Greg Epstein

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Greg M. Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain of Harvard University, and sits on the executive committee of the 36-member corps of Harvard Chaplains. In 2005 he received ordination as a Humanist Rabbi from the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism. In late fall 2009 he will publish his first book, Good Without God: What a Billion Non-Religious People Do Believe.

Epstein was the primary organizer of “The New Humanism,” an international conference that drew one of the largest and most diverse audiences of any Humanist gathering in North American history. He blogs for Newsweek magazine and The Washington Post. He is an adviser to two student groups at Harvard College, the Secular Society and the Interfaith Council, and to the Harvard Humanist Graduate Community.

Greg grew up in Flushing, Queens, New York, as an assimilated and disinterested Reform Jew. He studied Buddhism and Taoism while at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, and in college went to Taiwan for a semester aiming to study Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in its original language and context. Finding that Eastern religions do not necessarily have greater access to truth than Western ones, he returned to the United States and shifted his focus to rock music, recording, and singing professionally for a year after college. Soon thereafter, he learned of the movement of Humanism and the possibility of a career as a Humanist rabbi and chaplain.