Good Without God

What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe

By: Greg Epstein

Narrated by: David Marantz

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 best sellers 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.

©2009 Greg Epstein (P)2020 Tantor

Dignity

I’m not sure I believe that dignity is the basis of human morality. I think he tries to explain if by using other words, but nevertheless, perhaps what binds us together really is our connection from our evolutionary routes to develop empathy and caring. We see it in dolphins who rescue humans and chimps who adopt champs who are not related to them. Theories of reciprocal altruism, and Skin selection. Don’t fully explain not related altruism.

People have already commented about the boring narration, but I think the substance of the book is very good

Fantastic!

I so enjoyed reading this book. It made me feel like I was not alone. Mr. Epstein is so smart. Thank you sir for this book. What a great book!

excellent book, reader not

This is an outstanding book that clearly explains humanism. Unfortunately, the reader was like a computer voice.

Great book, terrible narration

Excellent book and a great resource for understanding more about humanism. However the narration was, to say the least, uninspiring. At first I thought the monotonous voice was computer-generated. But apparently he is human - and should refrain from further audiobook narrations.

Narration too dry.

a lot of really great and important information but I'm not sure that an audiobook is the medium best to serve it. And the narration is so monotone and dry at first I thought it was a joke. Made it hard to listen to.

Speaker sounds too robotic

Guess it’s ok but this is a book on Humanism so why not have a speaker that sounds, well, human.

The narrator's heart was clearly not in it.

I agree with several of the other reviews that refer to the robotic voice. I think Mr. Marantz did the author a real disservice and I wonder if perhaps he was troubled by the subject matter? In the narrations of other books, his voice is much more animated and engaged. I think Chaplain Epstein should consider reading the book himself and re-publishing. It is a vitally thought provoking and important work.

Indepth understanding of humanism

Although laced with many repetative arguments relating to liberal politics, this book has been the best I've found for the explanation of secular humanism and how to implement its values into your life. Very grateful to the author.

A primer on humanism

Great overview of the ethos of humanism. I disagree that nihilism is fundamentally different but appreciated the discussion of the need for humans to have something like religion even though god isn't real.

Great Exposure to Humanism

The narrator was not good and some of us listen because ee cannot see to read anymore