- For the adjective, see brightness; for people named Bright see this list.
The term bright, used as a noun, is a neologism invented by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell (now the co-Directors of The Brights Net) in 2003 as a positive-sounding umbrella term to describe various kinds of non-religious and non-superstitious people. They define the word as follows:
- A bright is a person whose worldview is naturalistic - free of supernatural and mystical elements. A bright's ethics and actions are based on a naturalistic worldview.
The term thus captures most atheists and agnostics as well as some humanists and freethinkers.
The idea has been publicized by Richard Dawkins in articles for The Guardian [1] and Wired [2], and by Daniel Dennett in the New York Times [3].
Part of the inspiration to seed a positively laden term came from the modern usage of the word "gay" to mean homosexual. The project borrows heavily from the theory of memes.
Some people (both religious and non-religious) have objected to the term because they read it as as implying that the non-religious are more intelligent ("brighter") than the religious. (In his Wired article, Dawkins states "Whether there is a statistical tendency for brights (noun) to be bright (adjective) is a matter for research.")
There was a similar backlash early in the life of the word "gay": for example the satirical magazine Private Eye ran a cartoon strip called "The Sads" for many years.
Others, especially nonbelievers, have objected to Geisert and Futrell's campaign on the grounds that a meme such as "gay" must arise organically, rather than through deliberate creation, if it is to stick.
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