Today’s ‘new atheism’ is rooted in the pervasive belief that whatever is right under one’s nose is all there is: nature … pleasure … family … material wealth … pets … summer at the beach … even suffering. It touts acceptance for whatever suits each person – behavior, lifestyle, values, new ‘understanding’ for old mores. There’s only one presence not recognized ... God.
The educated, ‘enlightened’ atheist of today – though he sees religion as useful for controlling human behavior – views it as nonsense. In centuries past, atheists acknowledged their religious contemporaries. Not now: as atheism has garnered unprecedented momentum, its everyone-knows-there’s-no-God message has saturated television, schools, textbooks, media, music, movies, research institutions, even environmental programs. Saving the environment (or certain species) is prioritized over man saving his soul for God. Because souls aren’t seen … they’re not there.
The Godless Delusion: A Catholic Challenge to Modern Atheism by Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley, helps readers realize the crisis of godlessness, and recognize the need to take atheism’s challenge seriously. Too much is at stake.
The book dispels contagious doubt and indifference about God, shows that man is created in God’s image, for an explicit purpose, and for a joyous eternity. It clarifies how God’s existence is evidenced through science and nature … as well as through free-will, intellect and emotion, and in God’s well-ordered plan for the world.
Grasping the reality of God – then articulating it logically to others – does more than win a debate. It can save a society. When people turn against belief in God, they’re derailed from following – or expecting others to follow – moral absolutes. And they’re no longer safe under the ‘care’ of their own governments.
“If there’s no absolute ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ (at the very least, in the mind of a society’s leader) – or those norms are no longer protected and enforced – a leader can act on whatever principles he wants, regardless of what he said to gain the confidence of his people before he came to power,” say Madrid and Hensley. “Hitler saw himself as implementing a Darwinian ‘law of nature’ to rid his society of the ‘unfit,’ and to bring about a master race.”
The Godless Delusion also shows how some popular books espousing atheism – like Richard Dawkins’, The God Delusion actually assume certain tenets of God’s presence (good) and of God’s absence (evil) in order to argue against them. “The atheist has to sit on God’s lap before he can slap God in the face,” says Madrid.
Making plain the legitimacy of God’s existence and the folly of an atheist-naturalist worldview, The Godless Delusion further explains:
- the arbitrary (yet popular) ‘ethics’ and hypocrisy of atheism
- the role of the mind, rationality, and knowledge in connection to God
- what life without God is like for an atheist
- the immutable and tangible “proof” for God
- additional proof for God, beyond physical matter
- why people’s quest for life-purpose points to God
- the “junk science” used to eradicate belief in God
"The New Atheists came on the contemporary scene with an unprecedented mixture of confidence and scorn. And, sadly, most of the books written in response have conveyed an impression of ad hoc defensiveness. But not this one.The Godless Delusion… wages a full-scale frontal assault on the tallest turret of the New Atheists' stronghold – the claim to moral and rational superiority. With remorseless logic, wit, skill, and boundless, joyful enthusiasm it lays waste that stronghold, routs the enemy, occupies the high ground for Christ their king, and dares anyone to retake it. Books on philosophical apologetics don't get more exhilarating than this."
— Ronald K. Tacelli, SJ, professor of philosophy, Boston College, co-author of Handbook of Christian Apologetics
“Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley look at the contradictions of the atheists with themselves, showing that above all, their arguments against God are at embarrassing odds with their own everyday experience and actions.”
— Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D., author of Ten Books that Screwed Up the World and Answering the New Atheism
“The Godless Delusion takes on the ‘new atheism’ of our times and pulls the rug right out from underneath it. I wholeheartedly recommend this work of apologetics for anyone who is serious about defending our faith in the existence of God.”
— Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs
“The Godless Delusion is a clear and compelling critique of naturalism and the ‘new atheism’ that rests upon it. Madrid and Hensley show that the secularist’s pose of moral and rational superiority is undermined by his own fundamental assumptions.”
— Edward Feser, Ph.D., author of The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism
