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**Daniel Dennett on why faith should be investigated scientifically, and why he's coming out of the closet as a nonbeliever.** http://images.beliefnet.com/imgs/x.gif Interview by Rebecca PhillipsYour book implies that many people believe in God or at least believe in “belief” because they don’t know how else to lead meaningful lives. How can you explain to someone how life can be meaningful without God?**
Well, by leading a meaningful life. As I look around the world, I see all sorts of heroes in every walk of life. But there is a prejudice against this because a lot of [atheists] are reluctant to point it [their lack of belief] out. Nobody wants to spend their life going around being the ‘village atheist.’ They’re much more interested in just leading a good and normal life.
So a lot of people, I find, are surprised to see me so candidly and cheerfully acknowledging my atheism. Not because they’re not atheists, but because they don’t go around mentioning it. I think that’s unfortunate.
**You helped promote the term “Bright” a few years ago, as a way to describe nonbelievers. What does that term mean? **
The term was coined by Mynga Futrell and Paul Geisert in California. What they saw was that the homosexual community did something politically wonderful by essentially kidnapping the word “gay,” which had its own meaning before, and turning it into a word that meant homosexual. It was a positive, happy word. Similarly, Bright is a positive word. I suggest that just as if you’re not gay, you’re straight, we could say if you’re not Bright, you’re Super. After all, they believe in the supernatural and we don’t. That’s the difference. Brights are those people who don’t believe in anything supernatural.