Currently the naturalistic worldview is insufficiently expressed
within most cultures. The purpose of this movement is to form an
umbrella Internet constituency of individuals having social and
political recognition and power. There is a great diversity of persons
who have a naturalistic worldview. Under this broad umbrella, as
Brights, these people can gain social and political influence in a
society infused with supernaturalism.
As someone who grew up taught atheism in the most reverent way,
and for most of my life having thought of myself as a humanist, it
seems strange I don't like this movement. But I don't.
I am not on the liberal theologian's side either. Nor a theist or
even a polytheist, nor wicca even Starhawkian, though she appeals.
Not a person of faith.
Does that leave anything? Yes! And we are an even more isolated
bunch than the brights – at the risk of helping to spread the
unaesthetic meme. As someone who works with the psyche, and who knows
there are autonomous depths at work in our lives I am ok with being
something more than a naturalist. Perhaps of poetic temperament – which
is different from faith and it is not bright, give me shaded,
deep, chthonic, moist, soulful, hidden, dappled, dark. I don't
want a meme for it.