Since it was brought up in the comments, I thought I’d bring back my statement on the “Brights.”
There’s a lot of noise on the net right now about The Brights, the idea that we can invent a pleasant new name for godless atheists and thereby improve our image. It’s being pushed by luminaries like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. Here’s a nice quote that summarizes my opinion:
Perhaps the best of the available euphemisms for atheist is nontheist. It lacks the connotation of positive conviction that there is definitely no god, and it could therefore easily be embraced by Teapot or Tooth Fairy Agnostics. It is less familiar than atheist and lacks its phobic connotations. Yet, unlike a completely new coining, its meaning is clear. If we want a euphemism at all, nontheist is probably the best.
The alternative which I favor is to renounce all euphemisms and grasp the nettle of the word atheism itself, precisely because it is a taboo word carrying frissons of hysterical phobia. Critical mass may be harder to achieve than with some non-confrontational euphemism, but if we did achieve it with the dread word atheist, the political impact would be all the greater.
Guess who said that?
Richard Dawkins himself, as cited here. I have no idea what has happened to his good sense since.
I have absolutely no problem with the words “atheist”, “secular humanist”, “infidel”, “damned hellbound godless heathen”, or whatever names people want to apply to us. It’s very peculiar for an atheist to object to the terms “atheist” or “godless”, as if there was something negative about it. It’s even more pathetic to pick out some name you like, but that has never been applied to you, and ask that you be addressed by it—it smacks of a six-year-old who decides his name isn’t quite good enough, so he announces to the schoolyard that he’d like to be called “Spike” from now on. It’s laughable.
The argument that this is analogous to the appropriation of terms like “queer” and “gay” by the homosexual community is false. Those were used as terms of opprobrium by outsiders, and were seized and inverted by homosexuals to remove their sting, and as a mark of pride. This isn’t the case with “Bright”. It’s artificial and phony.
I’ve never liked the term “bright”. Maybe it’s just that I object to turning adjectives into nouns (almost as bad as turning nouns into verbs; e.g. funeralize, ugh!), but I think it’s mostly because it sounds pretentious.
I personally think that “rationalist” is as good as any. It nicely embodies my outlook on life (at least when it comes to religious beliefs :-)
I think the main reason for jettisoning “atheist” is simply practical: it avoids confusion. Unfortunately, the word has too many confusing different meanings that all get twisted and exploited very handily. And, at base, negative definitions that don’t have “non” in them are just going to continue to befuddle newbies.
Non-theist, non-believer: those words are clear and to the point. I don’t live my life running around declaring that there is no god, driving my car in an “atheist” way (whatever THAT would be). I’m just plain, not a believer. You guys believe all this stuff. I don’t. It’s that simple.
Brights, american atheists, all this nonsense about building a community of people who have nothing in common other than they DON’T have theism in common: it’s just a waste of everyone’s time. Let’s fight for values like honesty, sound science, real morality grounded in real values, and so forth: things that MEAN something. Being a non-theist, an atheist, a bright, doesn’t MEAN anything. It just means something we ain’t.
Personally I prefer to describe myself as a member of the reality-based community. It distinguishes me from nutjobs-who-happen-to-be-atheists like Larry Darby. It is intrinsically inclusive rather than exclusive, hence sounds more inviting to others. It isn’t a term many people have come across before, so provokes discourse. And frankly it describes me a lot better than atheism – if God were willing to participate in the Randi Challenge, I’d happily accept His existence.
The whole thing about “Bright” sounds an awful lot like the idea that saying “African-American” instead of “black” advances racial equality in the US.
Regarding the term “bright”…
PZM wrote:
Bingo!
Personally, I don’t see a problem with “atheist.” However, the one point that I would stress is that this is essentially a negative definition: it identifies a category of people simply on the basis of the fact that they believe there is no personal (and perhaps no impersonal god). Moreover, to the extent that people think of themselves primarily in terms of their atheism, they will tend to see themselves simply in terms of what they are against, not what they are for.
With regard to the term “rationalist,” it has a few too many different connotations – at least one of which is essentially the polar opposite of an “empiricist,” and while most who visit this blog would tend to identify more with empiricists, in certain respects this opposition is quite dated. (I would regard myself as a pantheistic humanist, I suppose, but that is a different matter.)
Anyway, it is about time to code…
Generally, I think one should adopt as few labels to one’s self as possible, but more to the point, I’m against any labels that one has to explain to people while their eyes start to glaze over. So “atheist” it is. I’ll give them more explanation if they ask for it or otherwise provoke me.
I agree, I’ve never cared for “bright”.
I always liked freethinker, which has a long history. But atheist doesn’t bother me, either. :-)
I don’t like the term “Bright”. It makes me feel like I should have transparent butterfly wings sticking out of my back and pixie dust sparkling all around me.
My only objection to the term “atheist” is that it allows people to jump to the conclusion that atheism functions for atheists the way religon functions for believers. What I say is, “I’m not a believer”. This is intelligible to Christians (it’s actually Christian language) and tells them what they need to know, and it’s also literally accurate.
With Christians, anyway, faith is the main point. They sometimes make it seem as though disagreements about fact are what’s at stake, but it’s really the refusal to let faith override reason and experience, and if you say it that way, they understand.
Theists are theists, because they organize their lives around God. But atheists aren’t atheists that way. They’re just deliberately and openly not theists.
“Bright” seems like focus-group adevertising language, like calling rapeseed oil “canola oil”, or calling the Chinese gooseberry “kiwi fruit”.
My problem with “bright” is that it implies the other folks are “dim.” This is unnecessarily insulting (though often, in fact, correct.)
There is a certain kind of driving which naturally leads to spontaneous prayer. ‘atheist driving’ is all other driving – that is, an atheist driver does not rely on divine intervention to make it from point A to point B safely.
The Chinese gooseberry is/was also known as “monkey fruit,” which I think stems from the fact that it’s brown and fuzzy like the stereotypical monkey, and that one of the Chinese names for it translates as “monkey’s peach.”
…
Also, rather than “nontheist,” or “brights” as alternatives to “atheist,” why not just call yourself a “Dagonite”? Or “MeijÅ«tei P. Z. Meyers”?
The problem with the word atheist is the ambiguity it has in the common vernacular with relation to agnostic. We know what it means, but doesn’t it get tiresome to explain the differences between the two words? I’m going to stick to godless heathen.
Bright, on the other hand, ranks right up there with New Coke.
I like “freethinker” myself when I’m referring to the broader community of people who reject organized religion, but may have deist feelings or simple doubt. “Atheist” is definitely a narrower term to apply to that subset of freethinkers who outright reject the idea of gods.
“Not a believer” is good, and I use it myself. But I have no objection to “godless heathen” if anyone would prefer to call me that. ;)
Atheists are pretty diverse group, even though small in number. To unite us under a label may be politically expedient, but too simplistic. It is difficult to organize people under a banner that identifies them as exclusively “not” something, i.e. not tennis-players, not-environmentalists, etc. Anti-something can certainly be adopted as an element of some broader unifying theme (a political platform), but to form an coherent, persistent organization that is based on being exclusively not-something, is tough.
Daniel Dennett writes in Breaking the spell:
“There was also a negative response, largely objecting to the term that had been chosen [not by me]: bright, which seemed to imply that others were dim or stupid.”
i think that may be a benefit. the nutjobs are constantly trying to demonise the opposition mainly through associating their names and labels with something undesirable. Coulter does this everytime she uses the word “Liberal” as a substitute for anything she doesn’t like regardless of how unrelated it is to being “Liberal”. Athiest, rationalist, humanist etc seem quite easy to tarnish in the minds of many. Unifying under a name which ridicules the opposition (which “bright” admittedly doesn’t do enough) would make it more difficult (well at least more fun to watch them try) to demonise when it implies that their position is insane. Imagine calling ourselves “not nutjobs like that dembski”, a bit like on all those right-wing sites that peddle all sorts of vile, hateful stuff followed by “this really gets the liberals going!!!”. It has after-all been used quite succesfully by movements such as “pro-life” and “pro-peace” which suggest something about contradicting views even though the opposition really aren’t “anti-life” or “anti-peace”.
