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This study has its background in the debate about religion and the existence of God, which has been an ongoing issue throughout the Western cultural tradition. Today´s information society has been an impact on the increasing interest for this subject. The essay’s main task is to accomplish a rhetorical analysis of two books, Illusionen om Gud (2008) by atheist Richard Dawkins and Guds dödgrävare (2010) by Christian John Lennox, in order to investigate the authors’ use of rhetorical strategies to influence their audience. The texts are studied using a qualitative approach with the theoretical basis of some well-defined rhetorical variables: ethical, logical and pathetic means of persuasion, propaganda, and the important factor that a message always is presented in a certain context in which the recipients both have their own values and subjects to general truths and common frames of reference. The analysis is intended to convey the rhetorical essence of each author, and uses this image to discuss aims and methods in the communication. Both authors demonstrate varying propagandistic strategies and base their arguments from common context and widely recognized frames of reference. Lennox almost exclusively uses methodological logo arguments, while Dawkins often uses the pathetic persuasion founds.

For ten years from 1982, Victoria College was a large multi-campus college of advanced education providing a diverse range of higher education programs to Australian and overseas students. This thesis outlines the history of Victoria College. It considers the circumstances that led to its creation through the forced amalgamation of four previously independent colleges of advanced education: the State Colleges of Victoria at Burwood, Rusden, and Toorak and the Prahran College of Advanced Education and examines the events which led to its merger with Deakin University in 1992. (For complete abstract open document)

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the ideology of the cultural phenomenon, that is as political as it is controversial, the new atheism. By studying the ideas and values of four prominent new atheists, commonly referred to as the ‘four horsemen of the new atheism’, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, this study aims to, in some ways challenge, and in others, nuance, the categorization of the movement. Its adherents have often been labeled as, for example: ‘secular fundamentalists’, ‘evangelical’ and ‘radical secularists’. None of these designations are inherently wrong. But I think there is a more fitting term available: ‘societal secular maximalist’. This term is a modified version of ‘religious maximalism’, coined by the historian of religion at the University of Chicago, Bruce Lincoln. I argue that the new atheist ideology is not fundamentalistic because it admits fallibility if another theory where to disprove it within its own scientific discourse. Considering this fact, it does not hold is central ideological feature, most commonly a Darwinist theory of evolution, as absolute. Due to this, and some other factors, I argue that the societal secular maximalist categorization is more fitting because the scientific and humanistic views of the ‘four horsemen’ lay claim to all aspects of human existence, private and public, emotional, and factual along with the morals, ethics and aesthetics of our societies.

This diploma work analyzes the contemporary rise of the number of atheists in the United States of America, basing this presupposition on numerous nation-wide surveys, primarily conducted by Gallup Poll and Pew Research Center. It goes into depth on the definition of atheism and strictly delineates the meaning of this word and the use of its alternatives in the work. Given the fact that the thesis is written by a Czech author, it also provides necessary background covering the differences between Czech atheism and American atheism. Since the work is purposely not one of literary analysis but rather of socio-political and cultural nature, reasons for this decision are given in a separate subchapter analyzing Flannery O'Connor's novel Wise Blood. History of atheism in America is touched upon in the beginning of Chapter 3, but since the fundamental focus of this work is on the contemporary state of affairs, the roots of modern atheism in America are sought after mainly in the twentieth century. In particular, the greatest causes of the weakening of church's power and the rise of secularism (or atheism, for that matter) are given as following: Madalyn Murray O'Hair's fights against church's influence in public schools and against its public funding; the argument about the non-scientific nature of belief...