# Empathy is Weakness? (with Fish Stark)

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 3 Mar 2026, 32 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70339491/podcast862_empathy_fishstark.mp3

Elon Musk says that empathy is going to ruin us. Fish Stark of the American Humanist Association not only disagrees, but the AHA is prepping a historic day of empathy...and you can potentially be a part of it. https://www.americanempathyproject.org/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because.
[0:22] Speaker 3: I put my hand on a book and made a.
[0:24] Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 4: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 4: Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 4: Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has said
[1:00] Speaker 4: empathy is a problem.
[1:02] Speaker 2: Oh no, is.
[1:03] Speaker 4: Empathy part of the woke lib agenda to somehow ruin
[1:07] Speaker 4: the world. I don't think so, and neither does Fish Stark,
[1:11] Speaker 4: who was the executive director of the American Humanist Association.
[1:15] Speaker 4: Fish joins me, now, hey, brother, how you doing?
[1:19] Speaker 3: Hey, Seth, good to be here, and thanks so much
[1:21] Speaker 3: for having me.
[1:21] Speaker 4: I got to do my due diligence and make you
[1:24] Speaker 4: answer the question that you've answered a squillion times. Your
[1:27] Speaker 4: first name is Fish? What's that about?
[1:30] Speaker 3: Oh so, no, my parents did not name me that.
[1:35] Speaker 2: Most people in the movement know.
[1:37] Speaker 3: My dad Pete Stark, the first open atheist in Congress, but.
[1:40] Speaker 2: His name wasn't Pete either.
[1:42] Speaker 3: Actually, my name is Fortney Hellman Stark the third and
[1:45] Speaker 3: his name was Fortney Hellman Stark Junior. A name like
[1:49] Speaker 3: Fortney Hillman Stark the third is a liability. In elementary school,
[1:53] Speaker 3: I got beat up a lot in the first grade
[1:56] Speaker 3: for a lot of reasons. I was a you know,
[1:58] Speaker 3: I was I was too good at school and too
[2:00] Speaker 3: bad at sports, and a little sort of emotional and
[2:04] Speaker 3: all of those things. And then having a name that
[2:06] Speaker 3: sounded like Courtney. In the early two thousands, the word
[2:10] Speaker 3: for that kid was gay, and I got beat up
[2:12] Speaker 3: a lot.
[2:13] Speaker 2: And so there was a point in first grade where
[2:15] Speaker 2: I was.
[2:16] Speaker 3: Like, well, I can't change a lot of the things
[2:18] Speaker 3: that are getting me beat up, but I can't change
[2:21] Speaker 3: my name. And so I took my initials, which were
[2:24] Speaker 3: FHS Fortneyhillman Stark the third, and I was like, that
[2:27] Speaker 3: looks a little bit like Fish. That is hip, that's cool,
[2:29] Speaker 3: that's edgy. I bet a kid named Fish doesn't get bullied,
[2:32] Speaker 3: which was wrong. But I took on the name and
[2:37] Speaker 3: I lived into it and I was like it it
[2:39] Speaker 3: felt like me, and so I've been everyone's called me
[2:41] Speaker 3: Fish since I was six years old.
[2:42] Speaker 4: I think it sounds like royalty, and you say it
[2:45] Speaker 4: that way, it almost sounds like money, like old money.
[2:48] Speaker 4: You know, if you're British, you could have played on
[2:50] Speaker 4: that for the rest of your LEA could have faked
[2:52] Speaker 4: it at least I don't know.
[2:53] Speaker 3: So it's so interesting, right because like it sounds like
[2:56] Speaker 3: an aristocratic name. And I didn't know the real origin
[2:59] Speaker 3: of the name Fortny until I went to Germany this
[3:02] Speaker 3: last summer, where my great grandparents immigrated from two hundred
[3:05] Speaker 3: years ago. And these were like not rich immigrants, right,
[3:08] Speaker 3: Like they came over and they like worked in a
[3:10] Speaker 3: sugar mil Milwaukee and you know, worked their way up.
[3:13] Speaker 3: And the name for everyone called my great great great grandfather,
[3:19] Speaker 3: who was on a very ironically named Christian Stark, they
[3:23] Speaker 3: called him Forte, which is the German word for gate,
[3:27] Speaker 3: because he lived next to the gate of the town.
[3:30] Speaker 4: So my name, Yes, everything's got a story, everything's got
[3:34] Speaker 4: a backstory. Fish. One more piece of you know, housekeeping.
[3:40] Speaker 4: American humanist? Do you have to describe humanism for people?
[3:43] Speaker 4: Like it's not as bad as secular. When I try
[3:46] Speaker 4: to explain what secular is. But when you say atheists,
[3:49] Speaker 4: they kind of get it. When you say religious, they
[3:51] Speaker 4: kind of get it. With humanist, how do you approach that.
[3:55] Speaker 3: Humanism is for anyone who believes that science tells us
[3:58] Speaker 3: what's real and that the tells us what's right. It
[4:02] Speaker 3: is for people who believe in the Golden Rule, but
[4:05] Speaker 3: not in God. So if you believe that truth and
[4:08] Speaker 3: power and morality don't come from some abstraction or some
[4:11] Speaker 3: myth or some external source, but come from us, come
[4:15] Speaker 3: from democracy, come from the needs of our neighbors, then
[4:18] Speaker 3: you're a humanist. And so that's you know, we are
[4:21] Speaker 3: building a movement that we think reflects the values of
[4:24] Speaker 3: forty six million Americans, and we are looking to bring
[4:27] Speaker 3: them in and work for the kind of country we
[4:30] Speaker 3: believe we should have.
