Humanists, the Happy Heathens

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – Humanists, the Happy Heathens

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant
Date: May 12, 2026
Episode Theme: An exploration of humanism—its history, philosophy, key figures, and its complex relationship with religion and modern culture.

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Episode Overview

Josh and Chuck delve into the concept of humanism, tracing its evolution from ancient philosophy through the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and into contemporary society. The episode explores what humanists believe, the debates and criticisms surrounding humanism, and its role as a “life stance” for non-religious people seeking meaning, ethics, and community. The hosts balance historical context, philosophical nuance, and the distinctive Stuff You Should Know brand of humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Humanism

• Progressive Philosophy without Theism (02:11)

  • Chuck reads the American Humanist Association definition:

    "A progressive philosophy of life that without theism or other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good."

  • Humanists stress that one can be ethical and moral without religious belief.

• Religion vs. Humanism

  • Most humanists are atheists or agnostics. If they do believe in ‘God,’ it's not an interventionist or religious God (02:56).
  • Some debate whether belief in any god disqualifies you as a humanist (03:26).

2. Historical Origins

• Term Traced to Cicero (03:47)

  • In 1st century BCE Rome, Cicero uses "humanitas" for virtues like compassion and good judgment.

• Renaissance Humanism (04:27)

  • Renaissance thinkers questioned Church authority, emphasized the individual’s relationship to God (05:37).
  • Humanists introduced realism, dignity of the individual, and learning-as-action (06:29).

• Shift from Scholasticism

  • Renaissance humanists emphasized studying classical Greek philosophy directly, rather than through Biblical interpretation (06:54).

• Value of Individuality

  • The period saw a shift toward self-reflection and valuing each person (07:42).

• Influence on Protestant Reformation & Unitarianism (08:08, 08:33)

  • Humanism laid groundwork for movements emphasizing personal faith over institutional mediation.

3. Humanism’s Complicated Relationship with Religion

• Even as it separated from Church, God often remained integral to early humanist thinking (09:04).
• Direct rejection of religion wasn’t safe or common until the 17th century (09:39).
• Early figures like Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes were Christian but reason-focused. Hobbes’ social contract theory is highlighted (11:20).

4. Key Figures and Movements

• Francis Bacon – Father of empiricism, founder of the scientific method (10:10).
• Thomas Hobbes – Social contract theorist, secular approach to human nature (10:48).
• Thomas Paine

  "My country is the world and my religion is to do good." (13:06)

  • Advocated for equality, anti-slavery, early universal basic income concepts.
• French Revolution
  • Cult of Reason replaced churches with Temples of Reason, placing humans, not God, at the center (14:14).
• Jeremy Bentham

  "The question is not can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer?" (15:14)

  • Pioneered animal rights, utilitarianism ("greatest good for the greatest number"), and left his body to science (16:20).

5. Modern Humanism: From 19th Century to Now

• Free Thinking and Secular Progressives

  • Emergence of free thought, questioning received wisdom, and social reform (23:52).
  • Examples include Quakers, Ethical Culture Movement, and Unitarianism (21:55, 24:55).

• Ceremony & Community without Religion

  • Late 19th/early 20th centuries: Ethical Culture societies create non-religious rituals, ceremonies, and Sunday services (25:30).

• American Humanist Association (AHA) (38:50)

  • Founded by Unitarian ministers in 1941, advocates for separation of church and state, reproductive rights, and more. 34,000+ members, 230 local chapters.

6. Manifestos and Core Tenets

• Humanist Manifestoes I and II (1933 & 1973)**

  • 1933: Declares humanism as a new form of religion, anti-capitalist.
  • 1973 (and later): Moves away from calling itself a religion, more inclusive, less anti-capitalist. Embraces technological optimism and “life stance” as a secular replacement for “religion.” (29:01–32:14)

  1973 Manifesto: "Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our lifespan..." (29:20)

7. What Humanists Believe Now

• Empiricism & Reason

  • Seek truth through senses and scientific rationalism (40:22).

  "One of our big tenets is going to be to use...to see stuff and hear stuff. And, like, that's what it is." —Chuck (40:54)

• Human Origin & Mortality

  • Humans are a product of natural processes; death is the end (41:15).

• Moral Development & Ethics Without Doctrine

  • Moral behavior means considering others, acting ethically without religious commandments (42:49–44:20).

• Self-Development & Meaning

  • "It's up to you, pal, to go make meaning for your own life." —Josh (43:43)

8. Famous Humanists

• Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Gene Roddenberry

  • All outspoken humanists, engaged in ethical and social causes (46:03–48:14).

  Vonnegut: "Being a humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you're dead." (46:57)

9. Critiques and Debates

• Religious Critiques

  • Argue humanists cannot have true meaning or ethics without God (48:14).

• Atheist and Philosophical Critiques

  • Some say humanists are naïve about human goodness; structuralists/post-structuralists argue we’re just products of institutions (49:00–50:44).

• Inherent Morality Debate

  • Are humans naturally moral? Cited Francisco J. Elia’s argument that morality arises from our biological abilities (51:15).

