GunnerJ

I have nothing more to say to you, copernicus.

copernicus

As you wish, GunnerJ. I hope that we can put the bad feelings behind us and move on to more positive exchanges in the future.

ViscousMemories has proposed that he and I meet in formal debate on this subject, and I am strongly considering it. There may be others who feel even more motivated to defend the Bright cause. As a linguist, I have always been strongly interested in issues of word usage. I am very familiar with the political and emotional issues that surround language, so the negative responses to the Bright movement have not taken me completely by surprise.

enemigo

who are the ad-wizards who came up with this one?

Rusting Car Bumper

Oh why bother.

All the time you spent for a debate would be better spent demonstrating to believers that you are a normal person worthy of their respect.

Which is why I find Bright supporters puzzling. Why not take that same effort and go straight to the root cause.

DC

enfant terrible

You must not have read carefully what I had written. Of all these, only Scientologists are easily confused with something else by truncation (and that is probably intentional).

It is too long, and otherwise all objections to "Bright" would apply to it equally or more.

Good thing my last name isn't Miller.

Seriously, you are wrong. Things that shine light are more often tescribed as bright than as light.

I don't keep a catalog of those, but an example is a poll which shows that, while about 10% of the general US population is atheist/agnostic, about 50% of US scientists are. Also polls usually show that religion is negatively correlated with education. This is also my personal experience: people with advanced degrees are, on average, far less religious than the general population. (I hope you wouldn't challenge a strong correlation between education and "brightness".)

Everything. The usual way such phrases are used, it ought to mean "an American born in Africa or of African parents". I know a lot of people born in Africa or of African parents who cannot say they are African American because of this new phrase. It is in no way consistent with other racial nomenclature (we don't speak of European Americans or American Americans), etc.

Yet it has become an official term, mainly (only?) because a handful of "ivory tower" members of that group promoted the term. Kind of like "Brights"!

That's a silly objection. You are committing so many logical fallacies in one sentence that the reader will get dizzy. You are substituting categorical difference for statistical difference, you assume that everything a "less smart" group does is stupid or useless, you are substituting correlation for causation...

Beetle

Lite-Brights?

viscousmemories

I read very carefully, actually. You said, “A monosyllabic name is a valuable asset. Most people's attention span doesn't extend beyond one syllable.” In response, I pointed out a number of popular groups that have multiple syllables in their names. The only thing I apparently didn’t understand is the point you now say you were making, which appears to have nothing to do with what you actually said. When, in your first post, did you say anything about what words can or cannot be “easily confused with something else by truncation”?
No, see, now you’re promoting your first point in response to my rebuttal of your second argument. You said “Bright” was historically accurate, and I said it isn’t. The proper response to that is “yes it is” (preferably with proof). “It is too long” is simply a return to your first argument, which I have already addressed.
I am not wrong. “Bright” is a measure of light. To “enlighten”, means to introduce light. Do I need to link you to the definitions?
And so in conclusion, believers are on average smarter than non-believers? I understand you haven’t cataloged the studies that prove your assertion, but I’d still rather see them than trust your anecdotal evidence so I’ll give you time to dig them up.
You know, this is so irrelevant to the point that I’m not even going to spend any time discussing it. I encourage you, however, to start another thread promoting this assertion. I’m sure there are a number of people here who would like to have a go at it.
I suggest that you quote me and show the examples (with your own explanation) of these many fallacies you claim I have committed. Your hyperbole is less than convincing. And incidentally, your whole argument was: which it seems could be restated as: "We shouldn’t worry that using a new word to describe our group might be perceived as condescending, because many other groups have names which could be perceived as condescending."

Since you have obviously book-marked the list of logical fallacies and seem to enjoy trying to see how they might apply to arguments you’re engaged in, I’ll let you look that one up on your own.

vm

Shake

Worst term yet. Sorry.

Anywho, many many theists will argue that they do know! Their usual line is, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." Either that or you get some circular reasoning (they know because they know).

Kevin Dorner

I don't know. But I don't believe either. So I am both agnostic and atheistic.

Still these two words hardly ever get a proper definition so let me attempt one in my own words:

Atheist: A person who has no belief in the existence of a deity. The "I don't believe" part.

Agnostic: A person who thinks that it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of a deity; that the question of deity is unanswerable. The "I don't know" part.

You may find that most atheists claim to not know, rather than claiming to.

Ronin

This may be what you are looking for, VM ~ Harris Interactive Poll

Now...does anyone else here feel stuck in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers flick?!