Hmm, I thoiught it was in one of the Foundation trilogy books. Them guys swapped some concepts though didn’t they?
Second point: Exactly. How can you insult someone who already calls himself a groundhog?
I like the name the Springfield chapter of Mensa bestowed on themselves: the Council of Alphas. (hee, hee)
Can we call fundies sub-Omegaloids?
I agree with you on the first part. But I maintain that any word would have this baggage. I wasn’t really trying to draw attention to the emotional attachment we have to our beliefs or disbeliefs of supreme beings. I was trying to draw attention to the way the condecending tone is so common in this debate (on both sides). It is common for language to be used to accuse the other side of ammorality or irrationality (or both).
Also, I think that any small amount of misunderstanding on the part of “believers” will be drowned out in the rest of the debate. Consider the people who camped out in from the that court building to “protect their ten commandments monument”. Would they really have been significantly more upset because they thought that non believers were calling them stupid? Would it have altered the debate in any real way?
And consider the people on the fence. If a believer loosing his faith thinks that athiests think they are in some small way smarter than believers is he likely to hold his faith longer?
I guess what I am saying, is that I understand the objections to “Bright”. I had a similar reaction when I first heard about it. I simply think that the benifits of having a new word to cover this concept outway these problems.
Siege
That’s just it. I’ve never heard anyone speaking of an atheïst as someone bad.
Maybe it’s because in the Netherlands, almost 40% of the adult population is without religion.
Here in Indiana, I have never heard “atheist” used as a pejorative, not in more than 30 years. It seems to me that there is this small group of paranoid (and asshat) atheists who have masturbatory fantasies about single-handedly shouting down the 15th-century Inquisitions. These people come up with terms like “Bright”.
In general, when I have seen negative reaction to an atheist, it’s not been because he was an atheist but because he was such a complete asshole about being an atheist.
**jjimm
**
[Moderator Hat ON]
This is inappropriate for Great Debates. Quit it or Pit it.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
I suspect jjimm would like to send Gaudere a big “Thank you!” for that.
Gaudere, please check your email. 
Moderator Hat ON]
Ok, I missed the previous explanation regarding “fuck off” and jjim’s warning is removed. But please don’t start using “fuck off” to mean “thanks” in other threads. 
[Moderator Hat OFF]
The mention of “godless” got me thinking. Why not take a page from food retailers?
" Don’t call us godless. Call us god-free! "
(not Godfrey)
OK, I like god-free. It still relies on the idea of god or not god which I think is misrepresenting the debate, but I like the sound of god-free.
<aside>
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie did a comedy skit about various groups “closeness to god” index. It was a weather report parody. Perhaps we could establish a percentage of god-free. Like “I am now 10% god-free. I still have my rabbits foot and don’t walk under ladders, but I stopped going to church.”
</aside>
And I suppose agnostics would be “god-lite”.
:rimshot:
earlier:
(not addressing me but…)
Why do we have to use a word that’s so obvious though. I mean let’s crack out the thesaurus, how about “Lambent(s)” if he’s going for a “shedding light” type feel.
Well, putting asside the possible conotation of naughty things done to immature sheep…:eek:
I think they were looking for a shorter word. Something simpler. Lambent could have worked, though. As mentioned earlier, anything could have worked. They could have simply used a random collection of letters.
And possibly it would merely have made this “their calling themselves more intelligent” debate into a more sinister “their calling themselves more intelligent in a tricky way”.
I hope I don’t need to say that I do not speak for The Brights movement. I’m not even signed up yet.
I consider my self a non-theist, in the sense that “god” is a dead hypothesis, an empty word, a meaningless sequence of characters. It’s not so much that I don’t believe in the hypothetical entity, but merely that there is no intellectual space within which I could entertain the idea of such an entity. “God” is right up there with square circles in my worldview, though not necessarily for the same particular reasons.