Whose BRIGHT idea was
MY KARMA DROVE OVER MY DOGMA?
For some background info check out:
http://the-brights.net/ what do you think?
& here is some funny stuff & some harsh mean spirited crap @
http://evolvefish.com/index.html which sort of fits in with the conundrum of getting labelled and now without further ado....
I recently came across a new term, a bright, which is being tossed about for people whose worldview is naturalistic and free of supernatural and mystical elements. Just as homosexuals captured the term GAY to integrate and evade the ugly monikers that were attached to them (that only they can use now),now atheist, naturalist, rationalist, humanist, agnostic, objectivist and free thinkers are given the opportunity to have a new improved label to avoid the societal stigmata of the former. bright.
My initial reaction was mixed, is it too Politically Correct and I thought that bright sounded a bit too conceited a term although not all GAY people are well, gay!
I also worried that adding another label to homo escapeons was not very constructive.
My original goal on this Blog was to promote a naturalistic view that we are all biologically the same and that all of the stigma attached with the human inventions or add ons like race, religion and politics have kept us from advancing.
Well however Polly Anna that sounds it is the lament of many who hope for John Lennon's lyrics from Imagine to come to pass. Unfortunately we are hardwired to make millisecond appraisals of strangers with our 5F meter.
The 5Fs are those initial snap decisions;
friend?, fight?, flight?, f**k?, or forget?
Millenia of civilization cannot seem to erase this out of our genetic code as we walk down on a busy street of strangers. We love (or can't get rid of) simple instantaneous information about people so that we can label them and rsolve any further investigation. People wear disguises and costumes so that it's easier for us to label them according to their appearance. Some are genuine and some are purposefully deceptive.
Thankfully we can override our instincts, develop friendships, and train ourselves to be colour blind, compassionate and forgiving and that IS our saving grace.
Hopefully love and reason will save the day despite what you see hear and read in the daily news!!!
As a skeptic it just kills me to be that hopeful but the alternative is very DARK!
Getting back to being bright I had several concerns after I signed up. First I have no problemo allowing scientific reasoning to explain HOW, WHEN and WHERE we came from. I'm fine with Evolution, Mitochondrial Eve and everything else all the way back to the nanosecond before the Big Bang.
I also think that some of us, regretfully, are prone to embellish and mislead others about our proprietary relationships with deities in order to manipulate others for personal gain. Power is power.
Therefore the WHO and WHY we are here poses the great question and just because or infinity isn't much to go on so I honestly believe that it is simply impossible, with these brains anyway, to understand the entire picture, hence the sign on my door AGNOSTIC.
The second concern and the real fly in the ointment is that I adore all of the mystical serenity and artsy introspective individuals and their respective Blogs that I have discovered out here. Our creative side is quite restricted without the ethereal license of the imagination. I consider the world of myth, magic, symbolism and cosmic flow to be essentialin order to soar high above the human/manimal condition.
Creative license is the cool part of having evolved to this level of self awareness..cogito ergo sum et al.
So I'm stuck in the middle somewhere even though I am satisfied with naturalistic reasoning I love it when it is explored, expressed and enveloped in mystical terms be it christian, buddhist, new age or whatever.
Maybe I'm just not that bright?
Worldviews aren't very easily gift wrapped and tied up with a bow.
We homo escapeons are fairly lazy and like to have everything about our world pre-packaged so that we can switch on the 5F meter, walk out the door, and get on with our daily survival duties.
HOMO ESCAPEONS: Welcome to an Autodidact's egregiously oversimplified pleonasmic emporium of hodge-podgery
You've obviously gotten over your, or never had them, fears of exploration. I think most people are afraid to explore beyond their initially absorbed truth. I know it's hard for me...and I still don't know where I'll end up. But that's what makes life exciting. I'd rather this than live a life of unexplored assumtions. I might come to some of the same conclusions, but at least they will be mine.
ReplyDeleteAnd I actually love the word agnostic. I think there are more of you out there but have not yet given themselves the name because of fear. The word simply means that you don't know and that it is impossible to know certain things with certainty. It seems to be a whole lot more graceful to say I don't know than to charge forward with an unwavering agenda.
And congratulations...you're at 1010 when I checked. Alice is so proud of you. :)
brian,
ReplyDeleteDanke meinen Yoda.
This was your idea... "You should Blahg" he says...now I am hopelessly addicted. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry but I am having fun during this inchoative stage and I have certainly met a plethora of fascinating characters out here.
This is Cranial Crack for OCDers like moi.
Thank You..
I'm not sure if Alicia would second this motion but she is certainly enjoying the temporary reprieve from my incessant nightly advances and finding more time for sudoku, her seven shows, and her beloved novels.
There is so much more to say about your thoughts, I just need some time to absorb them all.
ReplyDeleteBut I gotta remark on your Fascinating 5F Meter. Is that a Homo Escapions original?
