Greg Epstein

Religious scholar Greg Epstein found a way to bridge non-secular and secular views and became a best-selling author as a result. A native of Queens, New York, he earned an undergraduate degree in Religion and Chinese as well as a Master's degree in Judaic Studies from the University of Michigan. While he focused on Eastern religions, studying Buddhism for a time in Taiwan, he eventually gravitated to the Humanist movement. He went on to earn a Masters of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School. He was eventually named the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard. His book, Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe (2009, HarperCollins), was meant as a response to an atheist movement that was aggressively anti-religion. Epstein argued that there is a commonality in positive human behavior that can be attained with or without organized religion, but that religion in and of itself isn't the problem. He appeared on the reality TV show "Married at First Sight" (FYI/Lifetime, 2014-), as one of the experts who advised couples who had agreed to get married immediately upon meeting one another. He was a contributor for CNN, Newsweek, and the Washington Post, and ran the Humanist Community Project in Boston. He also served on the Advisory Board for the Secular Student Alliance, a nonprofit organization that promoted scientific reason and humanism.