Brights Movement's beginnings
• Skeptics & Atheists
An article from July. Jennifer Garza, The Sacramento Bee:
Last fall, Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell prepared to attend a national march in Washington for nonreligious people. The two Sacramentans believed it was important to show their support for the cause. That is, until Geisert heard the name of the event -- "Godless Americans March on Washington."
"The worst name I've heard," says Geisert, sitting in the dining room of the couple's east Sacramento home. ...
After months of research, Geisert came up with the term that he says best describes the nonreligious: a "bright."
"It's positive, memorable and people don't know what it means. If you say I'm a bright, they ask, 'What's that?' and it gives you time to explain," says Geisert, 71.
A bright is a person who holds a naturalistic worldview that is free of supernatural or mystical elements, says Geisert. It is an umbrella term that unites atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, secular humanists and others, he says. ...
"It's a cop-out. It seems like a way to hide who you are to please other people. I'm not ashamed of my beliefs. ... Plus, it's a silly name," says Ellen Johnson, president of the American Atheist Association, which organized the Godless march. Johnson says she had to come up with a word for the event that wasn't associated with a particular group in order to attract the spectrum of nonbelievers. "It wasn't an attempt to define anybody."
Go to the The Brights Movement website.