Beautiful!
In my nationalistic view point, one extreme does not justify another. Being stuck with labels all my life, I will not abide another one. Free thinkers needs no protection, for indeed, it is my beliefs that to be a free thinker one must accept others beliefs without judgment. After all isn’t that’s what free thinking means? But than I could be wrong, therefore I am subscribing to the 5F systems.
ReplyDeleteIf a Friend wants to Fight or Fuck me out of my rights as a free thinker, I usually take a Flight, and Forget that Friend --- this is my own interpretation of your 5F concept --- Thank you for enlightening me.
As for the word Bright, it has the word B’right or I B’right and isn’t that what Christians are saying, that they are right and everyone else is wrong. I believe there is no such thing as right or wrong, except as it relates to the individual. So this label can go along with all the rest --- anybody got a trash can?
By the way HE, I enjoyed this post very much.
very interesting post dude...no wut/who made ya write this brilliant post? :)
ReplyDelete**5F meter
Liked that alot! I guess Im a victim of that too but not all the time...it depends on the situation too. I hope I dun portray myself as a self-righteous person who forces her beliefs on others. As much as I stand by my beliefs, I respect another's belief too..but on one condition..as long as that belief doesnt harm another...
Keshi.
what cracks me up is how lame their logo is, especially considering their concepts...it looks like a supernatural, invisible, glowing nipple at the end of a super semi-circular hunk of silicone.
ReplyDeletehow naturalistic is that?
argh!! i outed myself again....
ReplyDelete// Thankfully we can override our instincts, develop friendships, and train ourselves to be colour blind, compassionate and forgiving and that IS our saving grace.
ReplyDeleteHopefully love and reason will save the day despite what you see hear and read in the daily news!!!// ... amen to that brother!.
And yes we are hopelessly lost without a direction, time is not lost, we are.
When the shit hits fan, we will scamper to find a solution, thats it, in time, we will. No we just have to follow the 5F!!! :p
Man i suddenly feel BRIGHT!
within,
ReplyDeleteThe 5f meter just sort of popped out while I was imagining walking down a busy urban street just lookin' at all the people staring back at you. The info is filtered the exact way we did it out on the African Savannah 200,000 years ago...you've got less than a few seconds to decide how you're going to handle it...flippin'the bird or sayin' How You Doin'?
liquidplastic,
I think that you're on to something, if I'm bright then it seems implied that you're.....?
Why couldn't they pick a better term like a realee or factee. It may well be moot to pursue it.
You're probably right...Labels Schmabels! But we love to tag stuff!
keshi,
I was thinking about how the further back in time we go the more dangerous it was meet strangers...and then again. When we were finally able to stand up and look around (hoping to see a mate, g'day keshi)we were probably as afraid of spotting another human as we were a lion. I think we still have that stuck in the old reptilian cortex.
reysputin,
I knew that you would have issues with the glowing nipple but hey, you're a bona fide artist. I was surprised that there wasn't some referencing to evolution in lieu of the trekkie angle. Trying to capture a symbol for non symbolistas (just the facts please M'am)is probably not as easy as it would appear.
ghost particle,
I think that it's safe to say that we are both hoping that our Brains keep getting updated and improved so that we can get away from the tribalism and stop being such a scared little ape. Please discover a scientific method to speed up this process...oh yeah we already have one, it's called education.
There are so many angles from which to approach your post. Which says a lot. And all of which I agree with.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll just state that I think it's important for non-dogmatists to make it clear that we stand for something and not just against something.
Don't think "Bright" is a smart choice. The most common personal attack leveled at believers by non believers is that they're stupid, and this label implicitly makes that attack. The most common personal attack leveled at non believers by believers is that they're immoral.
I don't think these personal attacks are either constructive or true. Obviously believers are not conspicuous for displaying greater morality than non believers. It naturally offends us when they claim otherwise. And when we call believers stupid (and just visit, say, the divinity schools of Harvard, Yale or the U of Chicago to be disabused of this notion), it only does two things: it energizes their resistance to looking at their own thoughts critically; and it energizes our egotism.
Btw, the distinction between egotism and the stuff in us that matters is part of what religion works on at it's best.
Darius,
ReplyDeleteYou are 'scary' smart. I should just phone you with my ideas and get you to ghost write my posts.
I think that you're right . Bright comes across as a little too antagonistic from the getgo. You make a good point when you say that there is more to it than simply being against something.
I think that I understand what they are trying to do but this new age requires a sensitive diplomacy.
In journo-speak, a "bright" is also a brief, light-hearted news article about an interesting event or person.
ReplyDeleteJust so's you know.
Yes, a Bright in journo speak is just as Matthew describes. But that is not what these so-called Brights are purporting to mean.
ReplyDeleteI'm with HE and Darius. It is insulting to believers, who have their right to believe.