Minton's Playhouse
I confess! I'm a BRIGHT

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...and I hope you're one, too...

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"Faith is believing what you know ain't so"
--- Mark Twain

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What are BRIGHTS?

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Brights are the light
at the end of this poor
benighted country's
long, long tunnel.
There's a reason it's called
"enlightenment."
 
Go to the light! [ and click on it ]

 
"...if devotion to truth is
the hallmark of morality,
then there is no greater,
more heroic form of
devotion than the act of
a man who assumes the
responsibility of thinking."
                       -- Ayn Rand
 

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Bright in customary

usage is of course a

modifier (adjective),

so we are introducing

a new use for a familiar

word. It is similar to the

way the word GAY

took on a different and

vibrant new meaning

This bright (as a noun)

has specific meaning:

A Bright is a person

whose worldview is

naturalistic -- free of

supernatural and

mystical elements. 

Brights base their

ethics and actions on a

naturalistic worldview,

one free of any deities,

fairies, angels, ghosts,

demons, sprites, etc.

What is a FREETHINKER?
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click to learn

"A man's ethical behavior
should be based on
sympathy, education,
and social ties;
no religious basis is
necessary. Man would
indeed be in a poor way
if he had to be
restrained by fear
of punishment and
hope of reward
after death."
- Albert Einstein

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The Bright Stuff

By DANIEL C. DENNETT

BLUE HILL, Me.
The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic and life after death.

The term "bright" is a recent coinage by two brights in Sacramento, Calif., who thought our social group which has a history stretching back to the Enlightenment, if not before could stand an image-buffing and that a fresh name might help. Don't confuse the noun with the adjective: "I'm a bright" is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view.

You may well be a bright. If not, you certainly deal with brights daily. That's because we are all around you: we're doctors, nurses, police officers, schoolteachers, crossing guards and men and women serving in the military. We are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters. Our colleges and universities teem with brights. Among scientists, we are a commanding majority. Wanting to preserve and transmit a great culture, we even teach Sunday school and Hebrew classes. Many of the nation's clergy members are closet brights, I suspect. We are, in fact, the moral backbone of the nation: brights take their civic duties seriously precisely because they don't trust God to save humanity from its follies.

As an adult white married male with financial security, I am not in the habit of considering myself a member of any minority in need of protection. If anybody is in the driver's seat, I've thought, it's people like me. But now I'm beginning to feel some heat, and although it's not uncomfortable yet, I've come to realize it's time to sound the alarm.

Whether we brights are a minority or, as I am inclined to believe, a silent majority, our deepest convictions are increasingly dismissed, belittled and condemned by those in power by politicians who go out of their way to invoke God and to stand, self-righteously preening, on what they call "the side of the angels."

A 2002 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life suggests that 27 million Americans are atheist or agnostic or have no religious preference. That figure may well be too low, since many nonbelievers are reluctant to admit that their religious observance is more a civic or social duty than a religious one more a matter of protective coloration than conviction.

Most brights don't play the "aggressive atheist" role. We don't want to turn every conversation into a debate about religion, and we don't want to offend our friends and neighbors, and so we maintain a diplomatic silence.

But the price is political impotence. Politicians don't think they even have to pay us lip service, and leaders who wouldn't be caught dead making religious or ethnic slurs don't hesitate to disparage the "godless" among us.

From the White House down, bright-bashing is seen as a low-risk vote-getter. And, of course, the assault isn't only rhetorical: the Bush administration has advocated changes in government rules and policies to increase the role of religious organizations in daily life, a serious subversion of the Constitution. It is time to halt this erosion and to take a stand: the United States is not a religious state, it is a secular state that tolerates all religions and yes all manner of nonreligious ethical beliefs as well.

I recently took part in a conference in Seattle that brought together leading scientists, artists and authors to talk candidly and informally about their lives to a group of very smart high school students. Toward the end of my allotted 15 minutes, I tried a little experiment. I came out as a bright.

Now, my identity would come as no surprise to anybody with the slightest knowledge of my work. Nevertheless, the result was electrifying.

Many students came up to me afterwards to thank me, with considerable passion, for "liberating" them. I hadn't realized how lonely and insecure these thoughtful teenagers felt. They'd never heard a respected adult say, in an entirely matter of fact way, that he didn't believe in God. I had calmly broken a taboo and shown how easy it was.

