Nonbelievers' Newfangled Nom de Guerre Dimwitted

The Rocky Mountain News ^ | February 7, 2004 | Linda Seebach

[quidnunc]

What do people call themselves if they aren't religious? Many things, in fact, with slight distinctions of meaning; atheists, agnostics, nonbelievers, skeptics, freethinkers, secular humanists. Not a really positive term among them (except when said people are talking to each other).

And then there are words that other people use about them, which are even less positive: heretics, infidels, irreligious, unbelievers, godless.

Certain persons of this description, having decided they won't get proper respect until they get a better name, and taking as their model the adoption of the term "gay" for homosexual, have decided to call themselves "brights."

That's dim.

If asked "What's a bright?" a bright would reply, according to Richard Dawkins, "A person whose worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements. The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic worldview." Dawkins' essay is available at www.edge.org, along with one by Daniel Dennett; scroll down to July 23, 2003. Or go to www.the-brights.com if you want to sign up.

I'm fine with the definition, which fits me. I want nothing to do with the effort to establish the term, which could hardly be better calibrated to make people think even less well of the people who choose to use it.

"I'm a bright" and (unspoken), "You're a dim."

A colleague who is more of a historian than I points out that this technique has been known to work. When we talk about "the Enlightenment" we are in effect accepting the judgment of those who named it that their foes were "the unenlightened." But it still seems to me there is a considerable downside risk to pushing the "bright" meme.

-snip-

[Chris Talk]

YOWZUH!

[nickcarraway]

ping

[rustbucket]

No more being afraid of the monsters under my bed? or of liberals? or of Hillary Clinton?

Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe I will believe if something can be done about Hillary. Cheers.

[Ace's Dad]

And then there are words that other people use about them, which are even less positive: heretics...

"Heretic" works for me. Blight = "Bright" works, too. Bright connotes high intelligence and quick wit. I know some very intelligent and witty religious folk!

[Chris Talk]

Read Rev. 17. If that fails, read Isaiah 47.

[rustbucket]

What is their gist? I don't have a Bible handy (surprise!). Can they really stop Hillary?

[orionblamblam]

> NOTHING CAN GIVE THEM A RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND if their parents did NOT

Yes. Exactly. That's why children of atheists and agnostics NEVER convert. [/sarcasm]

> "If you forget ME, I will forget your Children, saith the Lord." --book of Hosea

Sounds like a Hell of a God.

[Chris Talk]

Time you did, time is running out. Google for Jerry Falwell's website and get SAVED. If your Bible is not handy, time to find it and KEEP it handy. If you don't HAVE a Bible, I am sure Brother Jerry will send you one.

Be in his church in Lynchburg by this Sunday for the altar call, you too can have life eternal.

//NOT sarcasm

[Chris Talk]

True, children of the non-religious, who lacked a religious upbringing...often CAN and DO convert, feeling deprived and wronged because of what their parents denied them...

And they thus Can be and ARE saved, but they still do not have a religious background, it can never be made up.

Just as if you were starved and malnourished as a small child or as a child generally, you can be given a good diet now as an adult but you will be forever stunted by not having had what was needed WHEN it was needed.

[orionblamblam]

Children of the religious, who had an imposed religious upbringing...often CAN and DO convert to reason, feeling deprived and wronged because of what their parents denied them...

[FoxInSocks]

Love their children, and then bring them up alone and afraid in a world they never made, without any religious orientation to console them?

Speaking of being afraid, I'll quote your own earlier post: "The fear of the LORD is the BEGINNING of wisdom." I don't think being raised in an environment of perpetual fear is necessarily healthy. Children can be raised to make moral and intelligent decisions without living in fear of being struck down by lightning for doing something wrong.

True, the children can always throw over a religious tradition if they wish, once they are grown.

Can't argue with that.

But NOTHING CAN GIVE THEM A RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND if their parents did NOT, not even if as adults they turn out to WANT one! One MUST give the children a religious training in order to preserve for them the CHOICE as adults, whether to be religious or not.

I'm sure there are many atheists or agnostics that have converted to a formal religion. I don't see it as a one-way street.

"If you forget ME, I will forget your Children, saith the Lord." --book of Hosea

If someone doesn't believe in God, quoting scripture isn't likely to be very persuasive.

[rustbucket]

I googled Revelations 17 on the web.

"And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast...[she] was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and on her forehead was written a great name of mystery: Babylon the great, mother of harlots, and of earth’s abominations."

- Revelations 17:3-5

Not bad. Pretty good description.

[orionblamblam]

I have a beloved friend who is "born again," and who very much wants to save my sould by converting me. She is going about it in a dignified way. I do not agree with her, but I cannot fault her motives and even her methods.

You, on the other hand, are doing a bang-up job of erasing whatever progress she might've made...

[freeeee]

True, children of the non-religious, who lacked a religious upbringing...often CAN and DO convert, feeling deprived and wronged because of what their parents denied them...

Yeah, and I was deprived of sleeping late every Saturday and Sunday for about 15 years because I was in Sunday school or church.

How wronged I was! Boo hoo.

[Leatherneck_MT]

I think it's better to refer to myself in this form.

I'm a sinner before God

But forgiven by the blood of his son.

If someone else chooses not to believe that, then they are still the same as I am, a sinner before God. The other part is strictly between them and God.

[FoxInSocks]

the impurities of her fornication

Is that what was found on Monica's dress?

[orionblamblam]

> I'm a sinner before God

Maybe.

>But forgiven by the blood of his son.

And that's the part that many people find just plain weird and irrational. Screaming about it, shouting verses that are self-referencing, and making nutso and incorrect claims about things, will NOT be especially productive in converting people to a belief system that is objectively strange.

[freeeee]

Nice post.

[Chris Talk]

If she is "born again," then she is alREADy saved, and whether she "converts" YOU will have no effect upon that.

In fact, it is only UNbelievers, such as Jews and Muslims, who ever speak of one Human's "converting" another! Christians know that it is only God who does the converting, and He will convert you if He chooses to do so, and if He does not so choose, then the Gospel will continue to seem just foolish and repugnant to you.

[orionblamblam]

> she is alREADy saved, and whether she "converts" YOU will have no effect upon that.

Non sequitur.

> He will convert you if He chooses to do so, and if He does not so choose, then ...

He will send people like yourself to try to convince me to believe like you.

Ain't no better way to drive decent people away from religious faith than to release religious fanboys on 'em.