Vibr8gKiwi

What's funny is that the controversy surrounding this word is exactly what can allow it to take off. A better word, that wasn't "arrogant" or "lame" or didn't cause the religious to make fun of it then it wouldn't as likely come into common usage. This is going perfectly.

People that hate the word had better get used to it.

Farren

You're assuming that all of us are "powerless invisible losers" and "freaks". Huh?

95% of my friends are athiestic, agnostic or unitarian (and the last category is one guy who used to be a muslim). Some have given it serious thought and other's just bowed to - wait for it - peer pressure.

The educated & developed world is steadily becoming a post-religious one. Christianity and Islam are only growing in developing nations with lower education standards.

Technically, I live in a developing nation and religion is shrinking here, so even the latter comment isn't universally true.

There's seems to be one peculiar anomaly in the developed world: The United States of America. Perhaps even that is an illusion created by the political unity of fundamentalist christians. A Berkeley, California educated political scientist once told me that the "counter culture" in the US is underrepresented in government because they don't get of their asses come election time.

Many europeans who count themselves Christians, Muslims or Jews are actually embarrased by rabid prosletylising, religion in the workplace or in school. The same is true of my own nation and I'm sure the Aussies and Kiwis will bear me out that the same is true of those other former brit colonies, probably moreso.

I can't speak with certainty for the Japanese or other developed South East Asian economies because I'm inadequately informed but I don't think religion is a major political force there.

Athiesm or unsuperstitious thinking is a negative mapping of the mental space of a freethinker, and leaves so much undefined in the positive space. Freethinkers may be Libertarians, Environmental activists, Gun Advocates, Technocrats, Pragmatists, Idealists, whatever.

Many political causes and the bodies that represent them, such as the Greens and civil rights organisations are already a natural home for freethinkers and have positive causes. I can't speak for Americans - from some of the sentiments on this board I sense that some American athiests feel opressed - but where I'm standing the utlity of a "movement" to represent athiests is questionable.

The "branding" of the "brights" itself leaves much to be desired. Its unlovely and geeky in the extreme. My first impression of the "brights" site was that it resembles a low budget advertisment for washing powder, and the term is just... ak.

As for internicine warfare. Of the (many) people I know who hold irreligious or only vaguely mystical world views, most were attracted to their philosophies and the company of those that hold these philosophies by the very capacity for critical thinking and open debate that creates such "strife".

Farren

Vibr8gKiwi

With respect. Theres a conservative troll on these boards that restricts his/her posts to one-liners like

"All you librhuls just hate the fact that no matter how much you bitch, Bush is gonna win again in 2004. Get used to it. "

Oh, and of course: :boohoo:

Your posts are in a similar vein.

This is not rational dialog. This is a child on a playground listening to someone discuss the moral responsibility of returning someone elses ball then saying "Yeah, but you can't have it! Nyanaanananaaanaaaa!".

Don't you have anything more substantive to contribute?

copernicus

Principia, I called your outrageous claim that "fundamentalists and anti-evolutionists constitute a majority opinion" simply false, and you threw a whole lot of statistics and source material out that were not relevant to that claim. For example, the fact that roughly a fifth of the states had bills to "suppress or corrupt" evolution, but the majority of which failed, tells us nothing about majority opinion in those states. The fact that someone says in a poll that they want creationism taught in public schools does not mean that they believe in creationism or oppose evolution or are fundamentalists. In any case, your poll showed that 83% wanted evolution theory taught, which was considerably larger than the number that wanted both creationism and evolution taught. (And, BTW, I favor teaching about creationism in science classes to explain why it is junk science. The results of these polls are sometimes difficult to interpret.) The majority of Americans support abortion rights (77% in this poll), which is anathema to fundamentalists. In short, your claim is unsupported and extremely out of line from what we know about majority opinion in the US. The religious right is extremely influential, but it does not represent a majority opinion in the US.

You found this statement on the Bright's web site? I certainly didn't. Are you saying we should distance ourselves from Dawkins and Dennett for saying such things elsewhere at some time in their lives? Such statements are inflammatory, especially out of context, but that is not what the Bright movement is about. All you are saying is that atheists and agnostics can be attacked for occasionally saying abusive things about creationists and fundamentalists. If you can't put up with that, then how can you put up with the abusive things that fundamentalists and creationists say (and much more often) about us? You seem to have the rather unrealistic expectation that Brights can come out of the closet without being verbally tarred and feathered.

Or you can place a wrong interpretation on what the polls tell us.

