Brights movement

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The brights movement was started by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell in 2003 to provide a positive-sounding umbrella term, bright, to describe various types of people who have a naturalistic worldview, without casting that worldview as a negative response to religion (as the terms atheist, infidel or non-believer may be seen as doing). The hub of the brights movement is the The Brights' Net web site.^[1]

Co-founder of the Brights' Net Paul Geisert coined the term, and Mynga Futrell defined a bright to be "a person whose worldview is naturalistic—free of supernatural and mystical elements. A bright's ethics and actions are based on a naturalistic worldview."^[2] The naturalistic worldview may take many forms, ranging from methodological naturalism to metaphysical naturalism.

Contents 1 History 2 The Brights' Net 3 Brights 4 Criticism 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History

Paul Geisert was a biology teacher in Chicago in the 1960s, a professor in the 1970s, an entrepreneur and writer in the 1980s, and the co-developer of learning materials and a web site for teaching religion in public schools in the 1990s. He attended the "Godless Americans March on Washington" in 2002, which subsequently led to the idea of coining the noun bright. Geisert intended his coinage to allude to humanity's illumination during the Age of Enlightenment, an optimistic era when science and reason seemed to offer the key to the future. Geisert is now co-director of The Brights Net. The usage has been publicized and endorsed for its persuasive potential by Richard Dawkins in articles for The Guardian^[3] and Wired,^[4] and by Daniel Dennett in the New York Times.^[5]

[edit] The Brights' Net

Geisert and Futrell co-direct a network of Brights (the upper-case usage indicates registration into a constituency with specified aims). The Brights' Net includes tens of thousands of individuals from 138 nations. The Brights' Net serves as the hub of communication and action projects in a civic justice movement. It has three major purposes:

1. Promote a civic understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview, which is free of supernatural and mystical elements.
2. Gain public recognition that persons who holds such a worldview can bring principled actions to bear on matters of civic importance.
3. Educate society toward accepting the full and equitable civic participation of all such individuals.

The Brights' Net states that it is not an anti-religious organization in either principle or action, and that it is working through educational means to create a level social and civic playing field for individuals, whether their worldviews are naturalistic or include supernaturalism.

Those who register as Brights at the Brights' Net are deemed members of the "Brights internet constituency". There are Brights' local constituencies in London, Paris, several cities in Canada and the United States, and various other locations worldwide.

[edit] Brights

Within the definition of bright,^[2] many, but not all, brights also identify variously under other terms or identities, including atheist, humanist, secular humanist, freethinker, rationalist, naturalist, agnostic, skeptic, and so on. One of the purposes of the Brights' Net is to include the umbrella term bright in the vocabulary of this existing "community of reason".^[6]

However, "the broader intent is inclusive of the many-varied persons whose worldview is naturalistic" but are in the "general population", as opposed to associating solely with the "community of reason". So persons who can declare their naturalistic worldview using the term bright extend beyond the familiar secularist categories. Registrations even include some members of the clergy, such as Presbyterian ministers and a Church History Professor and ordained priest.

Dawkins' analogy in the aforementioned Guardian article is instructive, comparing the coining of bright to the "triumph of consciousness-raising" from the term gay.

Gay is succinct, uplifting, positive: an "up" word, where homosexual is a down word, and queer, faggot and pooftah are insults. Those of us who subscribe to no religion; those of us whose view of the universe is natural rather than supernatural; those of us who rejoice in the real and scorn the false comfort of the unreal, we need a word of our own, a word like "gay". ... Like gay, it should be a noun hijacked from an adjective, with its original meaning changed but not too much. Like gay, it should be catchy: a potentially prolific meme. Like gay, it should be positive, warm, cheerful, bright.

Notable brights include biologists Richard Dawkins and Richard J. Roberts, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, philosopher Daniel Dennett, and stage magicians and debunkers James Randi, Penn Jillette, and Teller. Other brights include Amy Alkon, Sheldon Lee Glashow, Babu Gogineni, Edwin Kagin, Mel Lipman, and Massimo Pigliucci.

[edit] Criticism

Some people (both religious and non-religious) have objected to the adoption of the title "bright" because it suggests that the individuals with a naturalistic worldview are more intelligent ("brighter") than the religious (cf. religiosity and intelligence).^[7] For example, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry published an article by Chris Mooney titled Not Too "Bright" in which he stated that, although he agreed with the movement, Richard Dawkins' and Daniel Dennett's "campaign to rename religious unbelievers 'brights' could use some rethinking" because of the possibility that the term would be misinterpreted.^[8]

Similarly, Michael Shermer, who is considered an "enthusiastic Bright" by the Brights' Net, for his past advocacy of the term bright, has nevertheless resisted using the term to describe himself, saying, "I don't call myself a Bright. Mainly because, I guess, the natural implication is that if you weren't a Bright, you'd be a Dim."

In his Wired article Dawkins states, "Whether there is a statistical tendency for brights [noun] to be bright [adjective] is a matter for research." Daniel Dennett, in his book Breaking the Spell, suggests that if non-naturalists are concerned with this connotation of the word bright, then they should invent an equally positive sounding word for themselves, like supers (i.e., one whose worldview contains supernaturalism). Geisert and Futrell maintain that the neologism has always had a kinship with the Enlightenment, a movement which celebrated science, free inquiry, and a spirit of skepticism.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Official sites

• The Brights' Net – The originating hub of the Brights' Constituency
• Brights' Movement Forums

"Brights' Net" sites

• Brights Online – a brights' activist website
• Civil Brights – a brights' community website

"Brights' Net" national sites

• Brights France
• Brights Germany
• Brights Italia
• Brights Japan
• Brights Korea
• Brights Netherlands
• Brights UK - signup required
• Brights South Africa

Essays on the Brights movement and coinage

• Who Are The Brights? – by the co-founders of the Brights' Net
• The future looks bright– Richard Dawkins in The Guardian (UK), 21 June 2003
• The Bright Stuff – Daniel Dennett in the New York Times, 12 July 12 2003
• A brights idea – Sharon Tubbs in the St Petersburg Times, 20 July 2003
• The future is oh-so non-adjectivally bright – Ruth Wajnryb in the Sydney Morning Herald, 31 January 31 2004
• A Bright New World – Erik Strand in Psychology Today, Jan/Feb 2004
• Not Too "Bright" – a critical review of the term 'bright' by Chris Mooney for CSICOP