[4:31] Speaker 4: I mean, I think the religious nuns andnees represents one
[4:36] Speaker 4: of the largest of not the largest, single demographic in
[4:40] Speaker 4: this country. Right, No, it's not represented that way in Congress.
[4:42] Speaker 4: Roughly ninety percent of our elected officials say they're Christian
[4:46] Speaker 4: or believe in the Christian God, which I'm like, how
[4:48] Speaker 4: does a representative government represent an increasingly secular population. Right,
[4:54] Speaker 4: I'll do.
[4:54] Speaker 2: You one better.
[4:55] Speaker 3: Thirty percent of Americans have decided religionism working for them,
[4:59] Speaker 3: including fits fifty percent of young Americans.
[5:02] Speaker 2: This is the biggest.
[5:03] Speaker 3: Representation gap in the country. Thirty percent of Americans are
[5:05] Speaker 3: non religious. Zero point six percent of Congress is non religious.
[5:10] Speaker 2: It's it's insane.
[5:11] Speaker 3: And when my dad came out as the first open
[5:14] Speaker 3: atheist in Congress, there was only one open non believer
[5:18] Speaker 3: serving in any state legislature anywhere in the country. Now,
[5:21] Speaker 3: through RC four Center for Free Thought Equality, we've identified
[5:25] Speaker 3: over seventy five state legislators. We now have three members
[5:28] Speaker 3: of Congress. We're working to build up, you know, not
[5:32] Speaker 3: just culturally like bringing young people in and new people
[5:36] Speaker 3: into humanism, but our political representation as well, because no
[5:40] Speaker 3: one's ever going to fight for us if we don't
[5:41] Speaker 3: fight for us.
[5:42] Speaker 4: Yeah. I know a great many American Christians fall under
[5:45] Speaker 4: the Protestant label, but we got six of the nine
[5:48] Speaker 4: Supreme Court justices are Catholic. I mean, someone explain that
[5:52] Speaker 4: to me. I mean, as far as we're representing us,
[5:54] Speaker 4: I know they represent supposedly in theory in a world
[5:58] Speaker 4: that is not insane. They represent the law, but they're
[6:02] Speaker 4: also supposed to be representatives of the United States. Are
[6:06] Speaker 4: six out of every nine of US catholic? I think not.
[6:10] Speaker 3: Well, here's the thing. The religious right spent decades working
[6:14] Speaker 3: on a concerted strategy. They poured money into building up
[6:18] Speaker 3: leaders from the ground up, right electing them into school
[6:21] Speaker 3: board or getting them into lower judgeships and building them up.
[6:24] Speaker 3: They worked to create their own culture and media. They
[6:27] Speaker 3: worked to build communities where they brought in people who
[6:29] Speaker 3: needed a sense of belonging and then educated them in
[6:33] Speaker 3: the kind of theology and politics they wanted them to have,
[6:36] Speaker 3: and they built power. Thirty years ago, people were laughing
[6:39] Speaker 3: at the kind of legal theories that the Christian right
[6:41] Speaker 3: was advancing. Now they're the law of the land. If
[6:44] Speaker 3: they can play that game, then so the hell can we.
[6:47] Speaker 3: And that's the big bet we're making at the American
[6:49] Speaker 3: Humanist Association. We're doing exactly what the Christian right did
[6:52] Speaker 3: before the secular left. We're investing in content creators. Just
[6:56] Speaker 3: like Charlie Kirk got started because he got ten thousand
[6:59] Speaker 3: bucks from right wing Christian mega donors. We're spending ten
[7:03] Speaker 3: thousand bucks a month to try and find the Charlie
[7:05] Speaker 3: Kirk of the secular left we've got, you know, just
[7:08] Speaker 3: like the religious right worked to build up their bench
[7:13] Speaker 3: of politicians and judges from the ground up. R C
[7:17] Speaker 3: four the Center for Free Thought Equality has a pack
[7:20] Speaker 3: and we support candidates in local and state and federal
[7:25] Speaker 3: elections through that pack, so that we're building a base
[7:27] Speaker 3: of atheist, humanist, agnostic candidates running for office.
[7:31] Speaker 2: We've got to look at what they.
[7:33] Speaker 3: Did, and we've got to understand that actually we've got
[7:36] Speaker 3: to replicate that own sense of identity and community and
[7:39] Speaker 3: really rigorous political and legal work.
[7:41] Speaker 4: I mean, do you get into the hurting cats thing
[7:44] Speaker 4: like me? I will say one thing about the religious right.
[7:48] Speaker 4: They're well organized and well funded. I mean, you know,
[7:50] Speaker 4: they've got the Peter Thiels, they've got the Heritage Foundation,
[7:53] Speaker 4: they've got the echoes of the moral majority, you know,
[7:56] Speaker 4: and then they've got the people who I think are
[7:58] Speaker 4: merely transactional, be the Bezos and the Elon Musks who
[8:02] Speaker 4: are doing it. I think for monetary reasons and for
[8:05] Speaker 4: power reasons. Is it harder on our end to try
[8:08] Speaker 4: to build these coalitions?
[8:10] Speaker 2: Not if we change our behavior?