• Humanism and Animal Rights/Environmentalism

  • Critique: Humanism can be anthropocentric; some challenge the value it places on human life over animal or environmental considerations (52:28).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Humanist Identity:

  "You can be religious and care about human beings. They don’t have to oppose one another. Although humanists have eventually said, yes, they do." —Josh (10:48)

• On Meaning & Mortality:

  "I've always...in my adult life believed that. And I don't think it's a bummer [that death is the end]. That's just...yeah, I don't think it's a bummer." —Chuck (41:20)

• On Humanism’s Struggle With Definition:

  "You know what life stance says to me? It says, ‘I don't know what I mean.’" —Josh (34:09)
  "If you don't care about religion, stop talking about religion so much." —Josh (34:13)

• On Existentialist Approach:

  "If you do believe that there’s no such thing as God...to me, [existentialism is:] if there’s no afterlife...then it’s up to you, pal, to go make meaning for your own life." —Josh (43:43)

• Vonnegut’s Take:

  "Being a humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you're dead." —Kurt Vonnegut, quoted by Josh (46:57)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:11 – American Humanist Association definition
• 04:27 – Renaissance Humanists & the Dark Ages
• 10:10 – Francis Bacon & empiricism
• 13:06 – Thomas Paine’s view on country and religion
• 14:14 – French Revolution’s Cult of Reason
• 15:14 – Jeremy Bentham on animals & utilitarianism
• 20:19 – Evolution into secular humanism
• 23:52 – Rise of free thought & progressives
• 25:30 – Ceremonies and non-religious rituals
• 29:01 – Humanist Manifesto I and II
• 32:14 – "Life stance" versus religion
• 40:22 – Tenets of modern humanism (Andrew Copson, Humanists UK)
• 42:49 – How to live a good life as a humanist
• 46:03 – Notable humanists: Einstein, Asimov, Vonnegut
• 48:14 – Critics: religious and atheistic perspectives
• 51:15 – Are humans naturally moral?

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, self-deprecating, and occasionally irreverent; plenty of back-and-forth banter and philosophically playful musings.
• Critical yet balanced, with appreciation for humanism’s ideals but no hesitation in poking fun at jargon or “life stance” idiosyncrasies.

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Final Thoughts

The episode offers a thorough, relatable, and engaging journey through the history and philosophy of humanism. It critically examines both its appeal and its limitations, and provides plenty of food for thought for anyone interested in ethics, meaning, and living well without religion.

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End Summary

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chalk and Jerry's here too. And this is stuff you should know about humanism, which I find fairly relatable in a lot of ways, but in other ways. Not necessarily. Yeah, we'll get into that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Can we say what Livia titled this one? She's been really killing it lately.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, go ahead. This is on humanism. The bright side of being a godless heathen.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. I was looking for that aha definition because that put it about as good as anything in this whole article. The Is it American Humanist Association? Is it an association?

[Josh Clark]

Yes, they are associated.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they put it like this. It's a progressive philosophy of life that without theism or other supernatural beliefs, bit of a dig, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good. And of course, if you don't know what theism is we're talking about religion and God. So it's like, hey, you can be a good person and have a moral and ethical center and strive to do those things without God at the center of it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. And most humanists. Yeah, I think it's fair to say most are atheists, or at least agnostic at the very least. If they do believe in a God, he's not an interventionist God. He's not playing a role in our lives day to day. Maybe you could also interchange that definition of God with the universe or nature or something like that, but not God in any religious way whatsoever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And in fact, like, if you do believe that, a lot of like. Like strict humanists will say, well, you can't really be a humanist because not believing in God in that sense is a core part of humanism. And a lot of other people say, hey, you're a humanist. Who are you to tell me what I believe? And the humanist says, you got me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. And as we'll see, you know, it had kind of been tangled up with religion here and there until it kind of landed eventually where it did. And we're going to talk a little bit about the history, though. That term humanism goes back to at least Cicero in 1st century BCE Rome, when that very famous writer and I think lawyer and statesman used the word humanitas to describe people developing or the development of these qualities, these virtuous qualities that Chuck will talk about, like a moral and ethical center, compassion, good judgment, like being a good person and doing good things.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then we leapfrog all the way over to the Renaissance, and you'll note that we leapt over what are called the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, Medieval era. The Renaissance humanists are the ones who gave us the term and the idea of the Dark Ages, that there was a part of history where essentially the Church ruled everything with an iron fist. Corruption was rampant and people were removed from their relationship with God and the Church was inserted. And what these earliest Renaissance humanists did, they were all Christians to a person, most of them Catholics too. They changed that whole idea and said, what happens if we get the Church out from between the individual and God? You know, there's a connection between you, this person who is important and matters just because you're a person, and God who made you. And this is where the very beginnings of humanism find themselves. Even though no one in the Renaissance would have called themselves a humanist because that concept didn't really exist quite yet. This is the first step.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, Looking back, we apply the tag to a lot of different people. We're going to talk about some of them, but yeah, they wouldn't have called themselves that then. Petrarch was probably looked at as maybe the first humanist or the first modern man sometimes called. And in the Renaissance it was a pretty hot ticket depending on what crowd you ran with. If you were among the elites in the Renaissance, you might have hired humanist scholars to come and teach your kids all about like sort of the moral systems of the classical era. And very much in the effort, like you were saying, to bring us out of what they called the Dark Ages. And some aspects of this whole movement in the Renaissance included. Three things we're going to kind of touch on here are realism, dignity of the individual human, and application of learning. Like putting it into practice.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So humanism contrasted with scholasticism, which had been going on for hundreds of years. It was essentially the church's form of teaching and that was basically reconciling the concept of reality that came from the classical Greeks, like Aristotle, with scripture and basically using scripture to explain the world and reality as it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And these humanists came along and they were like, what happens if we stop doing that? What happens if we just study the classical Greeks and just basically also still stay Christians but stop using this scripture, this received wisdom that the church gives us? What if we study it ourselves? And instead. And that brings up that, that other, the second part you mentioned, which is the, the dignity of the individual human. Up to this point, individuality was not prized. You were not supposed to look inside yourself. You're supposed to look outside at the glory of God. You, yourself, if you paid too much attention to yourself, that was a quick one way trip to hell for you. When you died, the humanists were like, no, let's look inside ourselves. Like we're important. You, the individual is important.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And also part of that first one with the realism was that we are flawed. So if we want to learn about each individual and human, the nature of what it means to be human, we have to look at the bad stuff too, like the vices and the disorders and things like that. And then that last one that I mentioned was application of learning. Like all this stuff is great, but it's not navel gazing or we don't want it to be navel gazing. We want to actually like stimulate action.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And you're not learning just so you can give more money to the church or something like that too. And if this sounds a little bit like Protestant thought About the connection between the individual and God. That's exactly right. These thinkers eventually led to the Protestant Reformation, which basically pushed the face of the church off to the side and said, you and me, God, were connected.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And it'll also tie into the Unitarian Church in a big way later on. A church that has interested me.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, I like my Sundays free, so probably not gonna go. But if any quote, unquote, church appeals to me at this age and where I am in life, it's definitely those guys.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Those people that you see out and about at, like, 10am on a Sunday. Give that little knowing head nod too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So something I think is worth pointing out real quick though, too, Chuck, is everything we're talking about involves God. Even though the church has been pushed out of the way, God has not.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

