Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
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RELIGION & CHILD ABUSE NEWS: A blog on this website where I archive news items related to child abuse or neglect, or infringement of children's rights, in a religious context. You can subscribe to the RSS Feed here: http://www.perrybulwer.com/religion-child-abuse-news-rss/ You can also get the headlines and links to each article through my TWITTER account here: http://twitter.com/ReligiousAbuse
ABOUT ME: PERRY BULWER, B.A., LL.B.
Humanist-FreeThinker-Bright-Nontheist-Atheist-Agnostic-Skeptic-Secularist, Lawyer and Human Rights Advocate
After escaping the Children of God/The Family International cult in 1991, I earned a B.A. (with distinction) granted by the University of Victoria but earned at Malaspina University-College in 1996, now known as Vancouver Island University. I then went on to earn a law degree at the University of British Columbia in 2002. I was called to the Bar in 2003 and am a member of The Law Society of British Columbia.
You can learn a bit more from the following online profiles:
Malaspina University-College http://www.mala.ca/liberalstudies/Alumni/PerryBulwer.asp
International Cultic Studies Association http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_profile/bulwer_perry.asp
RISE International http://www.riseinternationalcic.org/team.php
You can also glean a bit more information from various items on this website. If you want to know anything more you'll just have to ask me, or wait for the book. 
You can CONTACT ME using the secure email contact form in the right-hand column.
WHAT DOES "BRIGHT ON THE EDGE" REFER TO?
The title of my website is a play on words. Originally, I called the site "A Left Coast View". That too was a play on words, instead of saying "a west coast view"; the "left coast" referring to the west coast of Canada, as opposed to the "right" or east coast. In that phrase "left" also referred to my political leanings.
The new title plays on the phrase "right on the edge", which accurately describes my life experiences, and my current geographical location on the "edge" of the North American continent. Punning on the word "right" in that phrase, I've chosen "Bright" as a far better descriptor of myself than the term "left" in its political meaning. The philosopher, Daniel C. Dennett, described the term "Bright" in a New York Times article as follows:
The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny -- or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic -- and life after death.
The term ''bright'' is a recent coinage by two brights in Sacramento, Calif., who thought our social group -- which has a history stretching back to the Enlightenment, if not before -- could stand an image-buffing and that a fresh name might help. Don't confuse the noun with the adjective: ''I'm a bright'' is not a boast but a proud avowal of an inquisitive world view.
Dennet explains further in his 2006 book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, at 21:
I am a bright. My essay "The Bright Stuff", in the New York Times, July 12, 2003, drew attention to the efforts of some agnostics, atheists, and other adherents of naturalism to coin a new term for us nonbelievers, and the large positive response to that essay helped persuade me to write this book. There was also a negative response, largely objecting to the term that had been chosen [not by me]: bright, which seemed to imply that others were dim or stupid. But the term, modeled on the highly successful hijacking of the ordinary word "gay" by homosexuals, does not have to have that implication. Those who are not gays are not necessarily glum; they are straight. Those who are not brights are not necessarily dim. They might like to choose a name for themselves. Since, unlike us brights, they believe in the supernatural, perhaps they would like to call themselves supers. It's a nice word with positive connotations, like gay and bright and straight.
Dennet was not far off with his proposal that believers in superstition and supernaturalism might want to call themselves "supers". Here's what cult leader David Berg wrote to his followers in 1981: "You're going to be a super-duper race who are going to survive miraculously & supernaturally, protected supernaturally."
PHOTOGRAPHY:
All photographs in the Photography section of this site were taken by me (with a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ20) while hiking or biking, or from my balcony or in relative's backyards. I don't go out of my way to find my subjects, but simply have my camera always with me and photograph life around me as I encounter it from day to day.
If you download any of my photos on this site for use on your site, or for any other purpose, could you please credit me and link back to this site. Thanks!