What is a Bright you ask? According to the Brights Web site www.the-brights.net , a bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview. Whose worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements. In a nutshell, we do not believe in a god or gods. Brights are individuals who do not think alike on many issues, and it is not our desire to press for conformity.

My journey to becoming a bright started long ago. I have always been skeptical and inquisitive. So when my questions about god or the bible were unanswered or answered with, "God works in mysterious ways," I would walk away frustrated, angry and dejected. As I became more educated I learned of many other religions and many other ways to view the world. With this knowledge I was forced conclude, they all can't be correct.

I'm so sick and tired of people do this whole "You're right, you're so right..."-Yes-man-head-nodding business.

It pisses me off, and the fact that I've done it before gets me more steamed.

Now, I'm not pointing fingers, since everyone is prone to doing it, but, please stop doing this.
This business is increasing at the Richard Dawkins forum, almost to the point you can fill a paperback of nothing but "You're right" stuff, AND NOTHING ELSE!

Agree if you want, but try to add something.

Jeez.

Not really. I just wanted to see if my signature shows up.

I'm starting silver membership tomorrow.

Adam

Thanks so much to Brian and Kelly for giving me a tremendous amount of time to speak about what's going on in Missouri about stem cell research.

If you all have any questions don't hesitate to ask and I will do my best to get back to everyone them.

Joe
www.joerhea.com

I made a rather surprising dicovery today. I learnt that there are, in fact, not one Pope but TWO! That's right, there are 2 Popes. How can this be? Surely this just highlights the ridiculousness inherent in the catholic Church.

One of these Popes, Joseph Ratzinger/BenedictXVI, does indeed live in the Vatican. He's the one you probably all know about.

The other Pope, or Earl Pulvermacher as his parents named him, has no given address although there is a Post Office box number you can reach him at if you really need to send some money. It's in Springdale, WA. (isn't that where Bart Simpson lives? - Oh, no that's Springfield). I digress

I don't think I've ever posted a blog on here before.

Also, I haven't been here lately, so I'm just going to link to my new blog from MySpace.

Please give it Kudos, if you have an account.

Thanks, guys.

I'm growing more resistant to the deist/pantheist position. It always comes down to a handful of tiresome dead ends that beg the question. The "god of the gaps" keeps moving further off into the distance, scientific understanding nipping at its heels. As it always has, and will continue to until such nonsense is ruled out by our understanding of reality, or people come to their senses. Or maybe "everything" is "god": the insufferable redefinition of words, where a universe with "god" can't be distinguished from one without. The needless pantheist inference of a divine somethingoranother that did something for some reason, and one is and the same with all existence.

The final week of my 11th. year of public schooling is here. The final week is always a bit odd. There is a sense of urgency, but then there is a pervading laziness about everything.
I'm currently setting up my German final. It is a 4 minute monologue of various, sometimes random things. My math final is Wednesday, I think. I'm already done setting up for my Computer Apps. class. In Computer Apps., we had to come up with a project; do the project and then present the results. I chose to learn my way around Rhino 3D and model a turbofan engine. It was actually somewhat easy and the presentation will be a breeze. I'm planning to just do a quick demo of modelling techniques in Rhino; I actually look forward to this. It is something I like to do.

Religion. It's been getting me down recently. Really down.

Thanks to an unxpectedly large dose of LSD I have managed to rearrage some thoughts in my brain and now I'm going to do something about it. Religion, that is.

Actually, I've found that it's not religion that's the problem. Religion can be a useful thing. The worshipping of a higher power is what enabled us to domesticate dogs and cattle. A religion is merely a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.

So now religion isn't getting me down. Religion is, in fact, the very thing that I think we have to use to tackle the real issue, which is the faith in irrational concepts.

The original OP-ED piece,