God is still front and center. Christianity is still the most important thing around, and that is this is the cradle of humanism. And one of the frequent criticisms of modern humanism is that it. It's never really shaken off its birthright from Catholicism or Christianity, even though it opposes religion itself. We'll get more into that, but I just wanted to put that out there for the moment.

[Chuck Bryant]

And we're also talking about, like, coming out of a time where atheism, like, could get you killed.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, like saying, like, there is no God was, you know, was against the law and punishable by death.

[Josh Clark]

For sure. Yeah. But that started to change quickly, gradually, around. Beginning in the 17th century. One of the people we have to thank for that is Francis Bacon, known as the father of empiricism. He also invented Bacon, and he also had a big hand into coming up with the scientific method.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, we talked about him and that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. Which has been largely abandoned by science in the last hundred years. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, he argued for really studying what we call social sciences now. He kind of kicked that off as well, the systemic study of, like, the human passions. But all these people that we're going to talk about here in the next little bit were Christian. So this is sort of. This is where it was still a time when it was still tangled up. Even though they had these ideas, all of these people, Bacon and this next person, Thomas Hobbes, were Christian.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the fact that there are Christians who identify themselves as humanists and vice versa, that goes to show you, like, those two things are not incompatible. You can be religious and care about human beings and they don't have to oppose one another. Although humanists have eventually said, yes, they do.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, that's the deal, right? I mean, did I read that correctly? Is the modern humanist movement was really where they were like we're really separate from and congruous with belief in God.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Yeah. Okay, so we mentioned Bacon. What about Thomas Hobbes? Because he came up with the social contract, which is basically like you and me, we basically allow a government to rule us in exchange for protecting us from nasty, brutish, short lives which we would otherwise have without the state or without society. Right. That doesn't sound very humanist. Even though it's human centered. Because he assumed that humans were essentially bad and we club you over the head and kill you first chance they got. That's why we need government, according to Hobbes. But he's considered one of the early humanists for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And he was Christian as well. But he did not write a lot like in his writings, didn't write a lot about God. He kind of put that to the side and said, you know, if we want to understand who we are and what it means to be human, we have to look, look at it through a. Just a very sort of secular and like very reasoned approach.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. So humanist rationalism to understand ourselves in the world. Thomas Paine was also one. He was probably. Yeah, he was like the first person that you can point to and be like, that guy's a humanist. He even says so himself in not so many words or more than those words. He was a pamphleteer who helped get the American Revolution started despite moving to America just two years before the revolution started. That's how effective his pamphlets were.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he was very forward thinking. He was arguing very early against slavery. He had an idea for what we might call universal basic income now. Very much believed in the equality of all humans. And he has this quote that's really pretty great. I'm a big pain guy. After reading up more on him.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

My country is the world and my religion is to do good. Pretty nice.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There's pretty much no better way to sum up the humanist view in. In a nutshell than that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The French Revolution also. There's a couple of people who get called out a lot. Jacques Hubert and Antoine Francois Mamoro. Because they established the cult of reason where they would actually go in and seize churches in France during the revolution and repurpose them, I saw, into Temples of Reason. I read about them on the Collector, which is a great website that explains all sorts of different philosophies and stuff. Great website. Anyway, the French Revolution itself basically said, catholic Church, you're out. And then they were like, okay, well, wait a minute. We're all about reason and enlightenment. What are we going to fill the vacuum left by getting rid of the Catholic Church? And all of these ideas like the cult of reason kind of came along, which was essentially create humanist temples to logic in humans and humanity. Remove God from the equation altogether.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And, buddy, do you think I like Thomas Paine? Don't get me started on Jeremy Bentham, because after reading up on Jeremy Bentham, I wish I had named my daughter Jeremy Bentham Bryant.

[Josh Clark]

That would have been a great name.

[Chuck Bryant]

I really miss an opportunity because Jeremy Bentham was a great dude. He was working for welfare programs for the poor early on. He didn't believe in slavery, obviously child labor. And this was like, decades before anyone else was talking about this stuff. He was into animals. And we'll see. That's some of the criticism from humanists is that they. They kind of stop at humans. And that's not to say that humanists can't be like, pro animal or pro environment, because most of them probably are right. But Bentham, very early on when it talked about, like, the suffering of animals, he said, the question is not can they reason? Because that's what animals were. Just animals because they can't reason. They don't have brains like us. He combated that with the question is not can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

What a thing to say in the 1700s.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I'm glad you explained what you meant by he was into animals, because I was confused at first.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, come on.

