Apparently, there’s a debate going on in the non-religious community about what we ought to call ourselves: atheists, humanists, freethinkers, brights, somethings… Since I’ve never really been too keen on labeling myself as something forever, I usually take the labels more lightly. So, I am an atheist. But that’s not all I am. I am also a freethinker (sometimes freely associated thinking). I am also a secular humanist. However, I realized that there is more to a label. Take “atheist” for example: I am an atheist – I think there is a very, very low probability that there is a God or any supernatural force/being/something. However, if I am just that, I am stuck in defining myself in opposition to something (theism in this case) and I might end up simply with religion-bashing. While that is probably an important step in my human growth, it would be sad to get stuck there. Bashing something might be fun but it is not very constructive. That’s why I like the label “secular humanist.” This implies the search for answers of the fundamental human questions (e.g., what is the purpose of my life, what happens after death). Rather than bashing someone else’s answers, we are looking for our own answers, knowing that the answers from religions, for example, are not meaningful to us.

Note: I removed the label of a Bright from my original post: I think that the danger of implying “brighter than you” is just too great. I agree with those who think that we just can’t redefine how others call us, especially with a term that already has a clear definition. I don’t see any reason why I can’t say that I am an atheist (and many reasons for doing so as outlined above). To me, there is no need for a new term, especially not an umbrella term coined by two people (which seems a contradiction in itself).

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