[8:12] Speaker 3: Right, there are pro growth and anti growth behaviors for
[8:15] Speaker 3: every social movement. We've just sort of taken a hard
[8:18] Speaker 3: stand against debate bro culture at the AAH. Nobody wants
[8:23] Speaker 3: to come to another philosophical discussion and be told they
[8:26] Speaker 3: don't know the right terms for things, right, Like, if
[8:29] Speaker 3: we try to teach people new words for stuff, we
[8:32] Speaker 3: deserve what we get. That's why we are talking about
[8:36] Speaker 3: humanism in terms of things like empathy and science that
[8:39] Speaker 3: most Americans are like, oh, yeah, that is how I
[8:41] Speaker 3: make decisions, not by like reading the Bible when I
[8:44] Speaker 3: want to figure out, like what vegetable to buy, and
[8:47] Speaker 3: so I think that there is Ultimately, we spend a
[8:52] Speaker 3: lot of time in the movement doing things like pointing
[8:55] Speaker 3: and laughing at religious people for believing in a story
[8:58] Speaker 3: that made sense to them than saying, hey, here's the
[9:01] Speaker 3: story we believe in, here's the kind of community we
[9:04] Speaker 3: want to build, and here's how we're going to make
[9:06] Speaker 3: people feel the same sense of welcome and belonging and
[9:08] Speaker 3: excitement to believe in humanism that they get when.
[9:13] Speaker 2: They go to an evangelical church.
[9:15] Speaker 3: And so we we're seeing massive growth in terms of
[9:19] Speaker 3: I mean, the AAHA staff has grown seventy five percent
[9:21] Speaker 3: in the last year. Donations are up sixty six percent.
[9:24] Speaker 3: We have thirty percent more members in January alone compared
[9:27] Speaker 3: to the prior year. We're running a playbook that is
[9:30] Speaker 3: working to build a humanist movement because now is the
[9:32] Speaker 3: time in America for it. People are pissed off about
[9:35] Speaker 3: what's going on, and they're searching for something to believe in.
[9:38] Speaker 3: That's what we need to give them.
[9:39] Speaker 4: Yeah, we've cursed the darkness and awful lot, and I
[9:41] Speaker 4: do as well. I mean, we wake up every morning
[9:44] Speaker 4: damage report and there's always some fresh hell to look at.
[9:48] Speaker 4: But rather than wallow in despair, it does help. I
[9:50] Speaker 4: think it's good medicine to be proactive. I will align
[9:53] Speaker 4: many of my religious you know, Christian friends, even a
[9:57] Speaker 4: few Muslim friends who are not in did it all in
[10:01] Speaker 4: a state church. They don't think that God would want
[10:04] Speaker 4: a religious government. They think it's a personal faith. We
[10:07] Speaker 4: disagree on theology, you know, we can talk about the
[10:09] Speaker 4: Bible and the Koran and all that stuff, but in
[10:11] Speaker 4: terms of human beings, our values align. I also call
[10:15] Speaker 4: those people humanists. I don't know. I mean, I don't
[10:18] Speaker 4: get hung up on labels, but what do you think
[10:20] Speaker 4: of that fish.
[10:21] Speaker 3: I mean, my best friend is a social justice Catholic
[10:25] Speaker 3: right better person than me pretty much any day of
[10:28] Speaker 3: the week.
[10:28] Speaker 2: I'm trying to be like him.
[10:30] Speaker 3: Whether he believes in God or not doesn't make the
[10:32] Speaker 3: world any better. And he was actually the person who
[10:34] Speaker 3: encouraged me more than anyone else to take this job,
[10:37] Speaker 3: because he said, yeah, the sense of values and community
[10:40] Speaker 3: and grounding I get from Catholicism that pushes me to
[10:44] Speaker 3: be a better and more liberal person and fight for
[10:47] Speaker 3: the rights of other people. We need that for people
[10:50] Speaker 3: who don't believe too, So go build it.
[10:52] Speaker 2: You know.
[10:52] Speaker 3: I think ultimately there are lots of partnerships to be
[10:55] Speaker 3: built between humanists and religious folks think that difference between
[11:01] Speaker 3: humanist and a religious person with good values is what
[11:05] Speaker 3: was best articulated by John Dietrich, who founded the AJA
[11:09] Speaker 3: almost one hundred years ago. He said, the humanist is
[11:12] Speaker 3: not much interested in the God ideal, except for the
[11:15] Speaker 3: fact that it's a distraction from the work that we
[11:18] Speaker 3: have to do right now. In other words, the humanist
[11:20] Speaker 3: answer to is there a God is less hard no,
[11:23] Speaker 3: and more who cares?
[11:25] Speaker 2: Right?
[11:26] Speaker 3: Like I always say, if God manifested himself in front
[11:29] Speaker 3: of me right now and presented incontrovertible scientific proof of
[11:32] Speaker 3: his existence. I would no longer be an atheist, but
[11:36] Speaker 3: I would still say, what gives you the right to
[11:37] Speaker 3: boss me around? I wouldn't accept his claims as true
[11:41] Speaker 3: just because he said them. I wouldn't let him tell
[11:43] Speaker 3: me to discriminate against other people. And that's what makes
[11:45] Speaker 3: me a humanist, because our morality and our truth comes
[11:49] Speaker 3: from humanity, not from an external authority.
[11:51] Speaker 4: Okay, so let's talk about this empathy project. What's the
[11:56] Speaker 4: war on empathy about? Like, you know, I know, we
[11:59] Speaker 4: live in a culture of cruelty. It's bizarre fish to
[12:03] Speaker 4: watch these, you know, the same believers, the maga Christian
[12:07] Speaker 4: and they go in and you know, there Jesus said,
[12:09] Speaker 4: love one another, right, Blessed are the meek, turn the
[12:12] Speaker 4: other cheek, don't take vengeance, don't commit adultery, don't lust,
[12:15] Speaker 4: don't bully, don't do all these things. And they have
[12:18] Speaker 4: then not only supported, but in many cases worship somebody
[12:22] Speaker 4: who's who's a literal anti Christ.