[Josh Clark]

One of the other cool things about Jeremy Bentham is he willed his body to science. He donated to science early on, and they used it. They said, thanks a lot, buddy. Here's your skeleton back. Because as part of his wishes, he wanted to remain at University College London, which he helped found as a secular college open to everybody. And he's still under glass at the University College of London, dressed up in his own clothes. He's got wax hands with gloves on.

[Chuck Bryant]

He.

[Josh Clark]

He has a wax head. And apparently he originally wanted his head to be part of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So they used some, I guess, some Maori technique of desiccation, and it didn't go very well. And his desiccated head is still around. But they're like, jeremy, we do not. You do not want us to leave this on your body because you look so great with the wax head. We're just going to keep this separate under glass. Itself.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Up with Jeremy Bentham. Yeah. You mentioned the secular college. Like, he went well beyond, like, separation of church and state, where he was like, colleges should have nothing to do. There should not be religious colleges. He really wanted to draw a strong divide between God and kind of all the institutions.

[Josh Clark]

Right. He was also the father of utilitarianism, which is essentially, if at its worst, killing one person saves two people, then you kill that person, which gave us things like the trolley problem as a utilitarian thought experiment, essentially. Bentham, I think, didn't really think that way, but he was basically like, we want to maximize the most good for the most people.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's the way he developed it. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty cool stuff.

[Josh Clark]

You want to take a break?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I think we're off to a hot start, so I'm gonna go take a cold shower, and we'll be right back.

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[Josh Clark]

Okay, Chuck, we're back, and we're going to talk about the development of humanism in the way that we know it today. Because up to this point, we've been talking about little bits here, little bits there that all together changed the world and essentially took all the power in the west, especially Europe and eventually the United States, away from the church and organized religions in general, and said, no, there's a way for you to live a upstanding, meaningful, ethical life without even believing that there's a God or an afterlife. And here's how we're going to do it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, the idea at the time, and there's still people that believe this in 2026, which is pretty scary, is that if you were not religious and devout, then you were a heathen and you were, like, morally bereft. And those, like, people very early on stood up and were like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, why is it I don't believe in God? People have feelings in their heart or whatever, and someone realized, like, why is it that in my heart, like, I don't believe in a God, but I believe in doing really good things, like, why Are those two things have to be tied together. And that was humanism. Or if you look at philosopher and theologian from Germany, Friedrich Niethammer, the term was Humanismus in 1808. And that is. He was kind of talking about that Renaissance humanism, those studies that they were doing with the people that are trying to sort of reform education during the Renaissance.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But very quickly people latched onto that. He just kind of came along at the right. He was in the right place at the right time, which was Germany, because Germany eventually became kind of the cradle of modern humanism. And eventually humanismus, what we would call humanism. Now we just dropped the U.S. or the U.S. and if you kind of subscribe to that, it was way beyond the way that you interpreted scripture. It was. You supported women's equality. Yeah. You were all about separation of church and state. You had compassion for all people, not just people that looked like you and had the same amount of money as you. You cared about actually doing stuff to get the government to take care of poverty and things like that, like Quakers. The conception of Quakers at this time is a really good, like, view of what it meant to be a humanist at the time, because you still believed in God, but you really cared about other people. And this was fairly new for Europe at the time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. You mentioned the French Revolution. But in the 19th century, during the time of all those European revolutions, it also started to kind of touch on socialism, of course, and like this idea of a utopian society that we could strive for, it was starting to become a little more acceptable in the United States at the time, where. Well, partially because of German immigration to the United States. And you were talking about them being the cradle, but also Charles Darwin and just this idea that you don't need these theist beliefs to be a good person. And there's something called free thought that can happen. Like free thinking is very much at this time aligned with deism.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. And free thought essentially as a concept is. It's just questioning everything.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Especially received wisdom. You stop and ask, like, well, wait a minute, why do I think that? How do I know that? You just challenge all of your own assumptions. And by doing that, you can kind of free yourself from the. From being indoctrinated by the man, essentially. So this is when it seems to me the progressive movement in the United States really started to come about. Yeah, right. This is the mid-1800s to late 19th century. One of the next big things that happened was the establishment of the New York Society for Ethical Culture by a guy named Felix Adler. And this became essentially the ethical movement. E and capital E, capital M. And they were basically like the very first humanists. They, they tried to essentially provide the same thing, that same moral, upstanding structure that the church provides for so many people to people who don't believe in God.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And not more than that, but alongside that, I think they realized that the church had something that people clearly liked in tradition and in ceremony. And they were like, hey, if we're going to be a thing, like maybe we should have some of that stuff too. So they organized Sunday services and they said, how about a deist marriage ceremony? Like kind of substituting religious ritual for non religious ritual? Because people like that kind of stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. They're like, how about atheist Holy Communion? And the humanists are like, how does that work?

[Chuck Bryant]

Right?

[Josh Clark]

They're like, we don't know, this is new. We're just throwing everything we can at the wall, see what sticks.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Maybe instead of the blood and body of Jesus, it's just crackers and grape juice.

[Josh Clark]

There you go. And they were like grape juice or flavoring. And they were like, grape juice.

[Chuck Bryant]

We used grape juice at our church because even the Baptist did not take wine. I know, Communion. Kind of funny to think about.

[Josh Clark]

I remember moving to the south and being like, you don't drink any wine, like even in church. Because I was raised Catholic.

