Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [28]
For God’s sake (and for Gould’s!) please don’t call us “Brights.”
Just wanted to throw in my 2-cents on the suggested rechristening of skeptics as “Brights.” Bad. Bad. Goofy. And bad.
First, I don’t think that re-branding is a solution. There are already a plethora of accurate terms in popular use (atheist, humanist, secularist . . .) and anyone sympathetically inclined won’t have any trouble wearing one. However, anyone opposed certainly won’t be placated by a cuter, cuddlier name. These are people that curse words like “science, tolerance, liberal, and establishment clause.” Many of them look down on the term “lovers.” We’re not going to get anywhere looking for a new label. Second, it would be hard to come up with a less hip, goofier name than “Bright.” It’s kind of like calling your band, “The Sunshines” (unless it was death metal and the irony palpable). Ever know a wimp who changed his name to “Bruce”? Or a plain-jane rebranding herself “Roxanne”? Could you look at them without thinking, “Ridiculous?” And those are both cooler names than “bright.”
I agree 100% with Mr. Giandalone’s letter. Life is hard enough for atheists these days without some wise guy—er, I mean, Bright guy—deciding that all of us should be labeled as Bright. I am insulted and outraged that somebody else should decide to label me as such.
Please please, please do not set this trial balloon afloat. Rather, please let the hot air out of the balloon—pronto. We don’t need yet another label. We need to find pro-atheistic arguments that inspire people, which instill hope, which motivate people to be good and productive members of society.
I was intrigued by your search for a word to describe me and I looked at the Brights Web site. After giving it some thought I reached the same conclusion as Mr. Giandalone, although I wouldn’t express myself so robustly. The trouble with “bright” is that it is self-congratulatory and carries a strong flavor of superiority; I can’t imagine myself using it without embarrassment. I really don’t see much wrong with “agnostic.” It has religious connotations but the meaning of a word can change and broaden and perhaps it’s easier to retrain a horse than breed a new one.
The term “bright” (in my humble opinion) is like a “kick me” sign on my back.
I’m so glad someone (finally) asked! I don’t really like the word “Bright” being foisted upon me and I would much prefer something less offensive such as “freethinker.” True, it is sometimes possible to believe in God and still be a freethinker but it’s still a better word than “bright,” and it’s popular. I conducted my own poll. I deliberately put the terms in the plural (brights, freethinkers, secularists, etc.) in order to give the term Bright a fair shot. It’s at: http://ankrumschultz.tripod.com/. As you can see, Freethinkers wins for 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice, which shows that even people who would not make it their first choice still like it. Meanwhile, “Secularists” looks fairly strong for second place and would be a good alternative to those who think “freethinkers” is too broad. Also, although 12% of people in the poll are not Freethinkers (or Brights, etc.), Freethinker ranked among one of the least offensive terms at 2%, Secularists even better at 1% (all of them were deemed offensive by someone), while 8% thought “Brights” was offensive, the second highest score for offensiveness just behind “Enlightened Ones.”
Admittedly, there is a built-in bias in this study since people are more likely to respond when they are disgruntled. To their