It’s been a year since I have done a review for The Catholic Company.  And I’ve had this book that entire time, which is why I said no more blogging until I got these reviews done.  It’s time.

I started to read The Godless Delusion: A Catholic Challenge to Modern Atheism (a year ago), but it made my head hurt, so I stopped.  It’s not the book’s fault.  I’m very out of practice with anything intellectual written for adults, spending so much of my time reading my children’s school books.  Algebra is pretty much my biggest challenge nowadays, and, for me, that’s as difficult as yawning.

I pulled it off the shelf about a month ago and made myself read it, one section at a time, as I sat in my daughters’ room enforcing quiet so Mary could fall asleep.  It still made my head hurt, because exercising seldom-used muscles is painful, but after doing it for a while, it didn’t hurt quite as much.

I love this book.  I fear that when called upon to utilize anything I gained from this book, I will fail, but then I will just say, “I have a book for you to read.”  One thing I did walk away with was this: it’s not my responsibility to prove that God exists, rather it is an atheist’s job to rationalize his worldview which really cannot be done.

The authors, Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley, do a great job of patiently explaining why atheism is not a natural, logical extension of a scientific inquiry, but rather is firmly rooted in blind faith and, unlike a Christian worldview, is full of contradictions and magic-wand waving.  “Don’t look at the man behind the curtain,” they say, while the Christian says, “That’s God behind the curtain!  Isn’t He marvelous!”

The atheistic worldview is so prevalent is today’s society that I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit by having a copy of this book.  Certainly any parent with teens or young adults in their lives should know how to counter the Darwinist/naturalism propaganda in which any of the natural sciences are steeped. I know that I would have benefited from reading this book when I was a teenager.  Perhaps it might have saved me a decade or so of angst.

This book is charitable enough that a budding atheist or a confused and defensive young intellectual can be handed it for private reading.  I do not think anyone who suffers extensively from pride will make it through, but those who do make it and who are seriously looking for truth will be given some not-very-easily dismissed arguments in favor of a Divine Creator.  For anyone who finds himself practicing backyard-barbeque and water-cooler apologetics, this book will definitely help you put the atheist on the defensive.

One final note: my 3 year old loved the cover of this book.  She found it amusing, perplexing, insane.  Every time she saw it, she had to talk about it.  “Why is he doing that, Mommy?”  “He’s going to get hurt, Mommy!”  “Mommy, that man is so silly!”  It’s a great cover…perfect.

I received this book for free from The Catholic Company in exchange for my honest review. If you blog and would like to be a Catholic Company reviewer and receive free books (they don’t pressure you to do your reviews quickly, I assure you), then check out this link.