It doesn’t often happen, but sometimes I get some pretty startling emails in response to my invitations.  Anger, accusations, rejections of AFA and all that we stand for, and all kinds of other unpleasantness.  The invitation to this Literary Cafe, I must say, brought out some doozies.  A real shame.  

But I was reminded of a quote from Aristotle that Sam Sorbo cited in her talk at our conference last month:  “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”  To me,  one of the hallmarks of the American Freedom Alliance  is that we are a community of educated minds, and I feel both grateful for the opportunity to engage in an event such as this, and sorrow for those who feel the need to lash out at the very idea of a book such as this. 

Whatever your beliefs or thoughts on the subject, I do hope you join us in what will be a riveting and challenging discussion. 

This Literary Cafe features Barak Lurie, whom many of you know from his weekly radio show on AM870 here in LA, and from his talk at our conference last month on the Left’s Crushing of Free Speech.

His book, Atheism Kills:  The Dangers of a World Without God, and Cause for Hope,  has been a bestseller for weeks now.  Dennis Prager, who wrote the foreword, just interviewed Barak last week – you can listen to the podcast here.

From the Amazon site: 

In Atheism Kills, Barak Lurie exposes the horrors of a world without God. Contrary to the mantra we’ve heard time and time again that religion is responsible for more deaths than anything else, it is in fact the absence of God which has killed—in obscene numbers. Ever since atheism first assumed government control in the French Revolution, it has done nothing but kill. Atheism has killed through its many deputies: progressivism, eugenics, fascism, and communism. Lurie shows that it was the godlessness in each of these ideologies that killed hundreds of millions. But atheism doesn’t just kill lives. It kills purpose, free will, beauty, compassion, a sense of the past and future, creativity, and freedom itself. Atheism offers only the horrors of chaos and totalitarianism. The world misplaces its focus on Radical Islam as the greatest threat to civilization. As horrible as it is, it is doing nothing and having no sense of self which are the true enemies. It was our will to fight and sense of mission that overcame fascism and communism. We must have these to keep Radical Islam at bay, too. This is why we must resist the growth of atheism. It was God that gave us our freedom. It was God who gave our sense of purpose that created civilization. Take those away, and there is nothing to fight for. In this way, Lurie shows that the lack of belief in God is our greatest danger. How does he know? Because like a hurricane, godlessness has only known how to destroy everything in its path. It has never created. Like there will always be fires, there will always be enemies that seek to destroy our civilization. But if we don’t have fire stations with crew, and protocol in each city to deal with fires, those fires will consume us. Likewise, how we prepare ourselves to deal with horrific ideologies will be what saves us. That preparation can only come with our embrace of the centrality of God.

Does Atheism Kill?  Join us for out Literary Café with Barak and learn more about this courageous and important book – and let’s have that conversation!

AFA’s Literary Cafes are great opportunities to meet others with the same concerns, intellectual curiosity and hunger for informed and stimulating conversation, not to mention the chance to meet brilliant thinkers like Barak.  We hope you join us for an engaging evening.  Tickets are $15 and include an  hors d’oeuvres reception.