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 doesnï 1/2ï 1/2ï 1/2t 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 themse