“Brights” lends itself all too easily to sexpert, headlight and laundry jokes. [Something about washing your Brights in the blood of the Lamb immediately comes to mind…]
When I describe myself at all, I use “atheist”; it’s short, punchy, to the point. If I wish to confuse people at my door who are likely to start proselytising, I declare myself to be a Shelleyist [Shelley’s “The Necessity of Atheism” got him expelled from Oxford]. This takes them aback, as they have no idea what I’m talking about and are loath to admit it.
I must admit, tho’, that I do believe in the Parking Gods. I believe that they are omnipotent entities who preserve parking spaces for those who make blood sacrifcies of SUVs. Nothing will sway me from this deeply held belief…
i hate labels. they are limiting, inaccurate and typically demeaning for those who are labeled, and labels are the refuge for those who are intellectually lazy.
I just posted this defense earlier today on another forum that raised some of the same concerns as PZ and the comments here:
If you visit the Brights home page, http://www.the-brights.net you’ll find the antonym of “Brights” is “Supers” or “Supernaturalists”, not the “dims”, which is a straw man that was first used against brights by a popular televangelist, if I recall.
Many of us who identify with the bright movement don’t care for the name either, and there is a great deal of discussion within the movement about that. The main page encourages members to “love the idea, hate the name” if they like. The real point is to identify as having a naturalistic worldview, free of supernaturalism and mysticism—what you call yourself is your own business. For my part, I think
naturalism is fine as a term instead, but saying you are a naturalist tends to make people think you are either a nudist or a field researcher, heh.
Some brights have independently of the main movement put together some great resources on various subjects such as fallacymongering, too.
A lot of people seem eager to ciriticize the brights movement without actually finding out what they have to say. I use atheist more than bright myself (because I frequently need to describe myself in a theistic context, like it or not), but I prefer bright because the term lowers the status of theism to a subset of supernaturalism in general. Why should my self-description have any reference to theism in it when it has zero relevance to my worldview?
akari_house: I do believe that that in everyday English that bright and dim are opposites. Converting “bright” to a technical term whose opposite is “super” only serves to confuse and anger those who don’t know it’s being used as a technical term. Similar problems arise when the technical terms like “work” and “energy” are misinterpreted by people who don’t know or understand the tech.
If I tell a believer that I’m a “bright,” he or she would naturally think “So I guess that make me DIM?!” And, come to think of it, I suspect he or she would not respond well if I say “Well, no, you’re actually what we brights call a ‘supernatural'”.
Isaac Asimov disliked the term “atheist” because it defined him in terms of what he was not, so he settled on “humanist” to describe himself.
The one I’ve been liking comes from
“apathist” suits me much better. as in “i could give a (insert favorite curse word here) about that.”
JST: Do you expect gay people to call heterosexuals “sads”? Strangely, the antonym of gay in that context would appear to be “straight”…
Anyway, like I said, the term itself isn’t what is important to the movement, but the worldview. If the movement found another, more effective term to get the message across and rally under, than all the better. Certainly the founders of the movement have been reconsidering it. In the meantime, the controversial name does at least continue to attract attention and controversy and draw new blood in.
They sell lapel buttons and encourage MeetUps. It’s atheism geared towards cheerful extroverts. Background on term:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/7085538p-8033409c.html
In a new light
By Jennifer Garza — Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, July 23, 2003
…
After months of research, Geisert came up with the term that he says best describes the nonreligious: a “bright.”
“It’s positive, memorable and people don’t know what it means. If you say I’m a bright, they ask, ‘What’s that?’ and it gives you time to explain,” says Geisert, 71.
…
Geister says that for too long the words that have been used to describe nonreligious people have had negative cultural connotations.
Atheist? “Too much cultural baggage. People walk away from you as soon as they hear that,” he says. Nonbeliever? “I have beliefs, they’re just not the same as yours.” Agnostic? “A lot of people don’t know what it means.”
Geister picked “bright” mainly because the word was positive, cheerful and memorable. Some people have criticized the word because it sounds arrogant.
I suspect that one of the main reasons both Dawkins and Dennett have adopted and promoted the word “bright” is out of curiosity — to watch a meme try to spread, and see if they can help spread it. It’s a bit of an experiment. I believe Dawkins once said something to this effect.
Wow!
Quite a diversity of views. I must say that it really “bright-ened” my day! I like “free thinker” myself, it kind of goes along with the idea that the independent mind allows any value or allegiance to get between itself and reality — but I will use the term “atheist” if someone is attempting to shove religious material in my face on the streets. Likewise, I like the remarks about “labels” being limiting or oversimplified.
Regardless of the worldview which an individual endorses, an individual is always a bit more complex that which they profess to be. Likewise, when they conceive of themselves principally in terms of their worldview, when that worldview is brought into question, it is as if, psychologically, they are being attacked, and they will tend to react aggressively rather than actually examine the issues which are at hand.
This is a key part of Fundamentalism, of the “us vs. them” mentality which it is largely grounded in, and helps to explain the rigidity of their views. But refusing to think of oneself in terms of a given category or label and identifying primary with one’s independence of thought and relationship to reality, one achieves a certain plasticity and fluidity which permits one to follow where ever the evidence leads on any given issue – unlike those who always march lockstep with their religio-political, theocratic party.
I’m rather disappointed to see these tired old arguments yet again. Is this all atheism is about, running other atheists down because their name isn’t as intellectually satisfying as your name? “Brights” is just an excuse for people like us (the one who think science is a the best answer we have) to get cooperating with each other without the constant bickering and infighting that characterises atheism. The brights I know are of all different brands of non-belief, and we get on fine because we’re not looking at our differences or quibbling over names. I’m afraid you’re acting the atheist stereotype here, and it’s sad to see, when there is so much more that we could all do if we actually wanted to.
The Jets?
+++
There are many reasons I don’t like ‘athiest’, most of them already captured in the comments. I don’t like ‘bright’ either since it sounds more like PR than a reasonable definition of a broad world view.
I’m quite happy to say ‘I’m not a believer’ or if you want something a little more positive how about ‘I’m god free’? Which of course means we’ll all be called Godfreys, but I could live with that!
Hullo Mr Myres
On a minor point, you say the analogy to the appropriation of “terms like “queer” and “gay” by the homosexual community” fails because “Those were used as terms of opprobrium by outsiders, and were seized and inverted by homosexuals to remove their sting”. While this is true of “queer” the origin of “gay” is much less clear.
More to the point, if this seizing and inverting “isn’t the case with “Bright””, so what? What’s the problem with it being “artificial” in the sense of invented. Many words are invented anew. In changing perceptions the coining of new words is very often a useful boost.
Besides, the seizing on derrogatory words and inverting them tactic doesn’t seem to have worked all that well for secularism (“heretic”? “infidel”?).
But okay let’s put that aside. You don’t like the word. Why not? You say you “have absolutely no problem with the words “atheist”, “secular humanist”, “infidel”, “damned hellbound godless heathen”, or whatever names people want to apply to us.” Well if some people want to apply the name “Bright”, what’s the problem?
It’s an “up-word”. I think of it as relating to light and the Englightenment, not to superior mental agility. But yes it does have a bit of a connotation like that. And so what? We are trying to redress a balance in which the naturalistic in so many parts of the world are still so often regarded as lacking a sort of spiritual intelligence. If the positive connotations of ‘Bright’ are a bit of a sock to that then I think that’s an advantage.
