Spotlight on Humanism and Atheism I: good without God book review

Sloppiness without Godliness

          

           Why should I cover atheism or humanism when they are not generally considered religions? Because there are some atheists and humanists that have developed communities that resemble evangelical churches. In the Boston area there is the Sunday Assembly and the Humanist Hub. Greg Epstein, humanist chaplain, lives in the Boston area and is the author of good without God, the subject of this book review. He argues that humanists should develop community (or a religion alternative) otherwise humanists risk sending them back to religion. He is probably right, but the execution of the book was annoyingly sloppy in a few key places.  What follows is the typical 140 word summary and then The Critique. Enjoy!

140 word summary of good without God:           

          

           Humanism is goodness without God and realizing that womb to tomb is the totality of human existence. Why and how we can be good without God are better questions than whether we can be good without God. Sociologically humanism resembles religion, but humanism differs from religion because it lacks supernaturalism. Humanists believe in subjective values that require argument. Humanism has a proud lineage from Epicurus to Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, and Darwin, to the unknown number of humanists today. Practically, the humanist message is to be passionate about preserving and advancing dignity. Dignity is an awareness that all human beings are human. This requires no God, just an awareness of other’s sufferings and celebrations. Humanism melds a comprehensive philosophy with a deeply practical and ethical social commitment. It is necessary for humanists to act together for the greater good. 

The Critique:       

           The sloppiness with Epstein’s book starts with the subtitle “What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe.” For Epstein, being ‘good without God’ is humanism and for this subtitle to be accurate one out of seven people in the world have to be nonreligious, think about their nonreligiosity, and think about what it means to be good without God. This type of humanism, with its emphasis on ‘good without God,’ is mostly restricted to the Western world. Thus, it’s unlikely that there are a billion or so humanists of this type in the world. Thus, to consistently maintain that you are adequately representing one billion nonreligious is arrogance. Luckily, he does not maintain this position consistently; he tacitly admits that ‘strivers’ those who just worry about getting more things, may be members of the world’s largest religion. Given these problems a different subtitle should have been chosen, perhaps: ‘good without God: What Everyone Needs to Know.’ Though, even this does not capture his call to action in later chapters.

           He is also sloppy in his discussion of science. He uses the phrase ‘the scientific method’ (emphasis added) as he complains that some people do not understand science. It is right and proper to hold science in high esteem, but any good introduction to the philosophy of science should convince anyone that there are multiple methodologies that scientists use, and there is no definitive definition of science. Giving Epstein the benefit of the doubt, his statement may just be poorly phrased. 

           My last example of sloppiness is a logical error. Epstein complains that people believe that you can’t be good without God because you can be evil and believe in God (e.g. Nazis and Bin Laden). This is not baffling. Essentially the first claim implies that all good people are with God, but it does not say that all people who are with God are good people. Thus, even logically, it’s possible for people to believe that you can’t be good without God and admit there are evil people who do their evil in the name of God. This is not baffling and something that many religious people will likely admit.

            So far I have just been talking about sloppiness. But there is some clear content that I find problematic, though not fatal to his project. He states that there are some people (both atheist and religious) who reject pluralism, the usual foundation for interfaith work. Pluralism is the position that diversity in religion is good and that other religious ideas have merit. While the sentiment behind interfaith is great and I would not dismiss the possibility of employment in interfaith work, excluding non-pluralists from the conversation is problematic, though perhaps necessary. But this means that interfaith organizations can devolve into liberal or moderate religious people talking only to each other about their liberalness and moderation. That being said, Epstein’s goal in this section to argue for the inclusion of atheists into these interfaith movements, not to discuss the merits or demerits of pluralistic interfaith dialogue.  

           One excellent point in the book is the observation that we should ask people what they believe about God, not if they believe in God. Asking if someone believes in God is insufficient because there are so many conceptions of God it should make your head spin. Is god omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent? Is God the ‘ground of being’? Is God love? Is God a person? And there are many many more. Also, some argue that none of these conceptions do justice to a God that is supposed to be wholly other. Epstein concludes this section by stating that the further removed you are from the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent conception of God the more someone like Rick Warren, famous evangelist, will consider you closer to humanism. And if he thinks you are a humanist, why not at least ally yourself with humanism and some of the nonreligious.  

Bottom line:

                

            Because of the sloppiness, this was a mediocre book. I agree with the sentiment that people should understand science and that people should acknowledge that people can be good without God. One thing that did annoy me greatly was the subtitle. It is arrogance to claim to speak for one billion people. If there was a book about Christianity titled ‘what 2 billion Christians do believe’, I would make similar comments, because the book would end up being filled with exceptions rather than common ground. But Epstein’s book did not really even focus on commonalities, rather it was almost a call for what humanists should believe and do (i.e. create community), rather than what they do believe.