Actually, the entire point of the Bright movement is to discourage this bad PR. The movement is being promoted as a positive belief system--that naturalistic explanations are sufficient to understand natural events--not as an anti-anything movement. Atheism is, in fact, anti-Christian in the sense that it denies what christians affirm. Brightism is essentially positive. It does not reject christianity any more than christianity rejects islam or buddhism. If christians can get away with that negativity, then what is wrong with the Brights doing the same? It seems that you are relying on a very strong double standard here. Take off your religion-colored spectacles, and see how much "brighter" the world can look.

I don't need you to tell me how people are going to try to smear the Bright movement. I fully expect them to. Just like they have successfully smeared atheists and freethinkers for ages. I am not afraid of that kind of reaction from the christian community, since we have been living with it our whole lives. This is about trying to change that situation, and part of the process is making ourselves more socially visible.

And quite intentionally so.

Again, I am stunned by your reaction. How do you get that negative message from the quote you gave? Oh, wait. You're trying to express how a christian might react. A christian might also have a negative reaction to other worldviews as well. So what?

Brights are not vocal anti-religionists any more than religionists are vocal anti-brightists. There goes your double standard again.

What a great opportunity to explain why supernaturalism is unnecessary. Oh, wait. You're a believer in naturalism. You're supposed to be able to do the explaining. What do you say when religious people ask you that question? Or are you trying to avoid answering it? I really don't understand what you are afraid of here.

I find that a bit hard to believe. You have been arguing strenuously against the brightist movement, but you seem to affirm its goals. Let the ARN folks do what they do best. I don't care about them. I care about you. I'm urging you not to join forces with the other side in heaping yet more abuse on the very ideas and people that you seem to support, even if you don't agree with tactics. What is wrong with simply standing aside and letting the movement flop on its own. Are you afraid that it is going to give atheists and even worse reputation than they already have? I don't see how that is possible.

Excuse me for a minute while :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:. Ah, that's better.

The entire Bright's page is devoted to countering the anti-religious overtones that you have been gratuitously heaping on it as a surrogate ARN member!

There is nothing about the Bright movement that prevents you from doing just that. A more subtle approach would be to merge with the shadows, and you are free to do that, too. Or you could try to read the Bright web site as a freethinker and an atheist rather than an ARN partisan. You might even discover that you are "preaching to the choir" with your constructive advice. It is not about being against religion. It is about being treated and respected as equal members of society.

emotional

What puzzles me about this "Brights" initiative is: why didn't the initiators and patrons of this initiative ask the naturalist community before they launched the whole thing? A committee of worldwide naturalists would have gone a long way in preventing so much anguish and embarassment.

The undemocratic process of this "bright"ification is astounding.

copernicus

Emotional, I don't think that this would be such a puzzle to you if you tried to think it through. How do you imagine we would assemble a committee of worldwide naturalists? Who would choose, or vote for, the delegates? What makes you think that the whole thing would be introduced to the rest of us any differently than it was? And what makes you think that the members of this forum would refrain from reacting to any idea that came out of such a committee any differently, or any less vehemently, than they are now? The reactions to this idea are quite natural and quite healthy. Movements of this sort are often messy to begin, and we should expect a period of turmoil before people get used to the idea (or it just fades away).

emotional

By "committee", I mean the concensus of the naturalist community as a whole. On this forum alone there were a few alternatives to "Brights": Unifiers and Reasoners. A larger committe would have yielded a larger choice of terms. The point is: look how many think "Brights" is goofy and ridiculous. And that's the term Dawkins and Dennett and Randi have pushed upon the naturalists as whole, willy-nilly! To say it isn't nice would be an understatement. A small oligarchy chooses the label for the whole group of subjects. Is that fair? It's as if I got up one morning, and found all spiritualists, including myself, labelled as "ghosters".

Principia

copernicus,

Let me respond to your post out of order, since more important points often get lost admist heated rhetoric.

When religious people ask me what question? Why naturalism is free from supernatural oppression? Sorry, the question will most likely never come up for me. Y'see, I don't think of my worldview in relation to other worldviews. I do not justify it by negating or finding "unnecessary" the other elements of other worldviews. My worldview need not be coercive. And most impotantly, I have no fear that my worldview may simply die with me. There, do I sound afraid enough for you, yet?

Look, where you are going with this argument sounds awfully like one big tu quoque argument. Religious people (esp. Xians) do this and that to us, and by golly, let's smack them right back with our own ammo. Xians think we're illogical for denying god. We ought to come right back and show them how "unnecessary" their God is. And gee, what a glorious defense of Naturalism that would be. If I'm wrong in my impression, here, copernicus, then perhaps you can explain some of these other statements:

You accuse me of having double-standards. I guess I should just turn the other cheek. The fact of the matter here is that the Brights want political and social power in a possibly hostile environment. So you are arguing that they ought to get right down and dirty with the theist majority. If creationists and fundies tar and feather Brights, then let's band together and lynch them good. If Christians are intolerant of other worldviews that they inherently reject, then why can't the Brights be equally intolerant. If fundamentalists are vocal anti-brightists, than let's be extreme anti-Fundamentalists.