[Chuck Bryant]

Welch's baby.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's funny. So this whole kind of evolution is still going on in the United States in particular. It started to take off. Humanism really is huge today or through the 20th century in the US and the UK. They're kind of like hotbeds for humanist activity. And the people who were attracted to this were very frequently liberal intellectuals, philosophers, literati, intelligentsia, like academic elites, and people who ran in their circles, which included communists at the time. In the 20s and 30s, like basically super radical liberal thinkers were very much attracted to the early establishment of modern humanist organizations.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, 100% that. In the United States in particular, the University of Chicago in 1927 was one place where it really got cooking. There were efforts there by students and some professors who belonged. And this is where the Unitarian Church comes into play. They were Unitarian Church members, which is technically a Protestant denomination, has always been very politically progressive. And in this group in Chicago there were a lot of ministers even and theologians who had non Christian ideas that they were putting forth, like Transcendentalism. And they had a magazine. They organized what was called the Humanist Fellowship and put out the New Humanist magazine.

[Josh Clark]

It was like all ads, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, probably so.

[Josh Clark]

All ads and perfume samples.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, and at the very end, they had the little fold thing, like the MAD magazine did. It's very popular. But they were trying to move unitarianism, even in 1927, completely away from theism.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And Unitarianism as a church was like, yeah, let's go. And then stop. Just short. And that's where it stays today, essentially.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

They're like, you don't believe in God. Great. You can be a member of our church. Do you believe in God? Yeah. Great. You can be a member of our church. It's Universalist, Unitarian. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Should we talk about the manifestos?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because you can't have liberal thinkers and communists together and not come up with a manifesto. Right. It's just going to naturally bubble up from those people being together. And in 1933, I think they drafted the first Humanist Manifesto. And it basically said so. And this is where. This is one reason why religious people don't like humanists. It took direct aim at religion, Right? Yeah. And then this is why people who aren't religious don't like humanists. It also called humanism its own type of religion.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Take that, Chuck, and run with it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Mixed messages. Can I read this bit from the 73 manifesto?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or wait, this was. Okay, the 73 was the manifesto, part two.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Sorry. 1938, I believe.

[Chuck Bryant]

33 was the first one, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you. We got there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. The 33 was the first one. 73 was manifesto two. And this was from 73. Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our lifespan, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers. Starting to sound a little bit like Scientology there. And provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It also smacks of transhumanism, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is denoted by H plus Stelarc. It's a branch. Yeah, It's a branch of humanism where you graft a human ear onto your forearm.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Oh, boy.

[Josh Clark]

Man, I can't believe you remembered his name.

[Chuck Bryant]

It just came right up. If you're a long time listener, you remember when we first talked about Stelarc, the transhumanist, who did in fact, graft a human ear to his arm, complete with a little speaker like, it heard and worked, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think. Yeah. It had a Bluetooth speaker, which is probably dead by now.

[Chuck Bryant]

How many Q tips do you think that guy's gone Through.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, gross. He's like got ketchup in there again.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh man.

[Josh Clark]

So the reason that they wrote the 1973 manifesto two was because manifesto one had a lot of. Well, it was of its time. Yeah, it was very pro communist and socialism. It was anti capitalist. It even said, quote, the existing acquisitive and profit motivating society has shown itself to be inadequate. Yeah, it said it was a religion. So in 1973 they're like, let's just kind of get rid of some of this. Let's not call ourselves a religion of any kind. We'll still take aim at religion, but we're not going to call ourselves a religion. We're going to drop the whole like communist, capitalist, you know, west coast, east coast war in our own manifestos. And then as time went on, there were more affirmations, there were more manifestos. There was one in 1980, 1988, 2003, in 2002. So all these were American, by the way. In 2002 it finally went international, which, what's called the Amsterdam Declaration of humanism from 2002. And it basically, it basically says like, yeah, everything these guys have been saying, but take out the religion stuff and the anti capitalist stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And they said we need a word though, if we're going to be consistent. And so instead of religion, let's settle on this word life stance.

[Josh Clark]

Oh sure, sure, life stance.

[Chuck Bryant]

Everyone knows what that is. We did a little digging. It's a pretty obscure term, I think Wikipedia, which is not a website we really like to go to a lot for this, but that's kind of the only place we could find anything. But this is how they define it, is the relation that one has with what he or she accepts as being of ultimate importance.

[Josh Clark]

This is a great definition of life stance, for sure. Yeah, it really gets across. And essentially it's what they use in place of religion. Not just what they, what they offer, what humanism offers people, but what people need. And that's one thing that humanism has always basically said is you need the things that religion give to you. Like people need that. It's been around for thousands of years for a reason, right? Yeah. And there's all these different ones around the world that billions and billions of people subscribe to because it gives their life meaning, it gives you purpose, it tells you how to be a good person. And humanists were like, all we're saying is that you don't need religion, you don't even need to believe in God to have all those same things. And as the world, and in particular the United States and the west, has gotten more and more secular and less and less religious, there's a debate that's developed, like, is humanism up to the task of providing meaning in people's lives in the absence of religion? And that definitely remains to be seen, but it seems to be leaning a little more. Like, no, actually, things kind of fall apart when you don't have a lot of people who believe that their lives have meaning because they believe in religion. That seems to be the way things are leaning right now. That's not the end point necessarily, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, for sure. And, you know, I think I'm like, you like. A lot of this stuff seems very appealing to me, a lot of the thoughts. But when I was reading that one thing, I was like, man, this sounds a little Scientology, like here and there.

