Diversos agrupamentos ateístas emergiram no Brasil nos últimos anos. Trata-se de pequeñas associagoes que surgem a partir de e sao mantidas gragas a iniciativa de atores individuáis que investem uma ...quantidade considerável de tempo, esforgo e, inclusive, dinheiro para sustentar uma causa que, nem se define fácilmente além da negagáo da ideia de deus, nem oferece recompensas materiais ou simbólicas aparentes. Este artigo procura explorar os sentidos que estes líderes ateístas atribuem a atividade militante, a partir de uma discussáo sobre a categoría weberiana de vocagáo. Argumenta-se que a artículagáo de um movimento de descrentes, tal como se configura no Brasil, constituí uma empreitada intrínsecamente ambigua, na medida em que resiste toda formalizagáo e definigáo para além do mínimo necessário para existir como tal. Sob o risco constante de devir "religiáo" o ateísmo nao se organiza se nao de forma embrionaria, e dos seus articuladores exige um engajamento considerável que, no entanto, se evita definir em termos de lideranga. A abordagem, de corte interpretativo, tem por base empírica um trabalho de campo etnográfico levado adiante entre setembro de 2016 e fevereiro de 2018 junto aos setores ateístas do Brasil.
Sonja Luehrmann explores the Soviet atheist effort to build a society without gods or spirits and its afterlife in post-Soviet religious revival. Combining archival research on atheist propaganda of ...the 1960s and 1970s with ethnographic fieldwork in the autonomous republic of Marij El in Russia's Volga region, Luehrmann examines how secularist culture-building reshaped religious practice and interreligious relations. One of the most palpable legacies of atheist propaganda is a widespread didactic orientation among the population and a faith in standardized programs of personal transformation as solutions to wider social problems. This didactic trend has parallels in globalized forms of Protestantism and Islam but differs from older uses of religious knowledge in rural Russia. At a time when the secularist modernization projects of the 20th century are widely perceived to have failed, Secularism Soviet Style emphasizes the affinities and shared histories of religious and atheist mobilizations.
The article is a reaction to the existing in the modern literature tendency which exaggerates the religious mind’s positive role in the cultural development and underestimates the role of atheism and ...free thinking. The author considers religion and atheism as a unity of the opposites, as two essential aspects of culture. The article traces the history of European atheism - from prehistoric times up to nowadays, and demonstrates that it played an important role in the development of science and modern social institutions. The polemics between these two types of world outlook is an everlasting and unalienable factor of culture’s development.
The last few years have seen a remarkable surge of popular interest in the topic of atheism. Books about atheism by writers like richard dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have figured prominently in ...bestseller lists and have attracted widespread discussion in the media. The ubiquity of public debates about atheism, especially in conscious opposition to the perceived social threat posed by faith and religion, has been startling. However, as gavin Hyman points out, despite their prevalence and popularity, what often characterises these debates is a lack of nuance and sophistication. They can be shrill, ignorant of the historical complexity of discussions about belief, and tend to lapse into caricature. What is needed is a clear and well-informed presentation of how atheistic ideas originated and developed, in order to illuminate their contemporary relevance and application. That task is what the author undertakes here.Charting the rise of atheism as an explicit philosophical position (notably in the work of denis diderot), Hyman traces its development in the ideas of descartes, Locke and Berkeley, and draws too on the work of important contemporary scholars like amos Funkenstein and michael J. Buckley. arguing that the plausibility and persuasiveness of atheism is sustained by the demise of a religion that is defined by the presuppositions and assumptions of modernity, the author boldly suggests that atheism - like the belief to which it is antipathetic - is itself vulnerable to a future that challenges the intellectual inheritance of the enlightenment.For anyone interested in the origins of atheism (whether they consider themselves to be 'an atheist', or 'religious', or indeed somewhere in-between), and in the rich cultural, philosophical and historical matrix out of which it emerged, A Short History of Atheism offers a fascinating exploration of
the often surprising co-dependency of faith and its negation.
One of the ideas in the debates concerning anti-Islamic activities is that atheists, especially prominent celebrity atheists – commonly known as ‘New Atheists’ – have provided support and ...justification for anti-Islamic attitudes and activities. Given that Sam Harris, one of the so-called New Atheists, stated that he started writing his first book, The End of Faith (2004), immediately after the 9/11 attacks, criticism of Islam is expected to be prevalent among some atheists. The more interesting questions, however, concern what kind of criticism there is, how to make sense of its reasons and motivations, whether it dominates the New Atheist agenda (as some argue), and whether the criticism has been somehow influential in various localities. In examining New Atheist publications and their possible presence at the local level, particularly in Finland, this article suggests that an exceptionally pronounced anti-Islamic approach applies mainly to Harris rather than to New Atheism as a whole. Instead, several other significant aspects come into play, highlighted by other New Atheists, and this is largely true of local atheist activism too. Thus, while a weak link between New Atheists and anti-Islamic activities can be made because of their promotion of strong criticism of religion, New Atheism is not the key to understanding such activities, at least in the Finnish context.
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