You go on: “It’s very peculiar for an atheist to object to the terms “atheist” or “godless”, as if there was something negative about it.” Um, did you not spot the Greek prefix “a-” and the suffix “-less”. They are negative and that does matter. Consider the following:
If you ask a Christian what he believes he’s unlikely to respond “I don’t believe in fairy-monkey-hybrids” because fairy-monkey-hybrids have nothing to do with his worldview. So why should I respond to the same question with the equivalent of “I don’t believe in God”? That has nothing to do with my worldview either.
The argument that this is analogous to the appropriation of terms like “queer” and “gay” by the homosexual community is false. Those were used as terms of opprobrium by outsiders, and were seized and inverted by homosexuals to remove their sting, and as a mark of pride. This isn’t the case with “Bright”. It’s artificial and phony.
Agreed. So how about the word ‘heathen’? That actually would be analogous to gays appropriating ‘queer’. :-)
Atheists are pretty diverse group, even though small in number. To unite us under a label may be politically expedient, but too simplistic
Agreed. It implies that all people who are nontheistic are ‘the same thing’. Technically, it would even include (many/most?) Buddhists.
Why don’t Americans say something I hear fairly often from the British? Brits have no problem with saying “I’m not religious”. Seems pretty unambiguous to me.
I don’t like the term “Bright” but I can’t decide whether it’s because it’s precious, it would make me feel like a pretentious wanker if I used it, or some of each.
I’m happy to describe myself as an atheist. But I contain enough misanthropy that if someone walks away from me on hearing that, it is a minor relief as it just means one less person I have to be nice to.
“What I say is, “I’m not a believer”.”
Don’t believe in the equal rights for all? Too vague.
I’m a Christian (of the leftist variety – that is, in a political context I might actually refer to something Jesus said other than ‘the poor will always be with you’), but I’ve never, so long as I can remember, thought there was anything pejorative about “atheist”. If it happens to fit your views, use it. It is clear.
As to ‘brights’, wouldn’t your aim be to achieve a world where even the folk nobody would call ‘bright’ in any other context would also reject what you consider irrationalism?
“What I say is, “I’m not a believer”
Whenever I see that, I think it’s some kind of retort to the Monkees song.
Sorry.
Why don’t Americans say something I hear fairly often from the British? Brits have no problem with saying “I’m not religious”. Seems pretty unambiguous to me.
Doesn’t work. There also seems to be a fairly sizable contingent of Americans who claim no affiliation with any religion and yet believe in some sort of God.
Well, I was actually thinking about changing my handle, because there are too many “Spikes” over at Internet Infidels – But I’m going to keep it now! Thanks, PZ!
I am a free-thinker in terms of religion and politics.
Most believers understand it to mean someone who does not buy into the claims of religion, and it distinguishes me from the squishy liberals and right-wing nutjobs, neither of whom show much interest in thinkly freely about political matters.
Doesn’t work. There also seems to be a fairly sizable contingent of Americans who claim no affiliation with any religion and yet believe in some sort of God.
Sure, but would such people ouitright claim they’re not religious?
The Brights?
Sounds kinda whimpy to me. Im reminded of something Steven Colbert said last week: “Agnostic? Thats an Atheist without any balls, right?”
Surprisingly, yes. I’ve encountered quite a few people who make the claim, “I’m not religious, but I do believe in a higher power.” It’s a spiritual version of a diversified portfolio.
The problem with “nontheist” is that nobody uses it. It’s not part of our language. Sorry.
As for “bright,” well, it’s just so cheesy. Seriously. It’s embarassingly goofy.
We have a word that works just fine: “atheist.” So let’s keep it simple, people.
Because the point isn’t really what we call ourselves.
The point is that there is no such thing as a god.
Amen.
Here’s an instructive example of how clueless even the smartest lefties and scientists are about their own deep emotional block against accepting the reality of mass-communication and mass-decision-making in American now. Utterly blocked.
I haven’t read Dennet’s book, and only a couple articles about it, and I have seen reference to some sort of name-testing results. My intuition tells me whatever was done in that area was perfunctory, maybe a focus group or two. This word/concept choice was made without adequate reference to the extant scientific literature from the disciplines involved, nor was adequate consultation done of the decades of applications of the scientific knowledge about how to do such a rebranding successfully.
Anyone who understands the real-world dynamics I’m speaking of realizes that if this usage gains traction, the rightwing psychomarketers can, if they want, quickly turn it into a humiliating albatross and hang around “bright’s” necks. In a decade or two there will be endless hand-wringing in the blogosphere about how to shed the name and what went wrong. “Brights” is a hopeless gambit. In the eyes of the larger culture, “brights” will lay a veil of buffoonery and ridicule over the still visible “phobic content” of “atheist”. Let me push it a bit further for effect — if you can’t see this, you don’t get it.
Yarr gives voice to a sliver of this inability to comprehend. Specifically, Yarr doesn’t understand that the actual meaning of words is irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant, just as actual facts and actual reality are irrelevant. It’s all manufactured, not at will but close to it, by the far right. The word “liberal” was done in quite methodically, as liberals passively watched, long before MizCee showed up. The left mostly capitulates by standing around with their thumbs up their butts without any counter-programming or counter-strategy, both mandatory. Or they actively screw it up. An example is that while “pro-life” is a good [and obvious] choice, a bigger problem is “pro-choice” was an egregiously “stupid-choice” that the movement thereby grafted onto itself. Both types of mistakes result from being profoundly ignorant about the psychomarketing tactics and strategies that work, and why.
America has become all message, all the time; all media, all the time. Americans live in an artificial, virtually 100% manipulated environment. Our brains don’t know any better and process the information the same way environmental information was processed by human brains 50,000 years ago, the way our brains evolved to do it. The difference is our current environment is not natural, it’s manufactured.
This is how Americans are exposed to politics. Media content washes over people, wave after wave. These ideas, concepts, rebrandings, etc., that are actualized through smart choices, deft media manipulation, and lots of repetition, simply become part of the media environment that America lives in. Citizens don’t reason this stuff out. These memes simply become a fact of life that we accept as we accept the rest of our environment. Here’s a specific example of how Dub and Vee-Dub used this to drag the U.S. into Iraq.
I’m trained as a fiction writer. What the right has been doing for 30 years works exactly like fiction — their carefully thought-through, science-based, analyzed, tested, redesigned, retested, and monitored psychomarketing becomes vicarious reality. Only there is no book to alert us that it’s fiction.
Americans, with their 50,000-year-old software, now live in a forest of bites, ecosystems of bites, continents of bites, a world of bites, a universe of bites. Bites, bites, bites, bites, bites all day long. All bites. BITES.
This arena consists of highly specialized communication through certain media with strengths and weaknesses, to extremely distracted people, in a HIGHLY competitive environment where decades of research and application results are used by high-stakes, big-money players whose survival depends on the results! One guy comes up with an idea and wham, everyone takes it seriously, pro or con.
This is amateur hour. I’m not criticizing the name, nor the idea a name-change is needed. I’m criticizing the mentality that refuses to comprehend how contemporary society functions. It’s the same approach creationist take towards science. “There’s no need to look at nor to understand the data. The data are irrelevant.”
It’s an irrational approach by a generally uber-rational group. Deal with reality, not fantasies.
How do you do that? You start by understanding how what works works.
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First, do the research.
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A note about further discussion appearing as I wrote this.
Nowhere in the discussion could I find acknowledgement that such attempts will no longer take place in a stable environment. For any sort of political or cultural move for change, there’s a potential counterforce. The upper-echelon far-right strategists — the only group that’s effectively mastered psychomarketing in politics — will be co-evolving. If they deem such movement a threat, then right now, today, they’ve got the chops and we don’t. They’ll observe and analyze opponents’ counter-strategies, devise counter-counter-strategies and tactics, and make them operational in short order.
I’m not suggesting this will happen. Just flagging that these items are almost never part of the left’s discussions, and when they are, rarely discussed other than anecdotally.