[Josh Clark]

Sure, sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then stuff like life stance, it just feels like the kind of word where you go to a meeting, like a humanist, congregational meeting, and they're like, and now Josh would like to rise and share his life stance. And then everyone, like, clucks and goes, life stance. Life stance or something. And that's when you and I back out of the room very slowly.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. You know what life stance says to me? It says, I don't know what I mean.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

That's what that word screams. If you use a word to describe what you're talking about and no one else knows what that word is, as a matter of fact, it's much more widely understood as the name of an insurance company. Then. Then you do. Yeah. Then you. You haven't figured out exactly what you're trying to say. That's my take on it. And what the reason they're using life stance is because they can't use the word religion. They're using that in place of the word religion. So a lot of people kind of look at humanism, like, man, these guys really tie themselves up into knots to get around this religious thing. They're really preoccupied with religion, despite saying, you don't need religion to live a good life. If you. If you don't care about religion, stop talking about religion so much. Stop focusing on religion so much. That's a big criticism of humanism. That it's just. It's like those, you know, those hilarious parodies of, like, Southern preachers or whatever. And it's taking aim at hypocrisy and stuff. If you really feel that way about the church or religion or God or whatever, just go Your own way, do your own thing, stop paying attention to it, stop giving it your oxygen. If you really feel that way about it, and if you don't, if you still are focused on it like that, there's something. There's some disconnect between what you claim to believe and what you're actually doing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Brother Josh, I want to thank you for sharing your Aflac. Aflac.

[Josh Clark]

Aflac. Nice. That was great, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was great. I like that screed. Maybe we should take a break and talk about what happened in 1941 right after this.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this your first date?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Kier Gaines]

Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. With me, your host and your favorite therapist, Kier Gaines. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing and we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we done enough. Because people, scoreboard wise, life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross. Cause you find it important to be a good person while you here on earth? Or are you a good person because you're afraid? Cause that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Care Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. Open your free iHeartRadio app search learn the Hard Way and listen now.

[Josh Clark]

Save on family essentials at Safeway and Albertsons. This week at Safeway and Albertsons, fresh cut cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple or melon medley bowls, 24 ounces are $5 each and

[Chuck Bryant]

wild caught lobster tails are $4.99 each. Limit eight member price, plus selected sizes

[Josh Clark]

and varieties of Doritos, Lays, Cheetos, Sun Chips and kettle cook chips are $1.99 each.

[Chuck Bryant]

Limit four member price. Hurry in.

[Josh Clark]

These deals won't last. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, everybody, we're back. We're gonna talk about what happened in 1941. Not the movie 1941 from Steven Spielberg.

[Josh Clark]

Good one.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm talking. Not really. I'm talking about, did you like it?

[Josh Clark]

Hey, man, anything that's got Belushi in it, I like. All right. Yeah, I don't see what was wrong with it.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was a notorious bomb. But that's not to say you can't like it.

[Josh Clark]

No, I do like it. I just have never heard that other people didn't like it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty well regarded as a big flop. But I appreciate you sharing your Affleck once again.

[Josh Clark]

That's my life stance on 1941. It's a good movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

I can't wait to get sued. All right, so in 1941, there were two Unitarian ministers that formed the AHA that we referenced at the very beginning, the American Humanist Association. They, you know, they advocate for humanist causes like separation of church and state, of course, in schools that is like, hey, let's legalize birth control, things like that. They have about 34,000 plus members with 230 local chapters. And they're like, you know, their goal is, I think, not only to spread the word, but I think like you were saying, is to like, try and unify into something that's with a coherent message that people can actually say, like, hey, that's a legitimate thing that you can believe in and follow.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like that appeals to me. So I'm going to go find out more about what you guys are saying. So there's a guy named Andrew Cops and he's very frequently cited when you're talking about humanism. He's the executive of chief executive of Humanists uk And he basically says, here's what humanists are about. One, we use the senses and reasoning when we're seeking out the truth to understand what the world's all about. We are all about rationalism. We're all about scientific inquiry. That's what our stuff is based on. It's not based on supernatural beliefs. Again, it's not based on received wisdom. It's about using rationalism and our own senses to understand the universe for ourselves.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, can I just make a quick comment? I don't want to get too political, but using the census and reasoning like that is missing. I think a lot Today, because we're in a world now where there are very powerful people in the world that are literally sort of gaslighting the rest of the world and saying, like, what you're seeing and hearing is not the truth. Like, even though you're seeing it and hearing it. So to see someone stand up and say, hey, one of our big tenets is going to be to use, like, to see stuff and hear stuff. And, like, that's what it is.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You know, I find your reasoning sensible.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. Affleck. Affleck.

[Josh Clark]

What else?

[Chuck Bryant]

Viewing humans as the product of natural biological processes and seeing death as the end of individual consciousness. So you're not. They're going to an afterlife. You're not going to go hang out with Elvis and Tom Petty. Once you're gone, you're worm dirt.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There's nothing after that. It's a real bummer. Part of it, for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is. But I've always. Well, I've always in my adult life believed that. And I don't think it's a bummer. That's just. Yeah, I don't think it's a bummer.

[Josh Clark]

You know, I believe that for years and years and years. And I've just recently kind of started to. I don't want to say go back, but just kind of expand the possibilities.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's good.

[Josh Clark]

More than I used to, because I was exactly what you're talking about. Like, that's it. Like, you're just. It's lights out. You don't even know it's lights out because you don't exist anymore.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Just like you didn't exist before you were born. This is exactly the same thing. It's just tacked onto the end of your life, not the beginning of your life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I like that you're exploring that. I think that's. I think I'm not opposed to anyone and their beliefs. So I think it's great. Especially when you get older and you're in your, like, 40s and 50s and you start kind of radically exploring new ideas. I think that's very valuable.

