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Article Excerpt
In 1999 a Gallup poll inquired of Americans: "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an X would you vote for that person?" X represents Catholic, Jew, Baptist, Mormon, black, homosexual, woman, or atheist. Although six of the eight received more than 90% approval--showing that America has become a more tolerant and ecumenical society--only 590% said they would vote for a homosexual, and leas than half, 49%, would vote for an atheist.
Words matter and language counts. "Feminist" is a fine word that describes someone who believes in the need to secure rights and opportunities for women equivalent to those provided for men. Unfortunately, thanks to certain conservative commentators, it has also come to be associated with sandal-wearing, tree-hugging, postmodern, deconstructionist, left-leaning liberals best scorned as "Femi-Nazis."
Likewise, "atheist" is a descriptive term that simply means "without theism," and describes someone who does not believe in God. Unfortunately, thanks to religious fundamentalists, it has also come to be associated with sandal-wearing, tree-hugging, postmodern, deconstructionist, left-leaning liberals who are immoral, pinko communists hellbent on corrupting the morals of America's youth.
Speak the scorn into existence.
The "Brights" Are Born
At the April, 2003 conference of the Atheist Alliance International in Florida, at the behest of the organizer I spoke about this labeling problem in the context of what "we" should call ourselves: skeptics, nonbelievers, nontheists, atheists, agnostics, heretics, infidels, free thinkers, humanists, secular humanists and the like. Apparently there was some discussion amongst the organizers about whether or not I should be invited to speak because in my book, How We Believe, I defined myself as an agnostic instead of atheist, by which I mean, as Huxley originally defined the term in 1869, that the question of God's existence is an insoluble one. I suggested, rather strongly, that dividing up the skeptical and humanist communities because of a disagreement over labels was not dissimilar to the Baptists and Anabaptists squabbling (and eventually splitting) over the appropriate time for baptism (infancy v. adulthood).
My lecture was followed by a formal PowerPoint presentation introducing a "new meme," by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell, from Sacramento, California, who noted that, by analogy, homosexuals used to suffer a similar problem when they were called homos, queers, fruits, fags, and fairies. Their solution was to change the label to a more neutral term--gay. Over the past couple of decades, gays have won significant liberties for themselves, starting with gay pride and gay marches that have led to gay rights. Analogously, instead of calling ourselves skeptics, nonbelievers, nontheists, atheists, agnostics, infidels, heretics, free thinkers, humanists, secular humanists, and the like, it was suggested that we call ourselves brights.
What is a bright? As defined by its creators, "A Bright is a person whose worldview is naturalistic--free of supernatural and mystical elements. Brights base their ethics and actions on a naturalistic worldview." At present there is no brick-and-mortar brights headquarters, no brights secret handshake or decoder ring. This is a cyberspace phenomenon that "seeks unification of these many persons into an Internet constituency that will grow to have significant social and political influence." Given our "severe linguistic disadvantage," the co-directors state, "The Brights movement asks those with a naturalistic worldview to join hands (in a metaphorical sense) and to begin to view themselves and speak in civic situations as Brights." As such we must unite against the prejudice that as nonbelievers we are not qualified to be flail participatory citizens. "Brights have as full a spectrum of beliefs as any other citizens. We, as Brights, reject entirely societal imposition of a set of distasteful negative labels (unbelievers, godless, irreligious) that hamper us unfairly as we work to present our views in the civic arena."
The Reaction to "Brights"
The feedback from audience members was difficult to read, but immediately following the presentation, the Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the magician and skeptic James Randi, and myself, and many others all formally signed up to be brights. In the months following the conference Dawkins penned an opinion editorial for the June 21 issue of The Guardian in London, and the Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett announced in the New York Times on July 12 that he too was a Bright. At a June conference in Seattle for gifted high school students at which both Dennett and I spoke about being nonbelievers and brights, there was an enthusiastic reception that generated a buzz among both students and speakers the rest of the weekend. It seems that lots of teenagers, and even many adult professionals from all walks of life, am nonbelievers but have been reluctant to come out as such for fear of retribution.
In his commentary, Dawkins opined that "As with gays, the more brights come out, the easier it will be for yet more brights to do so. People reluctant to use the word atheist might be happy to come out as a bright." Dawkins admitted that the phrase "I am bright" tings with arrogance, so he hopes that "I am a bright" will solicit inquiry. "It invites the question, 'What on earth is a bright?' And then you're away: 'A bright is a person whose world view is free of supernatural and mystical elements. The ethics and actions of a bright am based on a naturalistic world view.'" Dennett, in turn, announced "The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet" and admit publicly that we "don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny--or God." He too avered: "Don't confuse the noun with the adjective: 'I'm a bright' is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view."
Where Dawkins observed that "brights constitute 60% of American scientists, and a stunning 93% of those scientists good enough to be elected to the elite National Academy of Sciences" (referring to a study conducted in 1996 by Edward Larson),...
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