In addition, many of the later speakers, including several Nobel laureates, were inspired to say that they, too, were brights. In each case the remark drew applause. Even more gratifying were the comments of adults and students alike who sought me out afterward to tell me that, while they themselves were not brights, they supported bright rights. And that is what we want most of all: to be treated with the same respect accorded to Baptists and Hindus and Catholics, no more and no less.

If you're a bright, what can you do? First, we can be a powerful force in American political life if we simply identify ourselves. (The founding brights maintain a Web site on which you can stand up and be counted.) I appreciate, however, that while coming out of the closet was easy for an academic like me or for my colleague Richard Dawkins, who has issued a similar call in England in some parts of the country admitting you're a bright could lead to social calamity. So please: no "outing."

But there's no reason all Americans can't support bright rights. I am neither gay nor African-American, but nobody can use a slur against blacks or homosexuals in my hearing and get away with it. Whatever your theology, you can firmly object when you hear family or friends sneer at atheists or agnostics or other godless folk.

And you can ask your political candidates these questions: Would you vote for an otherwise qualified candidate for public office who was a bright? Would you support a nominee for the Supreme Court who was a bright? Do you think brights should be allowed to be high school teachers? Or chiefs of police?

Let's get America's candidates thinking about how to respond to a swelling chorus of brights. With any luck, we'll soon hear some squirming politician trying to get off the hot seat with the feeble comment that "some of my best friends are brights."

Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, is author, most recently, of "Freedom Evolves.''

STAR LITE
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clcik for Christian Celebrities

STAR BRIGHT
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click for Atheist non-Theists

STAR LITE          STAR BRIGHT
 
WHO's WHO?
Let's join thespian co-immortals
Lisa Whelchel and Katharine Hepburn
as they introduce us to
their like-thinking pals
 <Christians              and             Brights >
 
 
 
 
                                   

OUT as BRIGHTS

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BRIGHTS
 
Woody Allen
Russell Baker
Clive Barker
Dave Barry
Ingmar Bergman
Björk
Bill Blass
Marlon Brando
John Carpenter
Dick Cavett
Noam Chomsky
Alexander Cockburn
David Cronenberg
Alan Cumming
Ani DiFranco
Paul Ehrlich
Albert Ellis
Harlan Ellison
Brian Eno
Jules Feiffer
Harvey Fierstein
Jodie Foster
John Fowles
Janeane Garofalo
Bill Gates
Bob Geldof
Ira Glass
Spalding Gray
Rachel Griffiths
Katharine Hepburn
Christopher Hitchens
Penn Jillette
Angelina Jolie
Neil Jordan
Ring Lardner Jr.
Tom Lehrer
Mike Leigh
John Malkovich
Barry Manilow
Ian McEwan
Sir Ian McKellen
Tom Metzger
Arthur Miller
Desmond Morris
Randy Newman
Mike Nichols
Jack Nicholson
Camille Paglia
Paula Poundstone
Vladimir Pozner
Ted Rall
James Randi
Ron Reagan Jr.
Christopher Reeve
Mordecai Richler
Jane Rule
Salman Rushdie
John Sayles
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Sondheim
Howard Stern
Donald Sutherland
Julia Sweeney
Teller
Studs Terkel
Ted Turner
Eddie Vedder
Gore Vidal
Martin Amis
Margaret Atwood
Richard Avedon
Vincent Bugliosi
Alan Dershowitz
Umberto Eco
Bret Easton Ellis
Carrie Fisher
William Friedkin
Candace Gingrich
Matt Groening
Larry King
Dave Matthews
Sarah McLachlan
Scott Mosier
Sean Penn
Roman Polanski
Andy Rooney
Dan Savage
Rod Steiger
Al Stewart
James Taylor
Uma Thurman
Lance Armstrong
Michael Caine
Nick Cave
Arthur C. Clarke
George Clooney
Billy Connelly
Phyllis Diller
David Duchovny
Danny Elfman
Mikhail Gorbachev
Peter Hall
Stephen Hawking
Sir Edmund Hillary
John Irving
Molly Ivins
Billy Joel
Marilyn Manson
Tom Robbins
Henry Rollins
Neil Simon
Mira Sorvin
Gene Wilder
Bruce Willis
 
NOTE: the term "brights" is very
new, but these are people have
expressed disbelief in the
supernatural as a force
in their lives
and
therefor
fall under the
umbrella term
BRIGHTS

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