Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe

by Greg M. Epstein

Overview

A provocative and positive response to Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and other New Atheists, Good Without God makes a bold claim for what nonbelievers do share and believe. Author Greg Epstein, the Humanist chaplain at Harvard, offers a world view for nonbelievers that dispenses with the hostility and intolerance of religion prevalent in national bestsellers like God is Not Great and The God Delusion. Epstein’s Good Without God provides a constructive, challenging response to these manifestos by getting to the heart of Humanism and its positive belief in tolerance, community, morality, and good without having to rely on the guidance of a higher being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061670121
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/26/2010
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,042,652
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

The Humanist chaplain at Harvard University, Greg M. Epstein holds a B.A. in religion and Chinese and an M.A. in Judaic studies from the University of Michigan, and an M.A. in theological studies from the Harvard Divinity School. He is a regular contributor to "On Faith," an online forum on religion produced by Newsweek and the Washington Post.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 Can We Be Good Without God" 1

2 A Brief History of Goodness Without God, or a Short Campus Tour of the University of Humanism 38

3 Why Be Good Without a God" Purpose and The Plague 61

4 Good Without God: A How-To Guide to the Ethics of Humanism 104

5 Pluralism: Can You Be Good with God" 151

6 Good Without God in Community: The Heart of Humanism 169

Postscript: Humanism and Its Aspirations 221

Appendix: Humanist and Secular Resources 227

Acknowledgments 241

Notes 243

Editorial Reviews

Ten percent of Americans and over one billion people worldwide are nonreligious, but media figures still registered surprised when President Barack Obama mentioned the "nonbelievers" in his inaugural address earlier this year. Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain of Harvard University, maintains that nonbelievers are, in a sense, believers and deserve a seat at the interfaith table. In Good Without God, he speaks affirmatively and non-combatively about humanism and its relationship to other alternatives. A refreshing break from the Religion vs. Atheism range wars. Now in paperback.

A passionate introduction to the philosophy of humanism. We are living in a time when nearly one billion people worldwide claim to be nonreligious, writes Harvard University humanist chaplain Epstein. Even in the United States, one of the most religious of industrialized nations, some 40 million say no to belief in supernatural causality. So now is the time, writes the author, for a rallying cry in the name of humanism, a philosophy built on the idea of being good without a god. In his first book, Epstein recalls the long history of doubt, going back to Epicurus and Socrates, re-emerging in the Enlightenment and then again during the age of Freud, Marx and Nietzsche. Epstein successfully dispels the case that God is required if one is to be good. "This is not a book about whether one can be good without God because that question does not need to be answered-it needs to be rejected outright," writes the author. "To suggest that that one can't be good without belief in a god is not just an opinion, a mere curious musing. It is prejudice. It may even be discrimination." Socrates was the first to ask whether something is good because God loves it or if God loves it because it's good? If it's the latter, then logically speaking there's no need for God. More important, Epstein's convivial argument gets beyond the hairsplitting, condescension and animosity of so-called New Atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris to arrive at a constructive ideology that explains why it's important to be good even without the presence of the Almighty, and how to do it. Though the author's prose isn't as clear as his thinking, he offers an effective primer on humanism, especially foryoung seekers. A timely manifesto for a misunderstood and maligned school of thought. Regional author appearances in Boston and New York. Agent: Robert Guinsler/Sterling Lord Literistic

Kirkus Reviews