“Brights” just sounds like a term used by some weird, sun-worshipping cult, if you ask me.
I have begun to refer to myself as a “Nullifidian – One of no faith; a sceptic in matters of religion.” Sir James Murray’s New English Dictionary, 1908 . . . From the Forgotten English Calendar.
“Brights” does have one advantage. It is much more concise than repeatedly saying “Please shove me into a locker.”
The problem with “nontheist” is that nobody uses it. It’s not part of our language. Sorry.
As for “bright,” well, it’s just so cheesy. Seriously. It’s embarassingly goofy.
We have a word that works just fine: “atheist.” So let’s keep it simple, people.
I still like ‘heathen’.
ISTM that “godless” is in some ways the equivalent of “queer” etc. — in the Bible, in the mouths of fundy preachers (and apparently also in the titles of books by righty nutjobs), it really is a term of opprobrium. To say one is proudly, happily godless (or even just: “Yes, I’m godless — your point?” is to commit that same sort of linguistic subversion.
And no one paid any attention to Skookum…
Skooky,
You have made this point in various forms many times int he past, I think – I _know_ – you are absolutely correct.
Please link through to my URL and send me an e-mail. I want to learn from you.
Hmmm, intersting that nobody uses “nontheist” but me. I really didn’t think I was the only one. I’ve only been using it lately (and liking it). And I am quite sure that I picked it up from other bloggers using it.
Yep, I’m liking “nontheist.” But I don’t mind going with the objectional term, “atheist” either. I also like “secular humanist.” Those are the terms I use. And “agnostic.”
I just can’t imagine telling someone, “I’m a freethinker.” And I cannot wrap my mind around “Brights.” I always thought it sounded like a New Age group. The last thing I want to be associated with. Well, almost.
I actually forget that terms like “atheist” and “secular humanist” have negative connotations. It sometimes requires a negative reaction to remind me. It’s disorienting when your world-view is so full of wonder and positive meaning to remember that others despise it like a maggots in your trashcan.
Personally I like ‘infidel’. It has a nice ring to it and goes well with maniacal laughter.
In any event, I dislike the term ‘bright’ for all the reasons mentioned above and because it is allowing the right wing to usurp the perfectly good term ‘atheist’ — without belief. I think there’s a lesson to be learned here from the way ‘geek’ was appropriated by techies and repositioned from being a negative appellation to a positive one. Another example would be with the GLBT movement and the word ‘queer’. We need to do similarly with atheist (and liberal and secular humanist) and reclaim the labels from the right wing.
Anyone up for an Atheist Pride parade?
lt.kizhe is right too, godless is a great word.
To respond to the first comment, English often uses adjectives as nouns: the rich, the poor, etc. To be consistent, “bright” should not be used with an “s”. Just the bright.
Maybe lucent would be a better PR term.
The opposite of bright could be dark or obscure, or unaware or erring.
Lucent? Ugh. Why not just adopt AT&T? :)
I think the motivation behind “bright” is to abandon the negative baggage behind the word “atheist”. I’m not sure that there’s any substantive difference between the two. Ordinarily I would just describe myself as “non-religious”.
If adopting the term “Bright” somehow leads to the development of a Bright Area at Epcot Center, then it could be a good thing.
I like the implications of the term freethinker, but as PZ points out, it does not explicitly specify that the conclusion of freeing thought is necessarily atheism. This is an advantage if one is trying to describe a group of like-minded people with whom once can have common goals and interesting discussions, but not precise enough if one wants a godless synonym for atheist.
Though atheism is not a religion, it is the right answer (for an atheist) to the question “what religion are you?” – the equivalent of responding the the question “what is your favourite flavour of ice cream?” by saying, “I don’t have a favourite; I am allergic to milk”. But in response to questions about worldview, morality, etc, I think free-thinker is more informative (and hopefully more accurate).
Q: If you are an atheist, how do you tell right from wrong?
A: I am a freethinker – I believe it is possible to come to rational conclusions about such things.
I dunno – from the beginning of the thread, I liked Corkscrew’s “member of the reality-based community”. Why not realist? Or Tacitus’ rationalist?
I’m surprised that nobody has take a cue from the “we’re not childless, we’re childfree” folks, and started saying “we’re not godless, we’re god-free”. (“We choose to call ourselves “god-free” rather than “godless,” because we feel the term “godless” implies that we’re missing something we want…”)
But pulling neologisms from air seldom works. I can’t think of an example where someone has declared a new word, and it’s actually been accepted into the language.
Personally, I have a sentimental attachment to “secular humanist”. I remember reading, years ago, some panicked fundamentalist screed about this terrible ideology casting its baleful shadow over the future of the nation, and, reading the provided bullet points, thinking “hey, those are all pretty good ideas”.
Hmm. This is very, very tangential to the point you’re making, but don’t transgendered people usually take new names as a part of the transitioning process? If this isn’t “pathetic” or “laughable”, why not? Someone’s picking a name they feel fits then, but no one else has ever used, then announcing to the schoolyard (such as it is) that they’ll be referred to only by this name from now on. (And sometimes retroactively as well.)
When I hear the word “gay”, as often as not I hear it in the context of “gay community”. There is no atheist community however, other than one of autonomous and rather cranky (for good reason) individuals who are well-meaning enough but not particularly driven to be the sort of people who would all join hands together as “Brights”. What the Brights have correctly surmised however is that it takes banding together to have an impact politically. The downside to that of course is that most of us atheists/humanists/rationalists/naturalists/etc. are not terribly willing to trade off part of our individuality in order to be part of a larger and more politically effective group. In this regard, atheists have something in common with the Democratic Party…
:-)
Hmm. This is very, very tangential to the point you’re making, but don’t transgendered people usually take new names as a part of the transitioning process? If this isn’t “pathetic” or “laughable”, why not? Someone’s picking a name they feel fits then, but no one else has ever used, then announcing to the schoolyard (such as it is) that they’ll be referred to only by this name from now on. (And sometimes retroactively as well.)
Because trans people have actually undergone a transition. Trying to be called “bright” instead of “atheist” is just slapping a sticky-note on top of it. I don’t see where that gets us. Invariably, because no one knows what a “bright” is, the person is going to have to explain that it means atheist (or agnostic, or humanist, or freethinker, or whatever). Inventing a meaningless name doesn’t help anything.
If you’re not an atheist, I think “humanist” is the best name, although I must profess a newfound love of being a “Godfrey”.
I think the whole idea that atheism needs rebranding is just ludicrous.
The reason atheism is a minority belief isn’t something solvable with a new name. The main problem is that it does not offer what people want from a religion. They want a social network and peer affirmation. To a very limited extent, you might get this from a blog comment board, but it is very thin gruel compared to meeting the same people every week, raising families together and so on.
There’s really no unifying community of atheists. There is just a group of people who came to a certain conclusion. It’s important to this minority of people that they came to the correct conclusion. For the vast majority of people, this is far less important than holding the same beliefs as a supportive peer group. If there was a genuinely supportive peer group of atheists–with schools, day cares, hospitals, picnics, softball leagues, etc.–it’s possible that atheists could increase their numbers. Without that, the number is limited by the percent of people who care more about understanding than about being accepted.
Anyway, I don’t think atheists are an oppressed minority. They’re underrepresented in politics. In some cases, they may also be a victim of hate crimes. But this is mostly a fairly successful group of people who hold down well-paying jobs and can choose not to practice any religion without feeling any direct harassment over it.
BTW, if you really want to rebrand atheists as “Brights” I can think of alternatives. We could rebrand ourselves as “Urkels” or “Poindexters”, which would have a similar but even stronger effect. For that matter, why not just cut to the chase and tape “kick me” signs to our butts.
There is less cohesion and more distinctions amongst different freethinkers – or more specifically as Corkscrew says the reality-based community. But tags have their values still.
