Do You Consider Yourself a "Bright?" (page 3)

Narkissos

Collective self-designations must lose their intended positive meaning to work as such. If "bright" does take we won't perceive anymore contradiction in "a dull bright" than in "a gloomy gay" or "an old grumpy born-again".

hamilcarr

a young elder :))

Dogpatch

reading Dennett right now, pretty good!

Randy

Big Tex

Oh hell no.

I'm somewhere between Forrest Gump and Lennie Small ("I will name him George and I will hug him and squeeze him . . .")

XJW4EVR

reading Dennett right now, pretty good!

I am reading Dennett also, and I prefer his method of explaining atheism over Chrissy Hitchens scotch-inspired rantings (though I do give Chrissy credit for avoiding the term "bright").

hamilcarr

Chrissy Hitchens scotch-inspired rantings

Therefore sometimes referred to as "the Hitch"

FlyingHighNow

The 'movement' part first comes into play when it comes to being an organized effort to try and promote science and scientific thought and reasoning in the public domain, and also to promote acceptance for the naturalistic worldview.

Science and scientific thought and reasoning are not exclusive to athiests. That's what betrays the bright movement as being not so bright.

funkyderek

gaiagirl:

The term "Brights" is simply a label used to define a group with a particular similarity. They could just as easily have chosen "Clear Thinkers", or any number of other terms.

Actually "Clear Thinkers" wouldn't do. There's nothing about thinking clearly that necessarily implies a naturalistic worldview and it would be insulting to theists to name the group such. There are similar problems with terms such as "rationalists" and "skeptics", while "naturalist" usually means someone who is interested in nature. "Atheist" means defining oneself by what one doesn't believe and in any case it's possible to come under the "Bright" umbrella without being an atheist.

FlyingHighNow:

Science and scientific thought and reasoning are not exclusive to athiests. That's what betrays the bright movement as being not so bright.

Again, that's why a new word was chosen. The intention of the movement is not to state that only those with a naturalistic worldview can reason or use science, it is simply a term for those who have a naturalistic worldview. "Bright" in this sense doesn't mean "clever", the same as "gay" for the homosexual movement doesn't mean "happy", although in both cases there is a certain intentional amount of overlap.

"Brights" and "Supers" can both use reason, and the world of science is full of both.

FlyingHighNow

Again, that's why a new word was chosen. The intention of the movement is not to state that only those with a naturalistic worldview can reason or use science, it is simply a term for those who have a naturalistic worldview. "Bright" in this sense doesn't mean "clever", the same as "gay" for the homosexual movement doesn't mean "happy", although in both cases there is a certain intentional amount of overlap.
"Brights" and "Supers" can both use reason, and the world of science is full of both.

Thank you. I like this kind of balance.

Do You Consider Yourself a "Bright?"

Share this