Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe

by Greg M. Epstein

Humanists believe in life before death.

Call Humanism a faith if you like—we should have no particular allergy to that word—but recognize that it is a faith in our ability to live well based on conclusions and convictions reached by empirical testing and free, unfettered rational inquiry.

But “Do you believe in God?” is a totally meaningless question.

Here is the Humanist answer: we (the nonreligious, atheists, Humanists, etc.) believe that God is the most important, influential literary character human beings have ever created.

Humanists recognize that competition between groups has been part of our evolution—there is no way to expunge this basic fact from our minds or our history books—but now that humanity has discovered this, we can and must search fervently for healthy, nonviolent ways for groups of people, as well as individuals, to relate to one another.