Atheist, agnostic, and nontheist (for those who hasn’t yet decided, like children) was earlier rather useful qualitative distinctions. With the explosion of the web the major philosophers noncommon, inclusive and thus muddying definition of atheist to include all of the above means that those words are problematic. To make those qualitative distinctions again one has to make up entirely new tags.
Bright is too inclusive and as of yet it works best in english. If I need to specify my view I currently use “naturalistic atheist”. It is a mouthful, but would anyone get ‘natheist’? No, I didn’t think so.
I still haven’t really seen a term besides bright or naturalist that puts the emphasis on the absence of the supernatural, not god/s. Atheist also bothers me as I have some atheist friends that believe in ghosts and such, which happen to slip outside that definition. “Naturalistic atheist” IS a mouthful, and I find the atheist part somewhat redundant….
I myself use the word “atheist.” It’s short, universally understood, and punchy.
By “punchy” I mean, on rare occasions nosy strangers decide to turn my personal eschatological working-presumptions into their business; inquiring minds have to know. OK, to an atheist the sanctity of one’s religious views isn’t that big a deal, so I don’t cut the question off with “Mind your own business,” neither do I grab my slide rule, pitch my voice up an octave and snap out “I’m an atheist while you are a fool,” nor do I drop two octaves and growl, “I’m an atheist, and I hereby summon Satan to rape and butcher your children, ha ha ha ha!” All I do is issue is the simple, neutral, non-judgmental reply “I’m an atheist.” Yet the guy who’s prying into my personal affairs often reacts by exhibiting a face of pain and a grunt, as though I’ve punched him.
Really! You read people complaining about the rudeness of it, as though to admit that one is an atheist when asked is an unwarranted assault against both the interrogator and humankind as a whole. And it’s not like I enjoy punching these people, but don’t you think if you ask someone a question it’s your own fault when they deliver an answer you didn’t want to hear?
There have been a couple of occasions, when I was working on the sidewalk or in a park (I’m a land surveyor) when bug-eyed individuals started following me around, ranting as they went. I’m not getting paid to stand around and debate metaphysics with these folks, so I lie. The first time he asks “Are you saved????” I say, “Yeah, yeah, I sure am, um hmmm,” or if he asks “Do you believe in Jesus????” I quick-like answer, “Oh I sure do, definitely!” That last is technically correct but I know he’s not asking me “Do you believe in the likely historical existence of a Jew named Jesus who was executed around 30 AD,” but “Do you believe in a supernatural Jesus, a currently-existing spirit, murmuring in my ear even now, who bestows life-after-death?” Anyway, after I foist this consciously dishonest reply upon the evangelist, he usually leaves off and starts harassing other strangers. I suppose I should be ashamed of that, not so much for the lie as for the unconscionable way I pass the misery on to the next innocent bystander.
Personally, I like Paul Kurtz’s idea of using the term “skeptic.” It covers the territory of non-belief and, at the same time, signals that like any rational person, I am willing to be convinced of the existence of one or more all-powerful, etc. deities if compelling evidence can be shown of existence.
“The argument that this is analogous to the appropriation of terms like “queer” and “gay” by the homosexual community is false. Those were used as terms of opprobrium by outsiders, and were seized and inverted by homosexuals to remove their sting, and as a mark of pride.”
From my quick web search, it appears to me that the evidence for this is not so clear-cut.
According to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gay:
“The “Dictionary of American Slang” reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920.”
It cites some other uses that go back farther in the term “gay cat” or “gey cat,” but which are not so clearly linked to homosexuality.
Actually, no, “skeptic” has the same problem as a lot of other terms, in that one can be skeptical of some things, even if one is glued to the idea of a god. By trying to extend it to mean those that reject a god you get people saying, “See, they don’t believe in anything! That is why they have no morals!” I tend to agree with the precept that much of the reality based world has such a firm grasp on what they percieve to be reality that they literally can’t, in most cases, market anything well, and can’t, in some cases, actually deal rationally with possibilities that someone else might be intentionally manipulating their perceptions (and not necessarilly the people they already know are doing so). As an example, someone brought up Iraq again. Fine, we all know Bush is an idiot, but that ignores the fact that Saddam intentionally tried to convince people he had WMD, as well as the fact that documentation shows that Al Queda **knew** it was losing and was a) making up shit for the press to try to convince the US to pull out and b) trying to incite civil war, of which the only strategy they thought “might” work was to make the US look so bad that the American left would force a pull out. No one wants to admit that even some sand eating asshole that liked to kill innocent people is “better” than we are at manipulating the political situation and convincing the so called “reality” based community that the situation is hopeless. Some of us have our heads buried so far in the sand of “reality” that we are not seeing it. No, admitting that we are “partially” wrong, doesn’t make Bush of the right correct, but not admitting it makes us look like idiots. The choice of “Brights” is simply a symptom of a bigger problem with being unable to deal with a world in which not only is truth more often distorted by media fictions and the actions of nearly all parties, but we are being manipulated as well, while refusing to accept, recognize or effectively react to it. But then, if you don’t know you are being lied to, you can’t react to the lie very effectively. And we are for the most part almost as bad at marketing (i.e. distorting reality) as we are at recognizing when our own perceptions of it have been intentionally distorted.
I am relatively sure that probably the majority of Brights “hate” the term. But, until and unless someone gets off their ass to come up with something less loaded, biased or stupid…
No, what will happen instead is that a counter movement will quietly start marketing negatives in the shadows, manipulating us into mis-ques and stupid reactions, then finally spring the trap on us, while we stand around blaming it on the wrong people or simply staring blankly in confusion at how it happened. I personally get tired of some people accusing me of being on the wrong side simply because I refuse to stand like a deer in headlights and pretend that the left isn’t sometimes just as obsessed and clueless about what is going on as the idiots in the White House. This is why I refuse to fall in with the, “Gosh, those poor Arabs! If we just left them alone…”, crowd. The people running the show over there have the same idiology as the right in the US and they have spent hundreds of years **more** figuring out how to lie to people about what is going on than the current batch of Republican lunatics. Why the hell should we trust any non-attributable facts from Iraq or any place else, when we “know” they are intentionally trying to exagerate the situation to their benefit? Just because admitting it might mean Bush got “something” right? Got to be the single stupidest, non-reality based, peace of wish fullfilment since Bush thought there wouldn’t be any riots after the invasion.
The problem there is that I have heard many fundamentalist Christians also describe themselves as not being religious.
Frequently you’ll hear things like: “I don’t have a religion, I have a relationship with God…”
Yes it is utter nonsense, but is that surprising?
grendalkhan wrote:
In Jennifer Hecht’s Doubt, she cites a similar transformation by Benjamin Franklin:
She also gives other examples of thinkers and philosophers who had similar experiences, of reading what was being argued against, and finding them more compelling than the supposed refutations.
I like the idea of responding to the question “What religion are you?” with “Oh, I’m allergic to religion.” Heh.
But in looking at specific words, I think that “humanist”, “rationalist”, and “realist” are perhaps the easiest to understand because what is believed in is embedded in the words themselves: A humanist believes in humanity; a rationalist believes in rationality; a realist believes in reality.
It also suggests some unpleasant words for those who would define themselves in opposition: inhumanist; irrationalist; unrealist.
I still haven’t really seen a term besides bright or naturalist that puts the emphasis on the absence of the supernatural, not god/s.
I don’t see how the term “Bright” conveys any idea either way about supernaturalism to people previously unfamiliar with the “Brights” concept. In Canada, there is a group called “The Association for Bright Children”, which is not an alternative to Church School, but rather a group providing information, support, advocacy and activities for intelligent/gifted/creative/interested kids and their parents (though one hopes that bright children would become non-theistic freethinkers). As for “naturalist”, it is a bit better, though it would make some people think that the person being described was fond of long hikes through the woods (not that there’s anything wrong with that…).
