Reddit mentions of Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashinable Enemies: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies

The unfortunately-titled book, Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart, is a pretty direct refutation of some of the New Atheist tropes.

For a somewhat more difficult read, his latest book, The Experience of God, takes on some of the more metaphysical misunderstandings that New Atheists (and many theists) make about what God actually is.

For a much easier and shorter summary, in a sense, of The Experience of God, take a look at DBH's article in First Things, God, Gods, and Fairies which covers similar ground in a much more introductory way (and has the benefit of being freely available).

You might be interested to read this book as he goes through that history specifically. Ignore the title, his editors wanted an inflammatory one. You'll find lots of references to the Church questioning the actions of Catholics both inside and outside the Church, emperors, and more.

The murderous inquisitions, according to David Bentley Hart in Atheist Delusions, are better understood as the State trying to usurp the Church. They are the first cries of secular Modernism, not the natural conclusion of the Papacy.

Absolutely. I say this because I made the same mistake as you did. I went to this website in the eighth grade curious about Christianity, and it among other things kept me an agnostic for four more years; thankfully, I met someone who corrected my misinformed views and then was confirmed into the Catholic Church my senior year of high school.

I would recommend a few books that ought to give you a better understanding of Christianity.

• Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart is a wonderful book that will correct everything you think you know about Christianity. This was the first book I read about the religion when I was an agnostic, and it completely changed my mindset regarding the religion. The thrust of the book is as a response to the New Atheist arguments for why Christianity is "poison." But this is not mere apologetics. It is a thorough and deep survey of why Christianity is not just a religion rich with moral, intellectual, and historical value, but how it completely changed the human condition. This book made me understand just how enormously important and significant Christianity's impact was on the world.
  
  
• The Light of Christ by Fr. Thomas Joseph White is a fantastic introduction to Christianity. Though it is in its essence Catholic, the book is a simple yet ingenious guide to Christianity and why it is important.
  
  
• God Is Not Nice by Ulrich Lehner is also fantastic. This book tears down the modern conception of God that has watered Him down to a cosmic guidance counsellor, and rebuilds him into what Christians in past Millennia understood Him as: the Creator of all, the infinite well of goodness, and a cosmic mystery. This is the shortest and simplest of the books, though I'll say it was not the most enjoyable for me personally. I much preferred Hart's witty and substantive take-down of the poor arguments of Christianity's adversaries.
  
  Whatever other specific questions about the faith, I would be more than happy to answer them. /r/catholicism is a great resource for a conservative and intellectually rigorous approach to the religion, but I do not want to demonstrate my biases too much.

Ultimately Western science only operates within a very specific set of philosophical assumptions. An intentional narrowing of parameters for the sake of understanding a particular part of creation in a particular way. But those philosophical assumptions are only justifiable within a Christian framework, and historically speaking, they only came about in the first place because of that framework.

EDIT: I should be more specific - a Catholic framework. Read a real history book, people.

EDIT 2: I know I'm going to get called out on this, so here are some history books which deal with Catholic engagement in science:

http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashinable-ebook/dp/B00D99NS4O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415805107&sr=8-1&keywords=atheist+delusions

A little first-thingsy (actually a lot, come to think of it), but he's blatantly trying to mimic the bombast of Hitchens, Dawkins, et al.

http://www.amazon.com/Catholicism-Science-Greenwood-Guides-Religion-ebook/dp/B00352KPS2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415805209&sr=8-1&keywords=catholicism+and+science

http://www.amazon.com/History-Christianity-First-Three-Thousand-ebook/dp/B0030CVQ5I/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415805286&sr=1-1&keywords=christianity+the+first+three+thousand+years

http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Illustrated-History-Civilization-Architecture/dp/1844837173/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415805312&sr=1-11&keywords=christianity+illustrated+history

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Christianity-David-Bentley-Hart/dp/1435129636/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415805358&sr=1-1&keywords=christianity+david+bentley+hart

DBH dials down the bitch in this book. I just remembered I have his pipe.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006Y35NEK?btkr=1

http://www.amazon.com/History-Christianity-Reformation-Courses-Teaching/dp/B0016RNDC8/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415805470&sr=1-4&keywords=brad+gregory

David Bentley Hart is unparalleled in terms of knowledge, wit, imagination, eloquence, and is perhaps the greatest living Christian thinker today.

He just put out a translation of the New Testament through Yale University Press which is incredible.

His newest book is called The Experience of God and it is mind-boggling.

Atheist Delusions absolutely eviscerates pop atheism.

His theological magum opus, The Beauty of the Infinite has been called the greatest work of theology so far this century.

The Doors of the Sea is required reading for anyone who struggles with the issue of evil.

His work is sublime.

I suspect this is something of a false understanding of history. I noticed in Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis mentions he doesn't believe in the dark ages and renaissance in the traditional sense, and that has sense got me wondering if there hasn't been some distortion of history to fit a cleaner narrative.

I just picked up this book by David Bentley Hart, which despite the inflammatory title, sets out to correct the common understanding of the last 2,000 years, the dark ages and renaissance included.

It's curious. I'm looking forward to learning other perspectives than what I was taught growing up, and suspect that the narrative your graph suggests is flawed.

Richard Dawkins is hardly an authority on any subject, especially philosophy. It doesn't get much more contradictory than Dawkins. Through the Darwinian materialist's lens, the concept of love as our culture has understood it for the past two thousand years (thanks to Christianity) does not exist. "Love" can only be reduced to a meaningless impulse meant to lead to reproduction. All the virtue and high concepts that we typically ascribe to love have to be dismissed as delusional.

Taking Dawkin's worldview into consideration, his assertion that you don't need physical evidence to know that someone loves you; that you can deduce this merely from the way one looks at you or through their body language, becomes outright absurd. Not to mention it doesn't even take into consideration the very real possibility for ulterior motives, for the human tendency of feigning & lying. This is inconsistent skepticism in so many ways.

What if I told you: You don't need physical evidence to know that God is real. You can feel His presence in times of prayer and you can witness His sovereignty through incredible synchronicities and unlikely events which seem to occur solely as an answer to your prayers. Looking from the outside, through the materialist's lens, this as unverifiable a claim as Dawkin's, yet his you will assent to and mine you will dismiss.

You are correct in saying that evidence comes in different ways - experiential evidence is one of them. And I offered you a method to experientially test out our claims for yourself, but you have also dismissed that.

In fact, you will dismiss literally everything I say, regardless of how sensible it may be, as you have already dismissed me as an idiot who needs to grow up, because of your presuppositions regarding people who have faith.

So please, I beg you, for the sake of truth (or at least for the sake of mere knowledge), read some of Richard Dawkin's opponents before hastily making up your mind. You will be surprised to find that there are highly intelligent voices out there (surprised thanks to Dawkin's tendency to pick the lowest hanging fruits as far as choosing debate opponents goes) who, frankly, outright destroy his arguments. Start with David Bentley Hart (a man Richard Dawkins would never dare debate, with good reason). Please do this.

I also invite you to come converse (civilly) with us on our Christian discord channel if you ever feel inclined.