[12:25] Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean, when you think about the war
[12:29] Speaker 3: on empathy, ultimately, what you've got running our country right
[12:33] Speaker 3: now is an alliance of billionaires, bishops, and bigots. I
[12:37] Speaker 3: call it the axis of nonsense, right. And the one
[12:40] Speaker 3: thing they can agree on, because they don't agree on
[12:43] Speaker 3: h one b visas, and they don't agree on abortion,
[12:46] Speaker 3: and they don't agree on all these other things, the
[12:47] Speaker 3: one thing they can agree on is that we have
[12:50] Speaker 3: to be more exclusive around who counts and who matters.
[12:55] Speaker 2: Right.
[12:55] Speaker 3: The billionaires think that their wealth gives them the right
[12:59] Speaker 3: to rule, The bishops think their worship gives them the
[13:02] Speaker 3: right to rule, and the biggots think their whiteness gives
[13:04] Speaker 3: them the right to rule. And together what they can
[13:06] Speaker 3: agree on is we should be crueler to more people.
[13:10] Speaker 3: And so they're working together to advance this idea that
[13:14] Speaker 3: empathy is toxic, empathy is suicidal. You hear it from
[13:18] Speaker 3: Elon Musk, who's saying on Joe Rogan that empathy is
[13:21] Speaker 3: the weakness of Western civilization, and you hear it from
[13:24] Speaker 3: right wing religious pastors who are saying things like empathy
[13:27] Speaker 3: is evil because it tells people to abandon God for
[13:30] Speaker 3: the sake of the neighbor. Which anything that is telling
[13:32] Speaker 3: you to abandon your neighbor is not a theology worth believing.
[13:36] Speaker 4: In.
[13:36] Speaker 2: Let's just say that upfront.
[13:38] Speaker 3: The reason they're doing it. They're not doing it because
[13:41] Speaker 3: this is a popular position. Right eighty percent of Americans
[13:45] Speaker 3: think empathy is a core American value and that we
[13:47] Speaker 3: need more of it. The reason they're doing it is
[13:50] Speaker 3: because they can't get what they want. They cannot enact
[13:54] Speaker 3: their political project without cruelty towards other people. And what
[13:59] Speaker 3: they need to win is for us to turn away
[14:02] Speaker 3: from each other, to look away when we see cruelty
[14:04] Speaker 3: and say not my problem. And so they're trying to
[14:06] Speaker 3: bully and shame us into saying not my problem. When
[14:09] Speaker 3: they gun people down the streets in Minneapolis, when they
[14:12] Speaker 3: rip healthcare away from seniors and working families, when they
[14:16] Speaker 3: kidnap five year olds off the street and shove them
[14:18] Speaker 3: into tention centers like Liam Ramos. Humans are naturally wired,
[14:23] Speaker 3: evolutionarily wired to care about the survival of our fellow
[14:29] Speaker 3: humans because we recognize that if we look out for them,
[14:33] Speaker 3: they'll look out for us. They're trying to repress that
[14:37] Speaker 3: human instinct in us because it's the only way they
[14:40] Speaker 3: can hoard more wealth and power for themselves. It's frankly
[14:44] Speaker 3: a stupid tactic because again, you look at America right now,
[14:49] Speaker 3: most reasonable people are saying, my god, empathy is toxic. No,
[14:53] Speaker 3: we don't have enough of it. We all ought to
[14:54] Speaker 3: look out for each other more and treat each other better.
[14:57] Speaker 3: That's the problem. And this is good news for human
[15:00] Speaker 3: because again we don't have We don't believe morality comes
[15:03] Speaker 3: from stone tablets or voices in the sky, right We
[15:06] Speaker 3: believe morality comes from understanding the needs of our neighbors.
[15:11] Speaker 3: If science points the way to what is true, empathy
[15:14] Speaker 3: points the way to what is good. We believed that
[15:17] Speaker 3: for centuries, and so it's a great opportunity for us
[15:20] Speaker 3: to say, hey, not only are they wrong, but if
[15:23] Speaker 3: you want to believe in something that says, actually, empathy matters,
[15:26] Speaker 3: and it's how we understand what our obligations are.
[15:29] Speaker 2: Humanism might be for you.
[15:31] Speaker 4: The perception of strength as I don't know, breaking things
[15:35] Speaker 4: and smashing things and conquest. You know, the bullies of
[15:39] Speaker 4: the world. I mean, I guess they're strong in a
[15:40] Speaker 4: specific sense, but it's actually a much more noble strength.
[15:45] Speaker 4: I think it's a much more solid strength when you
[15:48] Speaker 4: are using your abilities to protect and to build. I mean,
[15:51] Speaker 4: anybody can burn a house down, but to construct one
[15:54] Speaker 4: that takes real strength, I think, and that's not really
[15:58] Speaker 4: the attitude at least into America from the top down.
[16:02] Speaker 4: It just seems like I've got to go in and
[16:03] Speaker 4: wipe things out and remake it in my own image.
[16:06] Speaker 4: I mean, anybody can smash the window, but to actually
[16:09] Speaker 4: form and fabricate and place the glass that takes a
[16:13] Speaker 4: lot more care.
[16:14] Speaker 3: Right, absolutely, Look, you know, ultimately we've seen this throughout
[16:18] Speaker 3: human history.
[16:19] Speaker 2: Right.