PaulG: Yes, skeptic is one of the terms I use, too (and I’ve read a fair amount of what Kurtz has said on the subject). I don’t tend to stick to one term, but rather choose what is appropriate for the context.
Theo: That’s actually part the original point when the meme was coined. The term “a bright” used as a self-descriptive noun (not a adjective) will usually encourage people to ask what one is. The answer is “one who holds a naturalistic worldview free of supernaturalism and mysticism”. It’s a good, friendly conversation-starter. Alternately, and generally my own preference, you can skip “a bright” entirely and just say that you have a naturalistic worldview, which is at least less likely to be confusing than calling yourself a naturalist.
That it does have some connotations of intelligence to have this worldview isn’t really a negative thing, though. I mean, how many religious types infer that atheists are “spirtually deficient” or have a “low spiritual intelligence” or crap like that?
I do have to admit though that the choice of term does lead to people jumping to making assumptions about the movement without ever actually checking to see if they are correct, as evidenced by much of this comments thread…
Going back to PZ’s original comment, is the term artificial? Of course it is! It’s a deliberate self-conscious effort to spread a meme. Phony, though? Some of the most sincere and pro-active people for the naturalistic and skeptical causes I’ve met or know of are self-described brights…Penn and Teller, James Randi, Richard Dawkins to name a few more famous brights. Just because we use a corny word doesn’t mean we aren’t serious… :D
Stranger: “What religion are you?”
Me: “I’m allergic to religion.”
It’s a response I give any time I think I have a 25% or better chance to get a laugh from it.
SkookumPlanet:
We atheists are very smart people. We can’t be fooled by all the psycho-marketing you discuss, and the people who can be fooled by it, are no match for our Superior Intellect.
Todd: Also, there are religious atheists – for example, many (but not all) Buddhists. That’s why I would apply “areligious” to myself as well as “atheist”.
As for the issue about labels, I regard labels as necessary, but yes, they do come with dangers. I work around it when I use them (in technical contexts) by being precise as possible and to make sure to show that many labels are compatible. For example, to use the ones on this thread, I am at least skeptical, areligious, atheistic, ratio-empiricist, secular, humanist, realist.
Carlie: You can be a atheist and a non-realist for some of the technical meanings of realism. (That’s why one should avoid the terms rationalist and empiricist, too, they have technical meanings.)
As for secular humanist, well, I would argue that by the accepted understanding of the term, not all non-religious would qualify. Sure, they’d be secular, but humanist? That word has to do some work too, and if it has something like its usual meaning it rules out Ayn Rand, Schopenhauer and the like. The virulently selfish and so on may be secular but surely not humanist. “Skeptic” also has other nuances.
Owlmirror: There are philosophers (wrongheaded ones in my view, but be that as it may) who call themselves anti-realists. (Or, in some cases, anti-realists about X, for some X.)
What it does mean is that you are in serious need of an education in how to Maoket – er, that is, market your cause.
I’m not comfortable with using ‘skeptic’ as a label for the scientifically-minded– there are so many different kinds of skepticism. After all, what do we see in creationists & ID types if not a resolute (and highly selective) skepticism towards evidence for evolution?
The tricky job here is to separate healthy skepticism from the pathological kinds. I don’t have a simple definition here, but here are a few broad criteria:
A healthy skeptic doesn’t abjure all belief just because it’s possible for us to be wrong– but a healthy skeptic is ready to respond to real evidence against a belief she holds (if not by giving up the belief, at least by examining the evidence carefully and finding a serious response to it). (Here the point is that a healthy skeptic does not reject contrary evidence on the grounds that it counts against something she knows to be true– a nice tight circle I see some religious types as occupying, say, on the problem of evil.)
A healthy skeptic doesn’t see herself as in a better position to know about the world than other people with equally good access to information and sources of evidence–and she is aware that others are often in a better position, either literally or in terms of training and experience, to decide how things stand. (I think this is what’s behind Hume’s argument from the plurality of disagreeing religions to a skeptical attitude towards all their claims: These claims are all equally supported, for the modest skeptic, but they are all mutually contradictory, so none of them can be well supported.)
A healthy skeptic gives considerable weight to evidence based in observations of the natural world, not because there is some magical foundation in experience, but because people are capable of independently producing consistent reports about it–she also notices that, under some conditions, such reports carry much less weight than they usually do, precisely because their consistency with other reports and other physical evidence is known to break down in those conditions.
What surprises me the most is that so many bright people seem to grasp all these points when it comes to most claims about the world, but go all wobbly when it comes to religious beliefs. They dig a posthole deep into their understanding of evidence, and plant the flag of faith in it. Incomprehensible to me–I see it as a kind of comfortable cognitive self-indulgence.
Sometimes the sway of authority and its control over what is treated as legitimate discourse explains it– and perhaps that’s enough, when the influence of parents & other adults on children is added in. But it’s still very strange to see intellectually mature people with good critical faculties still holding specific doctrinal religious convictions (and often denying that they are fideists, which seems to me the only–and barely– intellectually sound option for them).
You could call yourself a “naturist”. If your interlocutor is familiar with that word it could be a great conversation starter. Or stopper, depending on the person. ;)
I think what you note is a feature, not a bug. “Secular humanist” covers two bases; one having to do with god, the other having to do with humanity. So using both terms emphasizes that dual coverage.
The term “humanist” is a good one is because it is so very orthogonal to the question of god and religion. I think it helps emphasize how irrelevant religion is with regards to ethics, morality, and human behavior. It also allows for making political common cause with those religionists who are inclined towards humanism.
And as you note, it’s also possible to use the term “secular” alone to just refer to lack of religious belief, isolated from any other personal opinions.
Huh. I did not know that. I hit Wikipedia for a brief overview. It reminds me somewhat of what I’ve read about classical Skepticism.
The philosophy seems overly-complex and way too abstract, but then, it usually is.
You could call yourself a “naturist”. If your interlocutor is familiar with that word it could be a great conversation starter.
Yes, there was a time when I used to have to stop and remember what the difference was between ‘naturist’ and ‘naturalist’. :-)
I’m going to confess a hidden secret – I’ve read a few Dan Brown books. How about Illuminati?
Here’s the meme that’ll work. It’s a twofer….
Highly detailed [i.e. artificially distressed and filthized] copies of Hell’s Angels riding jackets. Replace the circular “Hell’s Angels MC” with “I Am NOT A Monster! [SM]”
Give them away as membership enticements ONLY. Except for the Hollywood stars who will sign a contract agreeing to specific maximal exposure wearing them.
After the jacket’s 15 minutes of Haute Couture ascendancy, switch to promotional pocket protectors with the same service mark.
This will cover the water front.
The self-described ‘anti-realists’ are usually inspired by ideas that got started in mathematics: Intuitionists and consructivists hold that truth in mathematics is a matter of what’s shown (and meaning is a matter of our practices of proof, and — for applied math– how we apply the mathematical results to the world via measurements and calculations), not a matter of some independent and fully specified mathematical reality that our mathematical languages describe.
The anti-realists apply similar views to the empirical world: Truth comes down to what is (perhaps what will be) supported by evidence– undecidable claims are neither true nor false, even if the reasons for their undecidability rest (as a realist would say) in our particular epistemic position in this world (i.e. we’re not at the right place or time to settle the question). They reject the idea of a complete world that is the way it is entirely independently of our evidence, because they think the meaningfulness of our language’s sentences is too closely tied to the conditions of assertion to be separated from evidence in this way. Michael Dummett is one of the major figures in this school…
Personally, I’m not persuaded- I think assertion is important to meaning, but so is suppositional reasoning, and the coherence of our understanding of ourselves as perceivers in the world makes the normal explanation of why we lack evidence for claims that are nevertheless true (or false) perfectly reasonable. A kind of foundationalist epistemology & semantics underwrites the anti-realist view, but I’m more inclined to coherentism & a modest holism re meanings).