How Bright is all that? Well, where you see a double-standard, I see an opportunity to express higher standards.

You know, that's the same argument I hear in E/C debates, but from the C side (not the E). For example: Creationists are a joke, doncha know? And ID, why we're nothing like the Creationists (not that there's anthing wrong with being a Creationist). So we think we ought to get a fair shake in the public schools. If you don't agree with our tactics, why not just stand aside and simply let the merits of our case, and the good ol' democratic system decide?

No, no. Copernicus, if anything I have a free voice. I absolutely am entitled to express my disappointment at the Brights. But, I simply do not share your concern that my critical outlook is going to inhibit/suppress/make more irreputable the Brightists. As some have already suggested in this thread, an atheist/naturalist/naturalist can simply claim not to be a Bright. But, y'see, the association is already made in the public's eye, with or without the consent of the implicit members that the Bright movement supposedly covers. But, shh... we won't try to distance themselves from the other Brights. Maybe they non-Brights'll not notice that deep down we're a Bright after all. :banghead: This is the curse of being a minority group, copernicus. And to draw such attention on itself is imo stupid.

Indeed, intolerance is a vice. That particular Brights cannot seem to rise above it sounds many alarms for me. That they posture themselves are perhaps Brighter than others, especially by defining themselves as free from the shackles of the not-so-Brights... that also raises a big red flag for me. That they cite Dawkins and Dennett as prominent Brights (and even so far as places their essays directly in the website) raises much more than an eyebrow. So when some theists (whether Xians or not) connect the dots and becomes suspicious, nay, outright dismissive of Brights, I think the Brights have already failed. There's nothing I did to encourage that.

Let me ask you, copernicus. Can you think of better spokesmen for Naturalists other than Dawkins and Dennett? Why do you suppose the Brights chose those two?

Give me a break. Tell me a good reason why a theist ought to embrace the Bright movement judging from its website. Just one.

Anyway, that I would myself in agreement with an ARNie is traumatic enough. But to accuse me of pretending to be one... now that's going overboard. The ARN threads were meant to show just how the rhetoric could escalate, copernicus, and that's about it. The rest was my own. I don't I have signed a contract when joining IIDB that automatically requires me to disagree vigorously with all Internet crackpot theists.

Well, I do hope I am preaching to the choir. But you have to realize that asking for equal treament and status from a minority standpoint is an art -- it takes tact. And for sure, history shows us that it does take lots of patience. I am personally in no hurry.

Well, that concludes my time on the soap box. I am happy to give you the last word on this matter, copernicus. But before I let go, I'll just have to respond to this:
I am not sure where you got the 83% from. But to teach creationism alongside evolution is a manifestation of anti-evolutionism. It is to dilute the importance of evolutionary theory in modern biology from near 100% to at best 50% or less. And no, teaching Creationism for the sake of tearing it down is most certainly not what the author of these bills have in mind.

So you find the fact that 68% of adults in the US believe in Biblical inerrancy unimpressive. You find that 45% who believe in YEC irrelevant. You also dismiss the 85% (the above 45% plus another 40%) who reject the modern scientific sythesis of neo-Darwinism. You think that annually a dozen states pressing for changes in our children's science education standards on biology is unindicative. Well, copernicus, at this point I don't know how else to alter your interpretation of these numbers. And don't worry, I won't bother.

Yes, and that all goes to show that "fundamentalism" is indeed a nebulous, dynamic concept. Perhaps some Christian fundamentalists have found a way to reconcile abortion with their beliefs, I frankly do not know or care. But in any case, I am happy to concede this point to you if only because Dawkins (if not Dennett as well) does not restrict negative commentary only to fundamentalists and anti-evolutionists. He paints all theists alike. That he is a Bright leader (as well as a popularizer of Science) is an ongoing source of concern for me.

Vibr8gKiwi

From what I can see this topic has been done to death. However as my view on the matter seems to be the minority view I thought I'd make a comment just to be counted. Just as an opinion that counts as some substance, but also your "irrational dialog" claim is inaccurate as I specifically stated why I think the anti-bright people (or pro-bright for that matter) have no control over the actual outcome of this. It's now up to a chaotic/complex social system to decide if the meme takes off. As I said, in my opinion the rancor it has raised is evidence that it will be successful. Argument is pointless, it is out of our hands.

Farren

Ah, simply a disinterested observation. I see

What you actually said

Originally posted by Vibr8gKiwi

In other words, "our plan for world domination will be fulfilled by Christmas"



Now pull try pull the other leg.