another, in her case this Christian community welcomed her with open arms. I understand her therapist, he or she was probably trying to save her but did so by pushing her down the rocky path. Instead of religion, she should have been offered a community that advocates for our planet, or animals. When I encountered a deep depression episode about 2 years ago, I turned to science instead. Listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson, I started valuing life like never before. Another book recriminating, that is written for the general public “Starry Messenger.” And I would challenge her, and everyone here to really take a moment and focus on its last chapter.
Welcome, Isidora! Very nice post. I’m looking for my next book. I just found it. 
Thank you very much for that video. I completely understand Ali’s stance and have mentioned in previous posts that I see a need for something like a humanist church. And there should be mandatory moral philosophy courses in schools to show students how to think about and treat others - without any religious references. I believe that that would be much better than the attenuated vaccine of Christianity.
One claim I cannot get past in any way is that Jesus was born from a virgin.
The fact is that it is impossible for a virgin female to give birth to a male child. It requires male DNA for a woman to produce a male child.
If Jesus was in fact conceived of a virgin, she would have been female and a clone of Mary. Thus the bible is factually wrong in that allegorical tale.
This is not to say that there never was a person named Jesus. It is just that saying Jesus was the son of God as conceived from a virgin, is just not genetically possible.
In the absence of male sperm, all offspring will be female and clones of the mother.
A perfect example is the Silvery Salamander species consisting of only clones of the mother. The female will mate with a male from another species, but reject his sperm because she already has a full complement of chromosomes and is unable to add a third strain. However, the act of mating itself triggers mitosis and she will give birth to offspring that has only her genes and are clones of the mother.
Silvery Salamanders are gynogens; lacking its own males, they breed with males of a different species. The males’ spermatophores only stimulate egg development; their genetic material does not contribute to the offspring’s DNA.[5] The females lay cylindrical egg masses and attach them to underwater twigs. Ambystoma platineum is rarely observed and its diet and lifestyle are unknown.[citation needed]
Rational Secular Humanism
Secular humanism propounds a rational ethics based on human experience . It is consequentialist: ethical choices are judged by their results. Secular humanist ethics appeals to science, reason, and experience to justify its ethical principles.
For a religious person to label atheism as encompassing a moral vacuum is an expression of religious hubris, just as the exclusive nature of different religions is the cause of war in the name of God and the same god at that.
Goodness is not acquired from belief in a supernatural demiurge. IMO, it is acquired from teaching that symbiosis is a preferred mode of living, as expressed in the symbiotic relationship between pollinating insects (honeybees) and flowering plants that feed some 70 % of the world’s herbivores and cover the earth with the most beautiful expressions of color and grace in flora.
Committing to believing in the earth’s biome and learning how to live in accordance with natural laws of symbiosis will result in a secular belief system that does not need to rely on imaginary powers as interpreted by mystics.
After all, the 10% living human biome relies on the 90% symbiotic bacteria to stay alive!
Instead of praying to a God, let’s learn how to talk to bacteria.
That is something that progressive communities could work on. A church welcomes you first, feeds you literally and/or spiritually, then preaches and later asks you to accept their fairy tale. But bring one conservative idea into a liberal get together, and they’ll sniff you out. The entry fee is high.
Such great facts and so insightful! Thank you for this post.
They exist, but making them part of the required curriculum is a challenge
But it’s (mandatory moral philosophy classes) a challenge that, if accomplished, would help fill the void that an intelligent person like Ali feels in her time of despair.
We have to understand and act on the void that atheism leaves.
In an interview Susan Blackmore talked of the religion classes they required in England, and how her friends would compare notes and joke about each of their religions of their birth, and how they all a pattern. It “inoculated” her against belief.
Critical thinking and rational thought ??? Both the poster and the subject matter
Take a closer look. Lets go for a drive.
First stop
Actually, those moral philosophies are contained in US secular Law.
The Law Library of Congress is the law library of the United States Congress. The Law Library of Congress holds the single most comprehensive and authoritative collection of domestic, foreign, and international legal materials in the world.
Established in 1832, its collections are currently housed in the James Madison Memorial Building of the Library of Congress. Law staff rely on and utilize 2.9 million volumes of primary legal sources, 102.18 million microforms, 99,000 reels of microfilm, 3.18 million pieces of microfiche, and 15,600 tangible electronic resources (CD-ROMs and other disks),[1] making it is the largest law library in the world.[2]
Law Library of Congress - Wikipedia
Interpret that “legal” means “ethical”.
“Legal” is easy; “Ethics” is not. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines ethics both as “a set of moral principles” and “principles of conduct governing an individual or a group.”
It defines morals as “of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior” and “sanctioned by or operative on one’s conscience or ethical obligation.”
MRSC - The Distinction between ‘Legal’ and ‘Ethical’ Behavior
Stop 2 . Hold my beer
What is your point? The idea here is provide your thoughts, not just links.
Listened to it. I don’t know what debate you watched, but this speech is not a response to it. Ali mentioned wokeism as a reason for becoming Christian, but didn’t defend it in the debate. I don’t see how those are connected. Her opinion about wokeism is worthy of discussion, although I disagree with many of her facts and most of her conclusions, but it has nothing to do with the religion debate.
Stop 3 . This one is a doozy . Showing off all her intellectual abilities on that powerhouse of rational and critical thinking platfrom PraegarU
Now I know you’re joking.
Oh brother! 
Oh double brother!!!
You might have completely missed the point of this post. But if you just to exchange insults, we’ll never know.
She is still the most progressive and intelligent by your lights?