Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [27]
The name “Brights” sounds too much like happy shiny people—sort of hippie-dippie, brain dead. And just like “child-free” in the 70s, it sounds smug. What’s wrong with unbeliever? You can’t be a bigger atheist than I am, yet I’m thrilled to tiny bits to handle money that says “In God We Trust” and I cheerfully sing Christmas carols. I just don’t believe in anything. I’m walking, talking electric meat.
As a skeptic myself, I find this name “brights” ludicrously conclusionary and almost pitifully self-aggrandizing to the point where it calls into question—in my mind—your basic common sense. I suggest you try to swallow your pride, admit your error and drop the thing ASAP if not sooner.
Why don’t we simply call ourselves “smart-people-unlike-you-dumb-people”? How to win friends and influence people.
Before I saw your piece in e-Skeptic, I had already signed up and sent this to the “Brights” themselves: “I signed up yesterday, because I believe fully in what you are doing. However, you have to come up with a better name for the movement. I did a quick Web search, and already Rush Limbaugh is vilifying the group as thinking they are “brighter than those who believe in God.” This makes it difficult for me to admit to my family that I’m part of this movement, since they listen to Limbaugh and will immediately take it as some sort of superior statement, which doesn’t seem at all your intention.”
In the ‘50s my aunt was already one of the highest ranking women in the State Department—a time and a place where women in authority were rare and “ungodly Communists” were persecuted. When asked about religion, she would simply say, “I am of a scientific mind.”
Let’s just keep this plain and simple and out front: atheist. This bright stuff is just dumb. We shouldn’t let others change our name because they have slandered it. Atheist is not a bad word, we should not be ashamed to use it.
Although nothing is certain, some things come close. The sun will rise and set tomorrow. An apple will fall from a tree. A birth will occur. And “bright” will remain a terrible name for us non-believers.
Its in-your-face connotation is obvious to me and everyone I talk to about it. Surely you are bright enough to see that.
Actually, I am liking the term skeptic more and more as time goes by. It doesn’t seem to evoke the anti-christian connotations you get when you use atheist. Maybe it is because it seems more scientific, as opposed to relating to religion. You can be skeptical about many things, but you can only be atheist in regard to religion.
From the very first time I heard this “bright” idea a couple of months ago I thought it was dumb. After thinking about it some more, the conclusion I’ve come up with is that it’s even dumber than I originally thought.
Register another vote against “Bright,” mostly for the reason cited by the reader-response you included. The retiree’s association of the company I worked for (TRW) could not agree upon a name for their newsletter. So, for over twenty years it has been known as The No-Name Gazette. I respectfully submit that we are better served by No-Name than by “Bright.”
In the May 2003 Atlantic Monthly, Jonathan Rauch suggested apatheism. “The modern flowering of ‘apatheism’—a disinclination to care all that much about one’s own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people’s—is worth getting excited about, particularly in ostensibly pious America.” It isn’t a synonym for the all-encompassing term “bright” but, due to a summer backlog in reading, I encountered apatheism and brights on the same day. Of the two, I like apatheism since it expresses my own views on religion very well—don’t bug me with your religion and I won’t bug you with mine. On the other hand, I don’t much like “brights.” It requires explanation, and since I’m an apatheist I don’t really care to get into explanations.
I can’t believe you folks are this out of touch. You are, despite your worthy intentions, doing all of us