Some atheists want to adopt and start using the term "Bright" because it sounds like a more positive and upbeat term than "atheist" does anymore. There are perhaps some good reasons for this - there is, after all, a lot of social stigma against the "atheist" label. Maybe "Bright" would be better? I doubt it.

George Dvorsky writes for Better Humans:

Aside from the superiority and elitism that the term "bright" evokes, the brights represent yet another unnecessary manifestation of tribalism. They have positioned themselves in a dichotomous and defensive relationship with their rivals, forcing each camp to further stratify and polarize.

And as for the brights themselves, while they claim intellectual superiority over their religious and supernaturally minded opponents—legitimately or otherwise—they are conspicuously quiet on the nuts-and-bolts issues of how to live and relate to others, and how to deal with the overwhelming totality of existence. Atheism for the sake of atheism is a rather empty and unfulfilling modus operandi, and the brights, should they hope to stand the test of time, must realize this and seek to become more than what they initially appear to be.

I think that Dvorsky is quite right. If "Bright" simply remains the absence of supernatural beliefs, it will go nowhere. "Brights" will never be limited to naturalism and naturalism alone because there is just not enough there. They will promote many other things: freedom, tolerance, compassion, skepticism, science, progressivism, and so on.

Being a "Bright" will, over time, come to include those things - if not officially, then by default because naturalists who don't believe in those things will feel excluded from the movement and won't feel that "Bright" really applies to them, even though the official definition does. Adding such things could create a basis for a social and political movement around which people can form an identity. Then again, that's something we already have: secular humanism.

The Raving Atheist comments on this article:

Of course atheism is “a distinctive club with specific metaphysical convictions.” Every ideology that is recognizable as anything is. But those convictions are not something that makes atheism a religion; rather, it is precisely those convictions that distinguishes it from religion.

He is 100%, absolutely wrong about that. Atheism contains no metaphysical convictions, it is just the absence of belief in any gods (something which may occur along with or because of a variety of possible metaphysical convictions). Atheism is not an ideology, it is just an absence of belief in any gods (something which may occur with or because of a variety of possible ideologies). Atheism is not properly distinguished from religion, it is only distinguished from theism (because both atheism and theism can occur both within the context of religion and outside the context of religion).

Once again, just so that we don't forget: atheism is the absence of belief in any gods. Nothing more, nothing less. Dvorsky quotes Don Hirsberg who said "Calling atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color" and then points out that "too many atheists have lost sight of the meaning of Hirschberg's insight." The Raving Atheist seems to be one of them. He is trying to pretend that his baldness (absence of belief in gods) has a color (metaphysical convictions).

It is true that he has all sorts of metaphysical convictions alongside his atheism - no one can question that. This isn't a matter of whether those convictions exist or even whether they are true. The point is simply that they are separate from atheism. Being an atheist doesn't necessarily require agreeing with the ideology of me, Bertrand Russell, Richard Dawkins, or any other atheist.

Read More:

• Atheism 101
• Agnosticism 101
• Defining Atheism
• Questions About Atheism
• Myths About Atheism
• Atheism in Society
• News About Atheism and Atheists