Brights is lame.
I like REALISTS.
Then Fundies can whisper to each other….that guy over there is a Realist.
Of course, an added bonus with REALISTS is an automatic movement magazine. Emeritus, of course.
And, I don’t want to start a Wiki edit war, but shouldn’t it’s entry on the anti-realists actually be just a link pointing to it’s exisitng pages on the Republican Party?
“Just because we use a corny word doesn’t mean we aren’t serious… :D”
Two things. Yes it does mean you’re not serious. At least, serious in any of the definitions I’m familiar with. You can take the most rational, sober philosophical posture possible, label it “lovable puppyism” and no one, aside from perhaps the author, is really going to be able to see past the title you’ve given it.
Maybe you feel that superficial. Maybe it is. However, I would contend that using silly euphamisms, and using silly emoticons (and that’s my second point), tends to degrade the message being sent as shallow whatever the true meaning is.
It seems to me that the most difficult consciousness’ to “raise” are those who think they’re already up there. You folks will get there. Keep on plugging! BTW, from me and on behalf of the Brights who happen to share my views on this, if there actually be any besides me that is, thanks for the mention PZ.
It is true that some anti-realists grew out of concerns related to intuitionism in mathematics, but I have an impression that there is also a residual religious attitude at work in some cases. This is gossip, but I got that impression about Bas van Fraassen, for instance, at his Nagel Lectures. The idea would be that if you deny that science really tells you anything about the way the world is beyond appearances, you sort of have a “hole” to put faith (including, of course, idealist views) back into the picture and feel “safe”. This should sound (to those who know the history of philosophy at all) like Kant, for obvious reasons.
I’m just now coming to this discussion, but I paid attention to Skooky. (Please somebody rich, fund an endowment chair for the public’s understanding of science and have people like SkookumPlanet occupy it–right on as usual.) The term “Bright” isn’t essentially the question, and it’s a gaggy term, I agree–it sounds snobby and isn’t going to fly here in America. But I don’t think we, whoever “we” are, can escape the rebranding issue–of course “we” need rebranding–for as Skookum points out, everything is rebranding these days and there are rules for what survives and what doesn’t in this media ecosystem. Good marketing is how information selfishly replicates itself, and good marketing is what the right wing has.
I think the real question is, what’s the goal of rebranding, whether it be the “Brights” motif or whatever? To gain new members (of what)? To plead for more tolerance? To be as effective as the right wing in changing the political landscape? I don’t think this has been sufficiently thought out–and if not enough people want to think like this, I think it’s better not to propose a new term at all.
Spike
My retirement from the psychomarketing seminar business/schtick fizzled last week. But that’s OK. I didn’t have anything else to do. But strangely, the amount I have to do this week has doubled.
I saw your request for contact and put a note responding in a post to PaulC late last night on PZ’s MizCee Clarification topic.
That comment to PaulC is the tail-end of my retirement from retirement, the actual fizzling-out of last week’s fizzle. In fact, I was so frazzled from fizzle post-midnight it’s a ridiculously looooooooooooooooong tail of a tail-end. I’m now reretired.
I found tumbler’s jabs at me on PZ’s “talk radio” topic very late. I responded on PZ’s “MizCee’s no evidence for evolution” post. If you haven’t seen what I was doing there for him while he was taking swings at me, and his response, it’s worth a look. His response is uncharacterizable without using the term “alternate universe”.
What an odd interlude… a tumble or two with tumbler. Weeks ago PZ came up with the appropriate nomenclature, “Aliens Among Us”.
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Kristine
Given such a chair, my first order of business would be to do a methodical search for the best person possible with the perfect combo of training, experience, knowledge and communication skills, convince them of my idea, then turn it all over to them, salary, palatial corner office, car and driver, everything.
I’d retain just one perk. The authority to show up and be a fly-on-the-wall. Now that would be an education!
Your idea is exactly what I’m talking about. There are some people doing that — Lakoff, Nisbett, and some [ahem] general rabble rousers — but it’s ad hoc primarily. From the link I gave Spike, applied here to “chairs”, we need “left philanthropist to fund all this. That is another group that’s been inexcusably retrograde in the face of the country’s slow-motion coup-de-etats. [sp]”
Yeah, I was so tired I not only didn’t spell check, the notes to do so are still embedded.
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And, if either of you are interested in seeing some of this applied, I used it deconstruct/dissect the psychology of a troll last week at grrrlscientist’s “Rise of the Feathered Dragons” post. Something I rarely do. It’s self-indulgent, I know, but it feels good.
On the other hand, it’s a thorough, relentless, point-by-point, I hope devastating, enumeration of the irrationalities and fantasies and venom inherent in the creationists’ toss-off mantras about lying scientists and faked evidence.
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And I somehow missed grendelkhan’s comment before. Her [coin flip] point is well taken, but she’s missed an obvious field where “someone has declared a new word, and it’s actually been accepted into the language,” is not only a regular occurrence, it’s a fundamental goal. I’d put my coke and kleenex down and give you a long list of such words, but those two are the only ones my tired brain will produce. Conversational English is full of these and new generations not alive at the coinage rarely understand the history.
But it’s gone one step beyond that. Psychomarketers have discovered the value of using their methodologies to create neologisms by taking pre-existing, “natural” words and replacing or augmenting their definitions. Anyone reading this who knows Latin and would like to create a neologism, here’s your chance. I presume it’s a new/unnamed type of neologism.
Name that New Neologism! Something like “neo[Latin root for “define/meaning”]ism. An example of type is also needed. Use “liberal”.
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I’m obviously still fatigued, I just saw ulg’s comment as the page loaded. I popped up the link, which looks like fun.
I believe Richard Dawkins is by now somehow ashamed of the Brigh. For proof: see again “the root of all evil” documental, Richard always introduces himself as an atheist…. he never dares use the word Bright :)
Ulg: no disagreement there.
ice weasel: I see your first point, although I’d argue that “gay” is a good example nonetheless.
As for your second point, I plead guilty there, it wasn’t the “brightest” thing I could have said (though certainly a number of brights-bashers in this thread have taken similar liberties…). But I’m not a spokesman for the cause other than as just an average joe who identifies with the movement. Actually I’ve only been an on-and-off participant in the movement that has fluctuated in their feelings of identification with the group over what are becoming its infant years now (perhaps my own occasional beef with the movement is that I’m less concilatory in my own attitude toward religion itself…but I like lumping religion as a subset of supernaturalism in general). PZ’s post and the following comments just brought it all back to me the same arguments we had within the movement itself back during its first formative year or so, and some of the arguments I made back then defending the idea.
pman: He was talking specifically about theistic subjects, in which case “atheist” is entirely appropriate. I would do the same, myself! Brights is not meant a replacement for atheism, it’s a more general umbrella term for a personal worldview.
I’m perfectly happy to refer to myself as an atheist, or a heathen, or a natural. I don’t like “bright” either. My favorite label, though, is “muggle”.
akari_house: Could you provide my with a recent statement is which Richard Dawkins still describes himself as a bright? He does seem awfully silent :/
pman; I recently attended an Atheist Alliance International conference in Iceland (www.samt.is/conference, although the site seems to be down at the moment), where Dawkins was a speaker. I asked him personally about the Brights, because of all the rumours that he doesn’t care for the movement anymore, and he said that he has absolutely nothing against the movement and that he was interested to know how it’s doing. Later on I saw him wearing a Brights lapel pin given to him by the co-founders Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell, who also were at the conference.
I suspect the reason he didn’t use “Bright” in the “Root of All Evil?” documentary is because that documentary doesn’t really agree with the aims of the movement, which is civic equality, not to eradicate religion. RoAE?’s success mostly depends on shock value and I don’t think subtle concepts as the Brights would work in that context.
PaulC: “I think the whole idea that atheism needs rebranding is just ludicrous.”