[16:20] Speaker 3: There are people who try to rule through fear and repression,
[16:23] Speaker 3: and they succeed maybe for a little while, they might
[16:26] Speaker 3: kick down some sand castles, but ultimately, the people who
[16:29] Speaker 3: build things that last are the people who lead through respect,
[16:33] Speaker 3: the people who are able to bring people together and
[16:36] Speaker 3: articulate positive values, not give people someone to hate. I mean,
[16:40] Speaker 3: that ultimately is why you know, we see the part
[16:45] Speaker 3: of why the right is so angry is that they've
[16:47] Speaker 3: been sold this bill of goods. Right, the billionaires have
[16:52] Speaker 3: stolen their wealth and they're working longer hours to afford
[16:55] Speaker 3: less and provide less for their families. And then you've
[16:58] Speaker 3: got hacks like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro who are like, oh,
[17:01] Speaker 3: you feel unsatisfied. You feel like you don't have control
[17:03] Speaker 3: in your life. You know what, if you just hate
[17:06] Speaker 3: these people and see yourself as superior to them, then
[17:08] Speaker 3: you can feel like.
[17:09] Speaker 2: A big shot.
[17:10] Speaker 3: And people are like, oh, well, that's because it's easy
[17:12] Speaker 3: to hate people, and so, you know, they try it
[17:14] Speaker 3: for a little while, and like Heroin, it feels good
[17:16] Speaker 3: for a little bit, and then you realize it doesn't work,
[17:19] Speaker 3: and so they're just as disempowered and out of control
[17:22] Speaker 3: as they were before, and now they have fewer friends,
[17:25] Speaker 3: so now they're angrier. The truth is right, and I like,
[17:28] Speaker 3: I didn't come to this job as a professional humanist activist.
[17:31] Speaker 3: I studied developmental psychology at Yale and Harvard, and I
[17:34] Speaker 3: spent time working in the mental health field, building programs
[17:38] Speaker 3: that improved mental health for kids. What we know is
[17:41] Speaker 3: that real strength, real courage, real satisfaction in life comes
[17:45] Speaker 3: from knowing what you believe, acting in line with those beliefs,
[17:49] Speaker 3: and helping other people and being part of a community.
[17:52] Speaker 3: And the right can't really give that to people, and
[17:55] Speaker 3: so we can if we're able to articulate that well
[18:00] Speaker 3: and meet that need that a lot of people are
[18:02] Speaker 3: feeling like, God, I'm looking for something and they're sure
[18:05] Speaker 3: as hell not getting it from this administration.
[18:08] Speaker 4: Short break. More of my conversation with Fish Snark of
[18:11] Speaker 4: the American Humanist Association. Next March seventh, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The
[18:22] Speaker 4: event with myself, Forrest Valcai, and Got Sick Gibbon sold out,
[18:28] Speaker 4: totally sold out, three hundred seats gone. Thank you to
[18:31] Speaker 4: everybody who picked up tickets. I have been asked if
[18:33] Speaker 4: we're going to stream it. No we are not, but
[18:37] Speaker 4: I am taking five cameras to record the event. The
[18:41] Speaker 4: plan is to eventually release all of it online. But
[18:45] Speaker 4: to those who managed to squeak in, so glad you're there.
[18:49] Speaker 4: It's going to be an amazing time this Saturday. Also
[18:52] Speaker 4: on the conference calendar, big events that are happening, the
[18:56] Speaker 4: We Can Reason event Calgary first weekend of May, Baja
[19:00] Speaker 4: Con Sarnia, Ontario, third weekend of August, and Rocket City
[19:05] Speaker 4: Reason and Huntsville, Alabama. A Free Thought event in Alabama.
[19:12] Speaker 4: I just love it. Details on all this and more
[19:15] Speaker 4: at the Thinkingatheist dot com slash events. Talking here with
[19:22] Speaker 4: Fish Stark, the executive director of the American Humanist Association.
[19:26] Speaker 4: We're talking about putting the kind back in humankind God.
[19:30] Speaker 4: That sounds like a Hallmark movie, but I just had
[19:33] Speaker 4: to throw it out there. Right, I'm trying to stay
[19:35] Speaker 4: on message. Tell me about this Empathy project, right, what
[19:39] Speaker 4: are we talking about and how can we get involved?
[19:42] Speaker 4: Give me specifics.
[19:44] Speaker 3: So the American Empathy Project is our initiative to respond
[19:48] Speaker 3: to the radical religious rights war on empathy. We are
[19:52] Speaker 3: giving out one hundred thousand dollars in grants to Americans
[19:55] Speaker 3: who want to help their neighbors. And on May second,
[19:58] Speaker 3: we're going to have over one hundred American Empathy the
[20:00] Speaker 3: projects across the country that anyone can join. It's our
[20:03] Speaker 3: way of saying to the religious right, hey, actually, empathy
[20:08] Speaker 3: is a core American value. And it's also our way
[20:11] Speaker 3: of saying to the forty six million Americans who believe
[20:13] Speaker 3: in the Golden Rule but not in God. Hey, humanism
[20:16] Speaker 3: is here fighting for you, and it's a community that
[20:19] Speaker 3: you want to be a part of. So we've already
[20:21] Speaker 3: received hundreds of applications for the American Empathy Project. I
[20:24] Speaker 3: hope we get hundreds more before the deadline on March thirteenth,
[20:28] Speaker 3: because ultimately, what we believe as humanist is the world
[20:32] Speaker 3: doesn't change because of Diosex Machina Right, like somebody in
[20:36] Speaker 3: the sky making a decision to make things better. It
[20:40] Speaker 3: changes when we take action to build the world we want.
