Monday, April 21, 2008

Do you want to be a Bright?

Until I heard Daniel Dennett on the radio this morning I did not realise that the word Bright had any currency as a word for a member of the atheist Church Militant

I saw this proposal in an article in The Spectator by Dawkins some years ago

Quite apart from the fact that I am not a member of his Church, I do not see any reason to label my precise degree of unfaith in religion. Any more than I see a need for a word to describe my precise degree of lack of faith in fairies

But if I did, I could not adopt the label Bright. First because of the ludicrous implication that believers are non-bright

Secondly because the name is primarily associated in my mind with John Bright, the nineteenth century radical orator, & campaigner for Free Trade

And noted Quaker