Practicing atheism : culture, media, and ritual in the contemporary atheist network / Hannah K. Scheidt.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-208) and index.

Introduction -- Deconversion narratives: true and enlightened selves -- Scientific myth: science, religion, and atheism in popular television -- Autonomy or authority?: ideology, charism, and patriarchy -- Ritualized debate: order, redemption, and power in a contemporary media practice -- Atheist indoctrination?: practicing atheism in parenthood -- Conclusion: culture war as culture ritual.

"Practicing Atheism is a cultural study of contemporary atheism, focusing on how atheists negotiate meanings and values through media. This book examines a variety of cultural products, both corporate-driven and grassroots, that circulate messages about what atheism means - what ideas, values, affinities, and attitudes the term denotes. Through the creation, consumption, and exchange of this media, atheism gains positive content, the term signaling much more than lack of belief in god(s) for those who identify with the emergent culture. Primary source materials for this book include grassroots Internet communities, popular television programming, organized atheist events, and material culture representations of the movement, such as those found in atheist fan art. Practicing Atheism argues that atheist culture emerges from a unique tension with religion - a category atheists critique and resist but also, at times, imitate and approximate. Using a framework based on ritual studies, this book theorizes ambivalence, ambiguity, and "in-betweenness" as the essential condition of contemporary atheist culture"-- Provided by publisher.