Posted on 10/06/2007 4:30:57 AM PDT by Zender500
Atheists are coming out of the closet. Today, some 5 million Americans claim to be atheists. Throw in agnostics and you have 20 million. Five books making the case for atheism have become bestsellers. The 9/11 attacks have sparked a backlash against "fundamentalism" of every sort, painting conservative Christians with the same brush as Islamofascists. Atheists would seem to be poised for growth, but they have a public-relations problem.
A University of Minnesota poll last year found that atheists were America's most distrusted group. According to a recent Newsweek poll, 62 percent of Americans would refuse to vote for an atheist running for president.
As a result, atheists allege a whole host of slights, hostility, and civil-rights violations. And so many atheists are trying to do what homosexuals did when they pulled off one of the biggest public-relations coups in history, in part by rebranding themselves as "gay." Atheists are calling themselves "brights."
When people start talking about their religion and some say, "I'm a Christian," or "I'm a Muslim," an atheist may say, "I'm a bright." We can then anticipate "equal rights for brights" and measures forbidding discrimination against "bright Americans."
The problem for atheists, though, is that the term may not do them much good. That they think of themselves as "bright" grows out of their self-image. If atheists think they are bright while the rest of us are stupid, their opinion will probably alienate the public more than their views on God. As someone has said, the atheists might as well call themselves "smarty pants."
Paul Geisert, co-director of The Brights' Net, an organization and a website dedicated to the promotion of the name change, told WORLD that "'Bright' refers to a worldview, not to the intelligence of individuals who hold that worldview." The term, he said, "has referred to the Enlightenment, a time when reason and science offered a hope for humanity to move toward a better world."
The opposite of "bright" is not dim, he explained, but, in a new word coined for the rest of us, "supers." That derives from "supernatural." Says Mr. Geisert, "Never have the Brights claimed superior intelligence to supers." Never mind how that word sounds suspiciously like "superstition."
Mr. Geisart, avoiding the A-word, maintains that his movement is not really about atheism at all. "A minority of the Brights' international constituency self-identifies as 'atheist,'" he said. "Large contingents of Brights are agnostics, humanists, rationalists, secularists, naturalistic religion adherents (e.g., certain Buddhists), and secular religionists (e.g., secular Jews), with the largest group probably being 'nones' (i.e., those who state they are 'none of above' when asked on forms for their religion)."
So maybe atheists should be called "nones." Or what the Bible calls them (Psalm 14): "fools."
How can you call yourself “Bright” when you act so stupid? Easy... everyone else is stupid, I’m smart. If you dont believe it, ask me......
No wonder so many liberals are atheists.
Talking about Brights and Supers achieves nothing. If someone chooses not to be a believer, that’s their choice. But if that someone becomes a militant atheist and tries to stamp out expressions of my religion, then we have a problem, and applying fancy names to the parties isn’t going to help.
Have we ever. I speak as an atheist (though some friends insist I'm an agnostic).
9/11 gave atheists the opportunity to come out of the closet because they could roll out all of their hatred for religious believers under cover of being "anti-fundamentalist". Someone I once respected told me there was no difference between Jerry Falwell and the 9/11 hijackers, and I really wanted to hide.
The same people who attack religious folks for seeing things in black and white have the most monochrome vision--atheists = good, believers = bad. I consider myself an atheist who is a friend of believers (I'm the only one of my family and close friends who is an atheist), and the utter hatred and bile most atheists I encounter (99%) express is creepy. I don't want to impose my way on others and don't want them to do the same to me; that doesn't mean I HATE everyone who doesn't see things my way, and it doesn't mean that there's no difference between protesting outside a clinic to hopefully save an unborn person and plowing a plane into a building.
I see this particularly among certain New York friends. It's almost as if they have slipped a gear somewhere because they WISH they could blame 9/11 on Christianity and have the excuse to hate the Pope or whoever they REALLy hate. If you want to see certain liberal New Yorkers flip out, don't talk about terrorists or Islamofascism (they HATE that word), talk about the Catholic church.
The more atheists I encounter, the more I realize they are NOT like me--they're hateful loons.
Not this one, and the first time I hear someone call themselves this I'll laugh in their face.
BUMP
The Bible would say that those people's "hearts have been hardened". That point is reached when one consistently and actively works against God.
You are okay in my book...and I am a Christian. Most atheists I have met or read are on a crusade to prove there is no God. And they imply that they are intellectually superior! LOL!
I would call them “dims”. :0)
The Apostle Paul wrote to th eChurch of God at Corinth
(1 Cor. 1:18)That the Preaching of the cross is foolishness to them who perish, but to the saved it is the
power of God. Jesus (according to Johns Gospel ) told Nicodemus ( A Jewish Pharisee) One must be born again.(John 3:3,5) There are many reasons why one might claim to be atheist/or agnostic— those who insist there is no God and Christians are ignorant have a right to their belief-but NO right to say I must abandon what I believe.
The atheist/agnostic you responded to seems ok im my book
too—but there is another whose opinion means more than my own.He alone can judge the hearts of man.
As society degrades further into debauched chaos, the Folsom Street Fair being one example, it is certainly fitting that Athiests would come out of the woodwork and declare their superiority. After all, under Athiesm, there is no right or wrong, there is no Ultimate Authority, its all relative....its all how you look at it.
The word “liberal” has acheived a negative connotation, so liberals are running away from the label and are now trying to be known as “progressive”.
The word “atheist” has achieved a negative connotation, so atheists are running away from the label and are now trying to be known as “brights” (snicker, snort).
Liberals slapped the description “red” onto states that voted for Bush. They did so because “red” supposedly has a negative connotation. However, the Bush states either have embraced the “red” label or could care less about it. Either way, the “red” label is gaining a positive connotation.
To sum it up: Libs and atheists can’t win in the label game, while Conservatives win without even lifting a finger.
Atheists and leftists have similar motives: “Without God, all things are possible.” (Dostoevsky)
If you want no restraints, if you want to make up your own rules, or have no rules, you deny the great Rulemaker.
That’s why I consider militant atheists to be mad at God. Interestingly also, these same people always appear focused on stamping out Christianity, while they accept other religions as an act of multiculturalism.
I hope that you have a moment of grace. And its nice to know you won't consider that an attack.
Right. The problem with this country is not enough labels. Real bright.
Actually, logically, under atheism, if there is no relative right or wrong, then everything is either right or wrong. If there is no ultimate authority beyond the individual atheist, then it is him. What atheists are saying, objectively, is "I believe in God, and he is me".
Hence, their superiority and stress.
Thanks for a very thoughtful post in #5. Most of the atheists I know believe in one thing: that Christianity is a curse on the human race and only “dims” can really believe it. Other major religions aren’t anywhere near as obnoxious to them, it’s Christianity that drives them into a hate-filled rage.
Seeking converts at every opportunity, most atheists are as zealous in their “beliefs” as any Christian group ever thought of being.
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