I am a Bright

Reader would have undoubtedly observed the use of the article "a". Allow me to explain.

Most people around me and elsewhere know where I stand on God and religion. Let us look up some of the words that could be used to describe this opinion.

Atheism, disbelief, godlessness, impiety, infidelity, irreligion, irreverence, unbelief, nihilism, skepticism, heresy, iconoclasm.

As you can see this list mostly made up of negatives. "theism" which is good becomes "atheism" which is bad, "belief" (good) becomes "disbelief" (bad). In short these are derived words, negation of purportedly positive attributes.

This is not restricted to atheism alone. Fifty percent of world population suffers from the problem of derivation. I am referring to Woman. Not only is the word derived, according to the three monotheistic religions, the woman herself is derived from man.

Another example is the word Homosexual. The rebranding of sexual orientations to being gay and straight was one of the best things that happened. No longer are gay men dishonest or crooked (not straight) nor straight men necessarily unhappy with their lot in life (not gay). The two words are not opposed to each other and there is no historic tension.

About three years ago I set out to invent such a word. As I have constantly bemoaned the fact, I am just not original. Several notable persons had already been at this and this leads us to the Brights Movement. Here is wonderful description from Richard Dawkins

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.

In summary, I am a Bright. Are you bright too :-)