Posted by Hemant Mehta in People who don’t believe in a god always have a hard time labeling themselves. Atheist doesn’t cut it for everyone. There’s also Humanist and Freethinker and Secularist and Non-theist and on and on…
Several years ago, Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell came up with an umbrella term for all those people: Brights. As in, “I’m a Bright and you’re a Bright.” They took a cue from the GLBT community, which used the word “Gay,” which meant happy, as an umbrella term to label themselves. For those who might say Brights is an arrogant term (implying the non-religious were automatically smarter than the religious), there is also a term for the religious: Supers. As in “I believe in the Supernatural.”
The meme gained widespread attention when Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins wrote about the term in the New York Times and the Guardian, respectively. So far, over 20,000 people have registered as Brights on the official website. But three years later, has the term caught on in the public?
Elaine Friedman from the Humanist Network News wrote about the current status of the Brights. You can read her article here.
Full disclosure: I am an Enthusiastic Bright. (My bio will be put up on the site shortly.) But I’m also a proud atheist– “atheist” is the term I used to describe myself when I stopped believing in god and it’s hard to let go of labels…
[tags]Paul Geisert, Mynga Futrell, Brights, Bright, atheist, Humanist, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Elaine Friedman, Humanist Network News, Guardian, New York Times[/tags]
I also signed up on the Brights site, but I consider myself an atheist primarily. I still struggle with the idea that a Bright is simply an atheist who needs to grow a pair. I guess I’d rather see some atheist pride, but whatever works.
Hi
I like free-thinker and Humanist
I am a Free-thinking because I am not bother by other people’s belief in God. I care for people and I look to people for what is good and bad in this world.
Abbadun
My mother is a theist, a protestant, a Christian and a Methodist!
Wahoa! How can you be so many labels at once?!?!
I’m a freethinking, agnostic atheist humanist bright!!
Simply put, I am human, and that is enough. When people begin to use labels group think abounds.
[...] For some more background on the Bright movement, and how it’s progressed in the past few years, see the posting from last month, which includes some helpful links. [...]