Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Politics Of Atheism In The West, Daniel Ryan Blazo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Though the term "atheism" encompasses all persons without belief in god(s), more people claim unbelief in god(s) than describe themselves as "convinced atheists" in every society on earth. While the extant social science research on religion and secularism rigorously explores the nuances of the religion/nonreligion divide, the scholarship largely ignores the complexity of irreligion, or the rejection of all religious truth claims involving supernatural phenomena. In this dissertation, I argue that a cross-national, comparative analysis of nonbelievers and avoatheists provides an ideal opportunity to gain leverage into the poorly understood political dynamics of irreligion, particularly in the context of Western …