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The Brights logo is interesting...

Hi All,

Am I the only person who recognises the logo for this group as being very similar to the Egyptian Amarna period artistic representations of the sun god, the aten, around 1350BC.

The Brights

It's amusing that an atheist group has accidentally chosen a symbol which, during pharoah Akhenaten's reign, was used to represent the one true God...which was a massive break with traditional egyptian spiritualism which had masses of gods. Pharoah Akhenaten threw out all the other gods and replaced them with this one sun/sun god and had this symbol carved everywhere he could. After he died it didn't take long for the old gods to be brought back and carvings like this were systematically virtually vandalised out of the historical record.

So..this is the symbol of the one true god, and/or the symbol for the atheistic Brights. :-)

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Limber Lightfoot on February 26, 2010 at 6:54am

Make that the logo is interesting rather than unfortunate....I don't know how to edit the title of the discussion.

Permalink Reply by Stef on February 26, 2010 at 8:23am

I did it for you.

Permalink Reply by Justin Bonaparte on February 26, 2010 at 8:55am

Given the preponderance of gods, whatever symbol they used you could probably find a religious symbol that was similar.

Permalink Reply by Bud Martin on February 26, 2010 at 10:08am

It is my opinion "the brights" logo (I.D. symbol) is/was intended to illustrate "light," in the sense of "understanding." Picky, picky, picky ... to what end?

Permalink Reply by Limber Lightfoot on February 26, 2010 at 6:21pm

Hi Bud,

It's ok, I have no dark agenda. I was just commenting that it looked very familiar to me.

It's a lovely logo/I.D symbol.

Permalink Reply by Tom Thompson on February 26, 2010 at 10:13am

There is nothing new under the sun.

Okay, okay, corny, I know.

Permalink Reply by D.O.S on February 26, 2010 at 10:24am

Symbols are rather universal. It's difficult to come up with something that is truly unique. That said, I find it interesting to find the comparisons whether they are significant or not. Maybe I'm too much of geek but I still find such things entertaining.

:)

Permalink Reply by Limber Lightfoot on February 26, 2010 at 6:24pm

If we weren't attracted in some degree to intellectual snippets we probably wouldn't be brights.

:-)

Permalink Reply by Kevin Edward Dolan on February 26, 2010 at 11:52am

Yes, the best and most universal of design motifs – the cross, the wheel, the triangle, etc. – have all been used or misused by quite diverse interests over the millennia.

The swastika is a prime example: an ancient Asiatic solar symbol, found in Hinduism, and used as a ‘fylfot’ decorative motif in many cultures across the world, but dragged through the mire by the Nazis and now outlawed in Germany. However, just because of the Nazis, it does not mean that that ancient symbol is now invalid forever. It just means an attempt will no doubt one day be made to cleanse it of its current stain, to reinvent it. (Meanwhile, in India, it largely retains its ancient status and meaning in often highly decorated forms.)

There is also the Christian cross and the ancient Egyptian ankh; similar in appearance, but radically different in meaning.

One might also note the Brights’ logo’s vague similarity to the Japanese naval flag; significant of anything? Naw! Any design based upon a sunburst will look like any another design, regardless of applied meaning or context; it might be religious, political and/or a commercial logo. It might be decorative, such as the fanlight over Georgian doorways; religious in Akhnaten’s case, where the image of the sun and its life-giving rays represent the benevolence of the ‘One God’ – or, in the Brights’ case, a purely intellectual symbol of enlightenment, based on the old metaphor of the light of reason revealing truth.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 13, 2010 at 5:07pm

I thought of the Japanese flag of WW II also when I first saw the Brights' logo. Those born after the war probably make no connection to that at all. I like the thought of "a purely intellectual symbol of enlightenment, based on the old metaphor of the light of reason revealing truth." What is the recent claim, "Change the mind, change the brain" or something to that effect.

Permalink Reply by Lorien on February 27, 2010 at 9:09pm