The Gods of Atheism / Fr Vincent Miceli SJ

When He chiseled the Ten Commandments in stone, God did not write “Thou shalt not be an atheist.” Instead, He commanded: “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.” Why? Because man is incurably God-centered. He cannot exist without a god, and if he rejects the true God, he will invariably create his own false god.

Fr. Vincent Miceli breaks new ground in this fascinating analysis of seventeen Enlightenment theologians and philosophers who contributed to the rise of atheism. He explores their efforts and unfortunate successes in convincing mankind to deny the existence of God, and he brilliantly demonstrates how atheism has succeeded by creating mythical gods to stand in the place of the true God. What Fr. Miceli shows over and over is that each tenet of atheism doesn't deny the existence of a Higher Power; it simply replaces the true Power with a false power.

Fr. Miceli will help you spot those “practical atheists” of our day — those who, despite calling themselves Christians, actively water down Christianity and narcissistically reduce God to a reflection of their own personal desires.

You'll also learn how the devil tempts us against the Faith and how this leads to infidelity and eventually to habitual denials of God. Fr. Miceli gives important examples, such as how Feuerbach's overthrowing of the transcendent set the stage for the communist theories of Marx and Engels and how the influence of philosophers such as Camus, who disregarded prayer and repentance, has corrupted man's understanding of social justice.

There is no better book than The Gods of Atheism to help you understand how and why our society has fallen into such a state of religious indifference and corruption — and how to navigate, and even thrive in, this post-Christian culture with unwavering faith in the one true God.