[20:43] Speaker 3: And so yeah, we need to resist and rail against
[20:46] Speaker 3: all of the authoritarianism that's going on right now. We
[20:49] Speaker 3: also need to show people what the world we want
[20:52] Speaker 3: looks like. And I think it looks like a shared
[20:55] Speaker 3: world where we're all looking out for our neighbors.
[20:57] Speaker 4: Well, let me jump in real fast fish. I mean,
[20:59] Speaker 4: what are people applying for? You know, you've got to
[21:02] Speaker 4: I'm going to put a link in the description box
[21:04] Speaker 4: of the show. But if I apply, I'm applying for
[21:07] Speaker 4: a grant fleshing out for me.
[21:10] Speaker 2: Yep.
[21:10] Speaker 3: If you apply and you're accepted, you'll get one thousand
[21:13] Speaker 3: dollars grant to organize an American empathy project in your community.
[21:16] Speaker 3: That could look like a food drive to help people
[21:18] Speaker 3: who are struggling from this administration's cuts to snap. It
[21:21] Speaker 3: might be a drive for used clothing for LGBTQ centers
[21:25] Speaker 3: so that trans kids who are being bullied by this
[21:27] Speaker 3: administration can have access to gender affirming clothes. It might
[21:31] Speaker 3: look like a community park cleanup. It might look like
[21:34] Speaker 3: hosting a giant potluck so that neighbors can get to
[21:36] Speaker 3: know each other in this time of fear and disinformation.
[21:39] Speaker 3: The only rules are that it has to be something
[21:42] Speaker 3: that anyone in your community can join, and it has
[21:46] Speaker 3: to help people who are being targeted and harmed by
[21:49] Speaker 3: this administration.
[21:50] Speaker 2: And so we're.
[21:51] Speaker 3: Hoping that, you know, humanist groups that are already doing
[21:55] Speaker 3: service work will apply and that they'll get new members
[21:57] Speaker 3: because we'll be promoting these projects all over the country.
[22:00] Speaker 3: And we also are seeing a lot of people who
[22:02] Speaker 3: have never done a service project before like this, but
[22:05] Speaker 3: are saying I'm tired of what's going on, I want
[22:07] Speaker 3: to do something about it. And we're so excited to
[22:09] Speaker 3: help those people become leaders in their communities create something meaningful.
[22:14] Speaker 3: Hopefully they'll start humanist groups too.
[22:16] Speaker 4: So the deadline to apply is in March.
[22:19] Speaker 3: What was the date, March thirteenth, And if you want
[22:23] Speaker 3: to apply, go to Americanempathy Project dot org and you
[22:27] Speaker 3: put in your email and we'll send you the grant application.
[22:29] Speaker 4: And then those decisions or the announcement is made or
[22:32] Speaker 4: the actual project date is in May.
[22:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, so we'll get back to people as quickly as
[22:37] Speaker 3: we can certainly before the end of March if you're selected.
[22:40] Speaker 3: Even if you're not selected, if you want to run
[22:42] Speaker 3: a project without the grant, we'll still put it on
[22:45] Speaker 3: our big map of projects and promote it to people
[22:47] Speaker 3: across the country so that people in your neighborhood can
[22:49] Speaker 3: find it and sign up. And then on May second,
[22:52] Speaker 3: we're hosting this groundswell of projects across the country. Americans
[22:56] Speaker 3: helping their neighbors, which is ultimately what humanism believes in.
[23:00] Speaker 4: I'm guessing you guys are throwing out the info to
[23:02] Speaker 4: media to make sure that what we're doing is being seen.
[23:06] Speaker 4: I mean, I want it seen. Does that make any sense?
[23:09] Speaker 4: Like being in our communities is. It's really important and
[23:12] Speaker 4: people are going to be talking, but it sure would
[23:14] Speaker 4: be nice to get some attention on the major platforms.
[23:17] Speaker 4: I don't know, are you guys pursuing that at all?
[23:19] Speaker 2: We are, But here's the thing.
[23:21] Speaker 3: You know, corporate owned media is not talking about these
[23:24] Speaker 3: issues because they're afraid of what the administration is going
[23:27] Speaker 3: to do to them. You've seen the ways in which
[23:29] Speaker 3: CBS and even ABC and Disney have backed down in
[23:32] Speaker 3: response to pressure from the FCC. We have gotten hundreds
[23:35] Speaker 3: of applications from people all across the country without any
[23:38] Speaker 3: corporate media coverage, just by working with influencers like Monty
[23:42] Speaker 3: Mater and you know, Amanda's mild Takes, Andrew McCoy and
[23:46] Speaker 3: you Seth and Andrew Sidell, you know, people who are
[23:49] Speaker 3: putting this out to their community, and people are saying,
[23:51] Speaker 3: holy cow, I didn't know there was something like this.
[23:54] Speaker 2: I want to sign up and do it.
[23:56] Speaker 3: I would love for there to be a media ground
[23:58] Speaker 3: swell to say, hey, port empathy. What I'm hoping is
[24:01] Speaker 3: that when people see folks taking action all across the
[24:04] Speaker 3: country on May second, it's going to be impossible to ignore.
[24:07] Speaker 3: Our goal is to have this be bigger than the
[24:09] Speaker 3: reason rally the most people mobilized by the secular community
[24:13] Speaker 3: on any day in American history to take action.
[24:16] Speaker 4: I guess what I'm saying is, I mean, you're absolutely right.