[Josh Clark]

It's funny, I have been doing that a lot lately. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode on Humanism. I've been reading a lot of different philosophy and just exploring ideas that I hadn't before. And I didn't realize why. Apparently it's because I'm about to be 50.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, probably. So I've been watching Hurry.

[Josh Clark]

I have to find meaning in life before I die.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've been Watching a lot of kids in the hall reruns.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. You can do a lot worse than

[Chuck Bryant]

that, than reading rock bios. But that's fine. Everyone has their own thing.

[Josh Clark]

What else? Chuck, how about if you want to live a good life, what are you going to do?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you have to develop yourself personally, keep striving to be better and do better. Try to connect with others, pursue things that are truly meaningful. But you don't necessarily have to believe in the meaning of life to do all that stuff. That's not what you're seeking.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. And from my recent exploration, that is essentially the basis of a philosophy called existentialism, which actually is born out of nihilism. And it's basically saying, yes, there's no God, there's no meaning to life, we're all a fluke. But that doesn't mean you can't live a great fulfilling life that has meaning, that is meaningful to you. So go figure out what your life is, what you want it to be, and make it meaningful. And I think that's if you do believe that there's no such thing as God, that to me is essentially the best mentality you can take on. That if there's no afterlife, if we're all a fluke, then it's up to you, pal, to go make meaning for your own life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, like live with intention, I think is another good way to say that, to like not just be someone who things happen to.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Or live without Netflix. That's another way to put it too.

[Chuck Bryant]

What's another one? View moral behaviors like, you know, consider other people's needs. Like humanism is not a self inward looking thing. Like you're looking inward but you're acting outward, if that makes sense.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it does. It makes perfect sense. It's not a self centered or self.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, self centered. That's what I was looking for.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You're not self involved. You care about other people. And yeah, by doing that you're, you're, you're developing yourself. That's part of self personal development. Right. You're also not relying on any doctrine to teach you ethics, although you can go find ethics from like say the great Greek philosophers or Buddha or you know, Taoism or Confucianism. Like you can go find these from wherever you want. You can even read the Bible or something and.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

You know, like Thomas Jefferson edited the Bible. He took all the miracles out and just basically made it a really great moral handbook. You could do the same thing. Right. And still gain these ideas.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The point is you're not supposed to take anything wholesale, including ostensibly humanism. Like, you should not just go, okay, I want to be humanist. Tell me how to be. Because they're going to say, no, you got to go figure that out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you should probably start with the New Testament, too, and just leave it at that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that Old Testament is grim.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's pretty grim. You know, if you're a humanist, you're definitely, like, opposed to war. You value universal rights of all humans and equality. It's not tied to a political system necessarily. I mean, I know it has its roots in sort of liberal progressive think, but you don't have to be like, oh, I'm a registered Democrat and a humanist. Like, you can be anybody. I'd argue maybe not. You could vote for anybody. But as far as political affiliation, it's not tied to any one thing.

[Josh Clark]

No, nor should it be.

[Chuck Bryant]

We should probably name some famous humanists through the years. You could start and end with Albert Einstein, but we're just going to start there. He supported the Capital E, capital C, ethical culture movement and was a founding member of the first Humanist Society of New York and in 1950, published essays in Humanism. And he was walking the walk.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, he definitely was. He was big time into world peace and civil rights and he was a pantheist apparently as well. So, yeah, he was definitely the real deal as far as humanists are concerned. So, too was Isaac Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut. Apparently. They were both very much active in the American Humanist Association.

[Chuck Bryant]

No surprise.

[Josh Clark]

Kurt Vonnegut had a great quote, if you don't mind me taking it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, do your best, Vonnegut. I want to hear this.

[Josh Clark]

He said that? By the way, Kurt Vonnegut and I are basically voice doubles.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

Does he have a. I've never heard him talk, man. Does he have an unusual or significant.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I don't know. Weirdly, the only time I think I've ever heard Kurt Vonnegut talk was, if I'm not mistaken, he had a cameo. And Rodney Dangerfield's back to school. Oh, yeah, because he hired. He paid him to tutor him in college.

[Josh Clark]

Well, how about this? You take this quote, but do it as Dangerfield.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Josh Clark]

He said, being a humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you're dead.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's nice.

[Josh Clark]

It's great. Great description of it. What else?

[Chuck Bryant]

If you're a Star Trek fan, even if you're not, you're probably not surprised that Gene Roddenberry was a very big in the humanist movement. He, I mean, Star Trek is a, is a great example of just a group of people that are doing humanist things. That's kind of the culture of that show. They're trying to solve problems peacefully. It's high tech. But of course they're always trying to do the right thing on Star Trek.

[Josh Clark]

I feel like, yeah, they're a bunch of do gooders. Yeah, they don't want to use their phasers. That's why they always set them to stun. So there are many critiques to humanism. They get it from all sides. Other atheists, other philosophers, Christians, obviously, Christian thinkers basically are like to dude, you can't have meaning in your life without God. Theology teaches us that God is what gives your life meaning, you chump. And that's essentially the most basic criticism of humanism. They basically say you can't be ethical or moral or have meaning or value in your life without believing that there is such a thing as God.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You mentioned atheists. There are also atheists that say, you know what, a little too much credulity going on about the value of humanity and like that we can all just improve ourselves. And I mean, I think there's some very prominent philosophers from the 20th century that are very much anti humanist.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they called themselves anti humanists. Apparently the structuralist and post structuralist movements of philosophy that came out of France in the 60s and 70s, I think maybe even into the 80s, they were very much anti humanists. And they were like, the individuals don't matter other than, you know, we don't go make our own meaning. Everything we are is basically created by institutions and structures that we're born into and there's basically no way out. So stop being silly and naive.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's interesting to me. Not to do an episode on necessarily, but I'd like to poke around the structuralism a little bit more. I'd never heard of that.

