Associação Brasileira de Ateus e Agnósticos (ATEA) x Estado brasileiro: ateísmo, laicidade e conflitos jurídicos na formação do primeiro movimento social ateísta do Brasil

Abstract

The main goal of the proposed work was the investigation of the Brazilian Association of Atheists and Agnostics (ATEA), founded in 2008 and currently presided over by Daniel Sottomaior. With its main objectives being the defence of atheism and the secular nature of the State, they believe in the judiciary power as the major way for their demands to be accomplished, engaging constantly in juridical conflict with the Brazilian State. To better comprehend those motivations and the notion of atheism proposed by the group, the current dissertation investigated the contemporary atheist experience, also known as "neo-atheism", defined by many authors as an organized movement of atheist people with wide reach in the West, which intends to demonstrate the evils of religion and act towards its extinction. As such, the dissertation intended to show how the very concept of "atheist" interpreted by ATEA was constituted, locating in XVIII century french materialism and in Baron d Holbach, a famous atheist philosopher of that time, important foundations that reverberate in contemporary atheism. The hypothesis is that ATEA can be considered the greatest representative of "neo-atheism" in Brazil, the first Brazilian atheist social movement, intent on developing an atheistic identity based on the apprehension of the world in a strictly materialistic way, in the defense of secularity interpreted as a total exclusion of religion from the State, as well as science as the major path in defence of atheism.