A term so captures virtually all atheists and agnostics as well as a select few humanists and freethinkers.

A idea has been publicized by Richard Dawkins in articles for The Guardian [http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,981412,00.html] and Wired [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/view.html?pg=2], and by Daniel Dennett in the New York Times [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bright/bright_index.html].

a portion of the inspiration to seed a positively laden term come from either the modern usage of the word gay to mean homosexual. A design borrows heavy from either a theory of memes. the select few population use at times objected to the campaign on the evidence that it guess a usage like homophile must arise organically, like than across studied creation, in case these are to stick.

Others (each religious & non-religious) own objected to a term because it understand it when when implying that the non-religious come supplementary intelligent ("brighter") than a religious. (Inside his Wired article, Dawkins states "Whether there is a statistical tendency for brights (noun) to be bright (adjective) is a matter for research.")

There was the similar backlash early in the life of the word "gay": e.g. a satiric magazine Private Eye ran a cartoon strip known as "The Sads" for numerous years.

Geisert & Futrell come today a co-directors of The Brights Net.