[24:18] Speaker 4: We can't rely on CBS, Berry, weisse X. You know,
[24:22] Speaker 4: even I think CNN is now in the bubble and compromised, etc. Etc.
[24:27] Speaker 4: Most of the major media platforms in this country owned
[24:29] Speaker 4: by six corporations but with no kings. I mean you
[24:34] Speaker 4: couldn't ignore it, right, I mean they had to cover it.
[24:37] Speaker 4: Holy shit, look at seven million people, the biggest single
[24:40] Speaker 4: march in the history of this country. I'm hoping that
[24:43] Speaker 4: the American Empathy Project is much the same. It's one
[24:46] Speaker 4: of those things where even the people who want to
[24:47] Speaker 4: sweep it under the rug have to say only shit.
[24:49] Speaker 4: I guess it's news, right.
[24:51] Speaker 3: That's the goal, and our team is working as hard
[24:54] Speaker 3: as we can to make it impossible to ignore. But
[24:57] Speaker 3: the only way it's going to be impossible to ignore
[25:00] Speaker 3: Americans across the country standing up for empathy and helping
[25:03] Speaker 3: their neighbors in the face of cruelty is if the
[25:05] Speaker 3: people listening right now sign up, send in an application,
[25:09] Speaker 3: commit to attending an event themselves, and make sure we
[25:12] Speaker 3: have a massive body count, or donate to support these projects. Ultimately,
[25:16] Speaker 3: it's going to take all of us pitching in.
[25:18] Speaker 4: Okay, I want to come back. You have a degree
[25:21] Speaker 4: in background in psychology, right, yeah, So I mean, let's
[25:26] Speaker 4: just talk you and me, Because I wake up in
[25:29] Speaker 4: the morning and I struggle, people suck, and everything's on fire,
[25:35] Speaker 4: and then I'm just sad and angry all day and
[25:40] Speaker 4: there are times when I've just given up on people.
[25:43] Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, and I know logically there
[25:45] Speaker 4: are tens and tens of millions of people who are good,
[25:47] Speaker 4: who are resisting, who are representing humanist secular values, who
[25:51] Speaker 4: want goodness to prevail. I know that up here, but
[25:55] Speaker 4: down in my chest and my gut, I just despair
[26:00] Speaker 4: for the species. Bring the killer asteroid. Let's start again
[26:04] Speaker 4: with the bees and let life try again. Do you
[26:07] Speaker 4: ever go there? And how do you get past it?
[26:09] Speaker 4: I mean, give me the psychology of this fish.
[26:13] Speaker 3: So the cool thing about humanism is that some of
[26:15] Speaker 3: the best psychologists, the people who actually made psychology work
[26:19] Speaker 3: for us, were humanists. I think about you know, Karl
[26:22] Speaker 3: Rogers is not in the name a lot of people know,
[26:25] Speaker 3: but he was the guy who invented the field of
[26:27] Speaker 3: client centered psychology. If you have a good therapist, thank
[26:29] Speaker 3: Karl Rogers. And he was a humanist. And when he
[26:32] Speaker 3: came on the scene, psychology was this, you know, was
[26:35] Speaker 3: defined by Freud. It was this idea that people are
[26:38] Speaker 3: inherently broken and we got to fix them. And Roger's
[26:41] Speaker 3: big innovation was he was like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute,
[26:44] Speaker 3: people don't grow from shame. Everyone has the ability to
[26:49] Speaker 3: change and grow for the better. But that's only going
[26:52] Speaker 3: to happen if they have a picture in their mind
[26:54] Speaker 3: of an ideal good self that they want to be,
[26:57] Speaker 3: and they've got someone who cares about them, and it's
[27:00] Speaker 3: challenging them to work towards that picture of their best self.
[27:03] Speaker 3: That's what he turned therapy into and it became better
[27:06] Speaker 3: for a.
[27:07] Speaker 2: Lot of people.
[27:08] Speaker 3: And so, you know, I get in that place, right,
[27:11] Speaker 3: I get riled up, I get angry. I get so
[27:13] Speaker 3: frustrated people I see making harmful decisions every day and
[27:17] Speaker 3: then I'm like, okay, but that's me sitting in my feelings.
[27:20] Speaker 3: How do people really change? And the truth is, people
[27:23] Speaker 3: really change when we believe it is possible for them
[27:26] Speaker 3: to be a better person, and we challenge them and
[27:28] Speaker 3: we give them opportunities to work towards that positive vision
[27:32] Speaker 3: of who they could be. And so that's what the
[27:34] Speaker 3: American Empathy Project is. We're calling America to be its
[27:36] Speaker 3: best self and that's what drives real change in people.
[27:40] Speaker 4: That sounds so good, but I really want to shame them.
[27:44] Speaker 4: I mean, do you just think I mean? And I
[27:47] Speaker 4: hate that I've come to this point. I'm the mister
[27:50] Speaker 4: Rogers of the movement. Fish you know I'm saying I'm
[27:52] Speaker 4: a teddy bear, and yet this scar tissue is thick,
[27:56] Speaker 4: but I really do want to hold on to that,
[27:58] Speaker 4: like everybody can be reached, or almost everybody can be
[28:02] Speaker 4: reached fish well.
[28:03] Speaker 3: And here's the difference between humanism and high control religion, right,
[28:08] Speaker 3: High control religion introduced this idea, socialize, this idea, planted
[28:12] Speaker 3: it deep in our little monkey brains that the way
[28:15] Speaker 3: to make people better is by shaming them, is by
[28:19] Speaker 3: suppressing their humanity, is by looking at people through a
[28:22] Speaker 3: deficit mindset, seeing them as inherently wicked, original sinners, people
[28:26] Speaker 3: to be controlled. And the idea of humanism is that actually,
[28:31] Speaker 3: if we see people as reservoirs of potential, if we
[28:35] Speaker 3: see people's humanity is something to be unleashed, not suppressed.