[Josh Clark]

I have been doing that and it is very interesting. Essentially what they're saying is like, you are so shaped by institutions that these cool thoughts that you think you have, the interactions you have with other people, all of them are shaped by the institutions we're born into.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's hard to argue with that.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But so much so, Chuck, that those cool thoughts, those amazing things that you're saying, those interactions with people, all they're doing is reinforcing those sensitivities, institutions, because they're all within that structure. So you're just teaching other people how to be in that structure, too, by even rebelling against it as a form of reinforcing the structure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

It's very grim. Like, it's actually a very grim approach.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's interesting.

[Josh Clark]

One other thing, too, that they get held up for a lot is that they. That they believe that man is inherently moral. And a lot of philosophers are like, how? How do you prove that? What are you talking about? Where'd you get that from? That's not a universal given. Like, philosophy's never turned that up. And did you see that thing that I found from Francisco J. Elia, who

[Chuck Bryant]

basically said, remind me. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So basically, this guy kind of proves that humans are actually biologically moral resulting from a consequence of natural selection. Francisco J. Elia says that, one, we have the ability to anticipate consequences of our own actions. Two, we have the ability to make value judgments, and three, we have the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. And so, because of our abilities, our natural abilities to do that, we are naturally moral creatures. Which is the only support I've seen for that idea that people are inherently moral. I've only ever seen attacks. This guy did a pretty good job of making a case that supports that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, isn't the idea that humans are inherently evil much more common? Like, wasn't that what Hobbes was all about?

[Josh Clark]

That's what Hobbes was about. Satanists, basically. I think they're like, it's not good or evil. I think Satanists are really. They don't like humanists very much either. Yeah, probably there's a. Yeah, there's a lot of. It's definitely not settled whether humans are inherently good or bad.

[Chuck Bryant]

So we haven't figured that one out.

[Josh Clark]

I guess not. We're leaning toward the bad lately, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm with you. I mentioned environmentalists and animal rights activists earlier that sometimes there's. They. They believe there's just a little too much human and humanism. But there are certainly a lot of people and humanists that have kind of worked the environment and animals and the value of all that stuff into the cause.

[Josh Clark]

For sure. Very, very Jeremy Bentham. Ask.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Although if you want to get down to it, I've seen an example given where a genuine humanist, if somebody killing a deer kept a human family alive, they would be like, kill that deer. That deer is secondary. Its life is secondary to human life. Other humanists might be like, no way, man. Go eat. Go eat a plant. Go eat some lichen.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I've never been a hunter, but if the zombie Apocalypse happened. Like, I could. I could do it.

[Josh Clark]

You could eat zombie. I think it's if they bite you that you become a zombie. I've never seen any problems with somebody eating them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, that's true. You definitely need a healthy spice rack, though.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's like that rotted shark they eat in Iceland.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. Oh, God.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That's essentially like eating zombie, from what I understand. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Tastes like zombie.

[Josh Clark]

You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I. You were right. I didn't think I was going to be able to get through this because it's very heady stuff for me. But you said, settle down, jerk. You'll be fine.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You did great. Wasn't a philosophy class one of your favorite classes in college, too?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and every time we do anything philosophy related, I get all scared and it always works out.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. You did great, man. You always do great.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, so do you.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks. Well, Chuck and I agree. We both did great. We're patting ourselves on the back here. Let me pat you on the back, too. Oh, thank you. That means, of course, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. This is is going to be short and sweet. It is. I think I jokingly asked for a haiku as it relates to MacGuffins.

[Josh Clark]

Totally.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because many years ago, we put out the call for haikus and got hundreds and hundreds of them to the point where I think we just quit reading them in hopes people quit sending them. And time marched on, and they did. But David Sinneson, A haiku about the MacGuffin. A Mick couple.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, man, you ready?

[Chuck Bryant]

The MacGuffin lives, critics argue and gnash teeth. The ending still comes. And David goes on to say this. Great show, guys. Y' all have created an entire universe of stuff, insider stories and jokes. I hate it when I can't recall one of the callback tangents. And I just want to say, lastly, the Jackhammer episode. Wasn't that terrible, guys? It was needed in the world.

[Josh Clark]

Can you read that haiku again? It's still sinking in like the genius of what David did.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's pretty good. The MacGuffin lives, critics argue and gnash teeth. The ending still comes, man. Pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

That's a T shirt if I've ever heard of one. Aaron Cooper.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a high quality coup, buddy.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to be like David and well, not send us a high cooperation, but just write in about something. We would be happy to hear from you. You can send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

[Kier Gaines]

Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh no.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail], or with your local agent.

[Diana Maria Riva]

Liberty Liberty. Liberty Liberty.

[Josh Clark]

Another podcast from some SNL late night

[Kier Gaines]

comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends.

[Josh Clark]

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk

[Kier Gaines]

to David Letterman help make you funnier this week. My guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

[Josh Clark]

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

[Kier Gaines]

Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

The story I told myself can then shape my behavior and that can lead

[Diana Maria Riva]

me to sabotage the possibility of connection

[Josh Clark]

this Mental Health Awareness month. Tune into the podcast Deeply well with Debbie Brown. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work

[Chuck Bryant]

to become whole, this podcast is for

[Diana Maria Riva]

you to hear more. Listen to Deeply well with Debbie Brown

[Josh Clark]

from the Black Effect Podcast Network on

[Diana Maria Riva]

the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever

[Chuck Bryant]

you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.