The thesis tackles the emergence and development of an intelectual movement of so-called new atheism, whose creation is connected to preexisting socio-political processes predominantly in the United States of America, and whose influence later on expands further into the wider anglophone social and political spheres. The movement that has defined itself as a bastion of rationalism, and consequentially as an opponent of religious influences on American, and ultimately within any society's and state's social and political processes, has in the context of evangelical outreach to the very top of American politics, and terrorism conducted by islamist extremists, established itself in a position from which it was able to present itself as a rational alternative to religious extremism. This reliance on rhetorics of rationalism, absence of emotions, and general intolerance toward religions has eventually also caused internal disputes between different fractions, all of which responded to new social and political realities with ever more pronounced internal strifes and divergences.
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