Seen and heard.

The New Humanism conference at Harvard University, held April 20-22, 2007, in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the university's Humanist Chaplaincy, brought together a virtual who's who in humanism.

"Traditional religions have the beautiful architecture, the great music, the terrific literature ... and when you join the humanists it's kind of like joining the chess club or MENSA or the astronomy club. [But] this set of beliefs we now call humanism does have some gravitas. It has an intellectual connection to important strands of western and indeed eastern thought as well."

--Steven Pinker, Harvard psychology professor and 2006 Humanist of the Year

"This tradition goes back farther than the term 'secular humanism: The values of free inquiry, intellectual honesty, human dignity, tolerance, and universalism are as old as philosophy."

--Rebecca Goldstein, award-winning author and fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard

"Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity: Thank you for giving us a concept of humanity."

--Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, reading the quote from Hermann Hesse engraved on the first Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism presented to Salmon Rushdie on Friday, April 20, 2007

"In the quest for truth we end up in parties of one and the question is how to combine those groups."

--Acclaimed novelist, essayist, and critic Salman Rushdie

"There I was in the early 1970's having left the priesthood, primed and ready to talk about the secular point of view, but without a job. I knocked on the door of the United Ministry at Harvard and presented the idea that non-believing students could use some attention in regard to forming an ethical framework for their lives. They probably figured, 'if we can't reach them, maybe Ferrick can,' and they bought the idea. It was big of them to acknowledge you could form a moral framework without traditional religion.

"I am awed by Greg Epstein's work on this conference. We share the vision of a humanist future that goes beyond disbelief to a cooperative and trusting society committed to the freedom and dignity of every person."

--Tom Ferrick, Humanist Chaplain Emeritus of Harvard

"The new humanism is a salve for the new atheism, which is bold and confident, but aggressive too. It's the military wing of secular humanism."

--E.O. Wilson, Harvard entomologist and 1999 Humanist of the Year

"The implicit alliance between some seculars and fundamentalist Muslims--by which seculars boost fundamentalist goals by generalizing about Muslims--is the saddest feature of the modern world and feeds into the belligerence increasing around the globe."

--Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate and Harvard professor of economics and philosophy

"The last conclusion you would come to when analyzing the histories of the Jews or Blacks is that there's a loving administrator. For me, the alternative to worship has always been laughter."

--Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine, founder of Humanistic Judaism and 2003 Humanist of the Year

PHOTOS BY JULIETTE MELTON

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY THE HUMANIST CHAPLAINCY AT HARVARD AND THE AMERICAN

HUMANIST ASSOCIATION