In a recent panel discussion, a former atheist again revealed her belief in God and expressed regret over her past attacks on Christianity.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, once an avowed atheist and women’s rights activist, made the statements at the inaugural Dissident Dialogues conference held in New York this past weekend (May 3-4, 2024), the Christian Post reports.

Ali, who played a major role in the New Atheist movement back in the early 2000s, was part of a panel discussion being hosted by UnHerd’s senior editor, Freddie Sayers.

The panel also included famed atheist Richard Dawkins, and the following comments were made during Ali’s discussion with Dawkins.

“What you value in Christianity is something that really is absolutely necessary to pass on to the next generation,” Ali said. “And we have failed the next generation by taking away from them that moral framework and telling them it’s nonsense and false. We have also not protected them from the external forces that come for their hearts, minds and souls.”

“Like you, I did mock faith, in general, and probably Christianity in particular, but I don’t do that anymore,” Ali continued. “I have come down to my knees to say that the people who always had faith have something that we who lost faith don’t have.”

“You’re coming from a place of ‘there’s nothing.’ And what has happened to me is, I think I have accepted that there is something. And when you accept that there is something, there’s a powerful entity — for me, (that’s) the God that turned me around,” Ali said.

When Ali announced her conversion to Christianity last year, Dawkins initially challenged its legitimacy in an open letter to Ali.

But after hearing Ali’s comments, Dawkins acknowledged that a genuine conversion had taken place.

“I came here prepared to persuade you, Ayaan, that you’re not a Christian,” Dawkins said. “I think you are a Christian, and I think Christianity is nonsense.”

Ironically, this is the same Dawkins, who, back in April 2024, similarly expressed regrets about the declining influence of Christianity in an interview with Rachel Johnson on Britain’s LBC.

“I do think we are culturally a Christian country. I call myself a cultural Christian,” Dawkins said. “I’m not a believer, but there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and a cultural Christian…. I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos, and I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense…. [I] would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches.”