Its true nature—whether disguised in Eastern mysticism or American cynicism—is despair. In this thought-provoking and witty book, Ravi Zacharias provides Christians a clear apologetic for their faith.Formerly published as A Shattered Visage, The Real Face of Atheism systematically examines atheistic positions on human nature, the meaning of life, morality, the "First Cause," death, and more. With a new introduction and revisions throughout, The Real Face of Atheism is the perfect text for pastors, students, and thinking laypeople who want to improve their apologetic skill and reach out to non-believers.

    Carefully examining the debate in Anglo-American analytic philosophy regarding God's existence, this book presents a comprehensive critique of the arguments for the existence of God and a defense of arguments against the existence of God, showing in detail their relevance to atheism.

    In this introduction to skeptical curiosity, young readers learn that they are capable of figuring out what to believe and of knowing when there isn't enough information to decide.

    

    His good look at the good book is a closely reasoned examination of Scripture, designed to encourage rational analysis of the most influential document of Western civilization. Although the Bible has been consulted for more than twenty centuries, Allen asserts that there remains an extensive degree of common ignorance about it. Noting that most people today rarely read the Bible, Allen is convinced that the millions who do read it are not able to understand certain passages at all. Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality took form when Allen began his own exploration of the Bible, marking passages that struck him as extraordinarily beautiful, or those that were profoundly confusing. Spellbound by the very mystery of it, he perceived that much of the text leads directly to controversy. And, he urges, it is of greater importance now than ever before that all Americans be conversant with the Bible, partly because of those who would use Scriptures as a weapon to force their views on others. Allen presents his ideas as a series of alphabetically arranged essays on characters, events, and books of the Scriptures, as well as on such controversial topics as abortion, anti-Semitism, capital punishment, death, evolution, and original sin. He draws on the expertise of biblical scholars, theologians, and philosophers to demonstrate that fundamentalist assumptions about the reliability and authenticity of the Bible as the inviolable Word of God simply have no rational or factual basis. Allen highlights the errors, inconsistencies, and self-contradictions of the Bible. While not denying the value of many biblical passages, he argues that Americans can and should critique the Bible as they would any other historical document. While Allen finds much in the Bible with which one can take issue, his examination also reveals that much is meaningful. Allen's goal - to make people think reasonably about Scripture - is achieved through remarkable clear, readable, and insightful prose.

    Written with wisdom and eloquence, this book thoroughly but sensitively discusses biblical notions of death, the impact of science, the various attempts by immortalists to describe heaven, and the failure of spiritual "proofs." Corliss Lamont also argues for a new, ethical affirmation of life based upon an appreciation of our common mortality.

    Buckley investigates the origins and development of modern atheism and argues convincingly that its impetus lies paradoxically in the very attempts to counter it.  Although modern atheism finds its initial exponents in Denis Diderot and Paul d’Holbach in the eighteenth century, their works bring to completion a dialectical process that reaches back to the theologians and philosophers of an earlier period.  During the seventeenth century, theologians such as Leonard Lessius and Marin Mersenne determined that in order to defend the existence of god, religious apologetics must become philosophy, surrendering as its primary warrant any intrinsically religious experience or evidence.  The most influential philosophers of the period, René Descartes and Isaac Newton, and the theologians who followed them accepted this settlement, and the new sciences were enlisted to provide the foundation for religion. Almost no one suspected the profound contradictions that this process entailed and that would eventually resolve themselves through the negation of god.  In transferring to other areas of human experience and inquiry its fundamental responsibility to deal with the existence of god, religion dialectically generated its own denial.  The origins and extraordinary power of modern atheism lie with this progressive self-alienation of religion itself.