Without god ...

Yours truly is an atheist. Have been for well over 60+ years as needing god to be ethically honest and caring is not necessary IMHO, a notion shared by Camus, Einstein and George Carlin, among significant others too numerous to count. With this being said, the move by Harvard to make Greg Epstein, an atheist, as chief Chaplin, is a smart move by bringing atheism as a viable alternative to the dark vagaries of magic and religion in the year of our lord 2022.

Last month, Harvard University named a new Chief Chaplain: Greg Epstein, an atheist. As reported in The New York Times,1 Epstein, the campus humanist chaplain, was unanimously elected to “coordinate the activities of more than 40 university chaplains, who lead the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and other religious communities on campus.” Perusing the hundreds of reader comments generated by the Times article revealed broad support. While some questioned whether an atheist could be a “real” chaplain, others suggested that appointing a humanist was a clever move—a way to have a neutral figure in a position of power.

Yet, across a chasm of difference, both reactions share a problematic assumption: that humanist commitments—by virtue of omitting belief in God(s)—involve no basis for religious authority, indeed no commitments at all. In stark contrast, the Harvard students interviewed about Epstein praised his ability to support an authentic quest for meaning without belief in God. “Being able to find values and rituals but not having to believe in magic,” A.J. Kumar, former president of a Harvard humanist group, was quoted as saying, “that’s a powerful thing.” But is it really possible to have meaning (the values and sense of purpose) without magic (the supernatural beings and metaphysics)? Are the commentators right to treat humanism as an absence of meaningful commitments, versus a commitment to humanistic sources of value and meaning?

Camus said it best in L'étranger

Comme si cette rage aveugle m'avait lavé, me débarrasse de l'espoir ; pour la première fois, dans cette nuit pleine de signes et d'étoiles, je m'ouvrais à la bienveillante indifférence du monde.

As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the benign indifference of the world.

 

Cover of the first edition