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Bright - For the adjective, see brightness; for people named Bright see this list.
The term bright, used as a noun, is a neologism invented by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell (now the co-Directors of The Brights Net) in 2003 as a positive-sounding umbrella term to describe various kinds of non-religious and non-superstitious people. They define the word as follows: - A bright is a person whose worldview is naturalistic - free of supernatural and mystical elements. A bright's ethics and actions are based on a naturalistic worldview.
The term thus captures most atheists and agnostics as well as some humanists and freethinkers. The idea has been publicized by Richard Dawkins in articles for The Guardian http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,981412,00.html and Wired http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/view.html?pg=2, and by Daniel Dennett in the New York Times http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bright/bright_index.html. Part of the inspiration to seed a positively laden term came from the modern usage of the word "gay" to mean homosexual. The project borrows heavily from the theory of memes. Some people (both religious and non-religious) have objected to the term because they read it as as implying that the non-religious are more intelligent ("brighter") than the religious. (In his Wired article, Dawkins states "Whether there is a statistical tendency for brights (noun) to be bright (adjective) is a matter for research.") There was a similar backlash early in the life of the word "gay": for example the satirical magazine Private Eye ran a cartoon strip called "The Sads" for many years. Others, especially nonbelievers, have objected to Geisert and Futrell's campaign on the grounds that a meme such as "gay" must arise organically, rather than through deliberate creation, if it is to stick. External links Criticism
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