The term ‘bright’ isn’t a rebranding of atheism – it’s not a rebranding of anything. Atheism is a negative term that means “without gods” – the term bright doesn’t mean that – it means someone who has a naturalistic view of the world, which implies they don’t have supernatural or mystical concepts within their worldview, and covers atheists, agnostics, humanists, universalists, etc. and more importantly, it covers lots of people who would never think of themselves as an ‘atheist’. Most of the people who are registered as Brights, which includes such well known atheists as Dawkins, also continue to call themselves whatever they called themselves before where appropriate, as well as ‘a bright’. Why though do you want to define your entire life by something you don’t believe in, namely gods? I prefer to be just me, and my worldview to be based upon the natural world – hence I’m primarily a bright, and only incidentally an atheist (in fact I don’t even consider gods as a valid concept, let alone not believe in any).
The interesting thing is that the only people who make any fuss about the name are the died-in-the-wool atheists. Everyone else we ever come across are interested in the idea that atheism and related viewpoints can be friendly and relevant, and that includes religious people. None of them ever assume that we’re passing ourselves off as more intelligent or that we’re implying that they’re dim. No one apart from atheists make those assertions, and no one apart from atheists insists that we call ourselves atheists. We have very friendly relations with some moderate religious groups, such as the URI, and they are surprised that atheistic types can be downright nice.
It’s unfortunately mostly atheists who loudly complain that no one will like the name, but the facts don’t bear this argument out, so I’m afraid I can’t see any rational explanation for atheists to continue making it.
I agree that what atheism needs is a social context. The Brights forum has as a specific aim to provide a safe sanctuary for non-religious people to meet up and talk without fear of being shouted down by fundies from either camp. Lots of American brights who join comment how nice it is to have friendly people who don’t tear them apart every time they talk, even if there is disagreement. We try to foster that atmosphere – it’s a small step but it makes a difference.
But ‘Bright’ is a rebranding from the far more straightforward ‘Rationalist’.
That’s weird, Caledonian – I’m not a rationalist. All my actionas aren’t reasoned and all my knowledge doesn’t come from reason. I’m a Bright; I don’t believe in anything supernatural. That doesn’t mean I’m not irrational and emotional a lot of the time, I AM an animal after all!
It’s just one of those long to admit mistakes!, like those medications that ended up being addicting substances; for Valium and related it took almost 20 years before public awareness of the problem. Of course it will not take that long with “Bright”, not that rewarding :)
Pman – I’m glad to see you don’t take it too seriously. That’s good. You’re getting the idea :P
I joined, because I saw the Bright movement as a possible way for atheists of all stripes to form a political force – a common voice speaking to elected officials – as together we form a none-too-small voting block. But, counter to the right, where all a politician has to say is “god” and they get votes and an “amen” from their constituents – I’ve found trying to get atheists to agree on a position is like trying to herd cats – as some of the lively debates around here show.
The midsummer holiday was long and eventful, apparently so was this thread.
“I still haven’t really seen a term besides bright or naturalist that puts the emphasis on the absence of the supernatural, not god/s.”
It’s implied. Or easily derived.
“”Naturalistic atheist” IS a mouthful, and I find the atheist part somewhat redundant….”
Not if naturalistic means using science. Science is secular, and the comparable view is agnosticism.
“Also, there are religious atheists – for example, many (but not all) Buddhists.”
Not if absence of the supernatural is implied, ie no souls or pantheism.
“Naturalistic atheist” IS a mouthful, and I find the atheist part somewhat redundant….”
And the “naturalist” part specifically points out that my psoition will change with evidence, ie it isn’t doctrinary.
ProfMoriarty, The “word” could will be dropped but that’s just the shell, isn’t it? The alleged worldview is clear and shinny: worldview free of supernatural and mystical elements. What’s not so transparent in the brights web Page are other much more fundamental issues as ethics or goals. Internet constituency, what for?. Can anyone really be a bright? It is my guess that there has to be subtle forms of selection, a little role modeling maybe. :)
pman: “ProfMoriarty, The “word” could will be dropped but that’s just the shell, isn’t it?”
I’m not entirely sure what you mean.
pman “What’s not so transparent in the brights web Page are other much more fundamental issues as ethics or goals. ”
The goals of the Brights Movement are simply to work towards civic equality – we’re a civil action movement, not a philosophical grouping. The movement itself is intentionally not anti-religious, and promotes education about secularity and discussion with moderate religious people above head on conflict. It’s all spelled out on the site. Individual brights may be anti-religious, but we would tend to put that to one side when trying to work together.
Ethics are for us all to work out for ourselves, or to agree with other people, aren’t they? There are some projects to try and come up with useful information about what secular ethics are based on, but no one is going to tell you what your ethics should be. How can something as basic as having a naturalistic word view imply what your ethics actually should be? All we can say is that our (people like you and me) ethics are as good as anyone else’s. The noun “bright” is just an umbrella word for people like us – you must already have your owm ethics and goals in the same way that I do, surely? No two brights will agree on *everything*! Sometimes all they’ll agree on is that they’re both brights. That won’t stop them trying to work out good ethics that suite them both.
The important thing as far as the Movement is concerned is to educate that public that secular ethics are every bit as valid as religious morals, and are often better, because they change as society needs them to change.
pman “Internet constituency, what for?.”
A constituency is a group of supporters. That’s all the brights constituency is, the people who support the idea of putting aside the People’s Front of Judea mentality in favour of a term that allows everyone to communicate without having to agree on basics every time.
pman “Can anyone really be a bright?
er… yes? If they fit the definition of having a naturalistic view of the world – which basically means you don’t do supernatural or mystical. Even those sort of christians who don’t believe in a real supernatural God can call themselves brights if that suits them.
You’re talking as if it were a club that you apply to join. It’s an umbrella term for people like us, that’s all. You’re either already a bright in terms of the definition or you’re not, and it’s up to you to decide. Who’s going to stop you?
Does anyone select whether you could call yourself gay or not?
Pman “It is my guess that there has to be subtle forms of selection, a little role modeling maybe. :)”
You’ve guessed wrong. Sure, you say you’re a bright and then spout lots of religious mumbo jumbo and people will no doubt question that you really fit the definition. But that’s not exactly subtle though, is it? As far as the definition goes, you’re a bright already I would imagine – naturalistic? Yes / supernatural? No / mystical? No = you’re a bright. That really is the full extent of the term, the movement, the whole thing.
All it then means in practical terms is that when you want to talk to me about trying to stop ID in schools or taking the pledge, that’s what we talk about, not whether your philosophical views exactly match mine. People are of course going to discuss their differences, but as being a bright implies we’ll have differences, there’s no need to get worked up about them.
I’m not bothered about if you want to think of yourself as a bright or not. I’m just interested that atheists are still arguing over not liking the name after all this time, while the people who’ve given up worrying about it are getting on with making the best of the idea by working together. Who cares if atheists don’t like it? It gets the idea into people’s heads I suppose, so it’s all good news to us.
ProfMoriarty, “you say you’re a bright and then spout lots of religious mumbo jumbo and people will no doubt question that you really fit the definition”
“All it then means in practical terms is that when you want to talk to me about trying to stop ID in schools or taking the pledge, that’s what we talk about, not whether your philosophical views exactly match mine”
:Pman, you do need Sherlock Holmes
pman, I really do think it would be useful if you read the posts honestly and didn’t jump to conclusions based on your personal prejudices.
I think it’s pretty obvious that the first quote refers to people who are professing to be brights and aren’t, and the second to how the concept allows all of us who are brights, which would include you, to talk about such issues as how to combat ID without the sort of tedious difference of opinion based on nothing but ideology that you’re again engaging in here.
Do you really think that continually emulating the People’s Front of Judea mentality all the time is the best tactic you could be using when countries such as the US are being overrun with fundamentalist religion?