The text is divided into three chapters. The first, "Modern Atheism," begins with a quick overview on access debate around what can be described as "modern", and then present the question of atheism as a vantage point that allows you to focus on the peculiar
complexities of modernity. A few words about the modern anthropocentric humanism founded by the Cartesian cogito, which meant God and transcendence with a geometric reason incapable of analogy, are sufficient to highlight the next step given by idealists systems
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to promote a philosophy of immanence: "God becomes an idea" (p. 23). The terminus of this process is reached contemporary atheism, with the "death of God" decreed by Nietzsche.
"Atheism-after than the modern" is the title of the second chapter. The author, referring to a wide range of authors, presents the postmodern in its many facets, conceiving it as a part of the modern as well as its continuation, its end, its overcoming or even the opposite ... These visions , despite their great diversity, all converge on the same goal of eliminating the foundational metaphysical theism. The result is a very different from the old atheism, since it assumes idolatrous aspects, neognostici and even polytheistic.
The situation is also described as "transmodernity", a kind of globalized society culture, based on the interpretation of the phenomena of terrorism - especially after September 11 - as a paradoxical blend of pre-modernity and post-modernity.
According to the analysis of the Kindred, atheism of recent times it retains modernity as a benchmark, declining religious in a triad of hard modern atheism, idolatry and atheism soft postmodern trans modern. These variations do not have rigid boundaries, but only shades and racking. This is the case of the newer type called, in fact, soft transmodern, which takes various forms, such as' "devout atheist" or peaceful - common among intellectuals and journalists - who does not believe in God but respects publicly the religious phenomenon and values which are included. Next to this phenomenon are also forms of anateismo and atheology: the first is represented by those who put themselves in an intermediate position in which theism and atheism freely interact without ever coming to a conclusion; in the second case, also called "post-modernity trans" (p. 67), you run a processodi deconstruction of religion, likened to fairy tales and magic. In this context, the author notes, the current atheism becomes a dangerous friend, since contaminated by "debolismo" (weak thought), polytheism and emotionalism. The conflict with theism is replaced by an abstract indifference that is claimed to be mutual.
Lorella Joint finally describes the "new atheism" in the third chapter, entitled "The company of atheists knights". This term relates primarily to Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Haris, who agree in the proposal of a theoretically soft atheism, pseudo-scientific, anti-religious, but engaged in a democratic debate, and especially the media.
Precisely this new type configures atheism atheist, that "that which does not recognize the nobility to the question of meaning, but would like to forget it, trying to find all the answers only in science, science, however, reach beyond their skills, loses rigor and scientific nature: an unscientific science to support the atheist atheism "(pp. 97-98).
Maria Aparecida Ferrari