[28:38] Speaker 3: If we believe not that everybody is good, but that
[28:41] Speaker 3: people can be good, and that society should be about
[28:45] Speaker 3: unlocking people's potential to do good things, not sorting them
[28:48] Speaker 3: into hierarchies and telling them what they can and can't do.
[28:51] Speaker 3: That's how we're going to get a better world. And
[28:53] Speaker 3: so that's why you have humanists, not just Carl Rogers, right,
[28:56] Speaker 3: but the founder of Planned parenthood, the co founder of
[28:59] Speaker 3: Apple Computers, the guy who invented the polio vaccine. The
[29:02] Speaker 3: people who have created the inventions and led the social
[29:06] Speaker 3: movements that gave us more freedom to become our best
[29:09] Speaker 3: selves were humanists. Because that's what we believe.
[29:13] Speaker 4: Your enthusiasm, it's contagious. It is contagious. I feel a
[29:18] Speaker 4: tinge of optimism, of hope actually is the better word.
[29:21] Speaker 4: I don't know if it's optimism, but you know, maybe
[29:23] Speaker 4: maybe what are we going to do? Give up and
[29:25] Speaker 4: go home? Fish right? I mean, we're just going to
[29:27] Speaker 4: sit in the corner and let him have it. We're
[29:29] Speaker 4: going to let him take every into the playing field.
[29:31] Speaker 4: Hell no, I'm going to go down fighting and I don't.
[29:33] Speaker 4: I'm hoping we don't go down. You know, if we
[29:35] Speaker 4: have mid terms, I am thinking, well, you know, we're
[29:39] Speaker 4: seeing a potential blue wave and Texas, of all places,
[29:42] Speaker 4: you know, can Texas turn blue. We are seeing a
[29:46] Speaker 4: lot of the Republican congressmen and senators who were deciding
[29:49] Speaker 4: not to even run. Part of me is thinking that's
[29:51] Speaker 4: strategic because they see the writing on the wall. We
[29:53] Speaker 4: are seeing a rise and secular politicians, humanist politicians and
[29:58] Speaker 4: of course, the groundswell of people on the I think
[30:00] Speaker 4: the next note Kings is coming up late March, and
[30:03] Speaker 4: if we saw seven million last October, I think it's
[30:06] Speaker 4: going to be ten fifteen. I think after the ice
[30:09] Speaker 4: murders in Minneapolis, etc. Et cetera, Venezuela green wanting to
[30:14] Speaker 4: annex Greenland, and then the Epstein files, I really feel
[30:18] Speaker 4: like we are at this explosive moment where history is
[30:20] Speaker 4: going to be made. And those do give me hope,
[30:24] Speaker 4: and so does the American Empathy Project. I think it's
[30:26] Speaker 4: a wonderful idea. Give me one last slug for it
[30:30] Speaker 4: for anybody who wants to participate or spread the word.
[30:33] Speaker 3: It was Harvey Milk, a humanistic Jew, who said, you've
[30:36] Speaker 3: got to give them hope, and that's what we're doing.
[30:38] Speaker 3: The American Empathy Project is our bet on the idea
[30:42] Speaker 3: that empathy is a core American value and we need
[30:45] Speaker 3: more of it, not less. So we're giving out one
[30:47] Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars in grants to Americans who want to
[30:50] Speaker 3: run projects that help their neighbors. On May second, if
[30:53] Speaker 3: you apply at Americanempathy Project dot org, we can give
[30:56] Speaker 3: you one thousand dollars and mobilize people in your community
[31:00] Speaker 3: to help you make a difference, whether it's helping seniors,
[31:03] Speaker 3: helping young people, helping folks in need, helping.
[31:07] Speaker 2: Clean up the community.
[31:08] Speaker 3: We're here to show what humanism is all about, which
[31:11] Speaker 3: is we take action. We don't wait for somebody to
[31:14] Speaker 3: solve it for us.
[31:15] Speaker 4: You're a great communicator. All I got to do is
[31:17] Speaker 4: tee you up and I sit back and just watch
[31:19] Speaker 4: the magic Fish. I mean, you just psyched, almost like
[31:21] Speaker 4: you've done this before a few times. I'm just saying,
[31:25] Speaker 4: so the aha. I've been a big fan for a
[31:28] Speaker 4: very very long time, and I'm excited for you and
[31:32] Speaker 4: the project. What a great proactive way to try to
[31:36] Speaker 4: return us to sanity in this country, to restore our
[31:39] Speaker 4: humanity in this country. And I will link that in
[31:41] Speaker 4: the description box. Fish Stark, thank you so much for
[31:44] Speaker 4: talking to me.
[31:46] Speaker 2: Thank you for having me Seth and hey, what can
[31:48] Speaker 2: I say?
[31:48] Speaker 3: I learn about good communication from the best, and I'm
[31:51] Speaker 3: so glad we've got you out there, Taz speaking for
[31:53] Speaker 3: our movement, You're very kind.
[31:55] Speaker 4: Thanks brother.
[31:55] Speaker 1: Follow Thanking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a complete
[31:59] Speaker 1: our type of podcasts and videos. Products like mugs and
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[32:06] Speaker 1: pages and resources, and details on upcoming free thought events
[32:10] Speaker 1: and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com

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