Opening Remarks by AHA Executive Director Fish Stark at the US Launch Event for Humanist International’s 2024 Freedom of Thought Report

Thank you all for being here to unveil Humanists International’s Freedom of Thought Report.

I’m Fish Stark, the Executive Director of the American Humanist Association. As humanists, we believe in people. We believe people have inherent and equal worth and dignity without needing to be saved or redeemed. We believe that there’s no problem we can’t solve, no truth we can’t uncover, as long as we live in societies that protect the right to think freely. And we believe that the highest good – our highest moral obligation – is to help other humans live lives of freedom and flourishing.

And in that spirit, we’re proud to stand with Humanists International to shine a spotlight on the state of freethought around the world, and raise awareness of attacks on religious pluralism and the human rights of all people to think and believe safely. And we’re thrilled to be joined by all of you in the room and watching online, and guest speakers who share the same mission – Mohamed Elsanoisi, a commissioner of the United States Commission on Religious Freedom, Ria Chakrabarty, the Senior Policy Director of Hindus for Human Rights, Mubarak Bala, the President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, and of course Emma Wadsworth-Jones from Humanists International, who will lead the presentation of the report.

There’s an old joke about Rene Descartes walking into a bar. He has a beer and the bartender asks him if he’d like another. Descartes says, “I think not,” and – poof! – he disappears.

It’s a bit silly, granted. But for humanists, there’s truth in this idea that the freedom of thought is part of what makes life itself worth living and protecting.

We believe that what makes people special, important, worth fighting for, is not an immortal soul or intelligently designed body – but consciousness. Our capability to think independently, to imagine better futures for ourselves and our fellow humans, to build lives of meaning and purpose from the infinite canvas of a free mind.

As humanists, our goal is not to create a world where everyone thinks the way we do.

It’s to create a world where everyone has what American hero and humanist luminary Thomas Paine called the “liberty of conscience” – the ability to freely reason and decide for themselves the values and beliefs that guide their life.

Paine’s ideal of liberty of conscience was driven by his personal convictions.

I’ve always shared those convictions, but they were bolstered by my work as a researcher in the field of child mental health. Since Paine’s time, we’ve learned about the power of belief and values systems – religious AND secular – to provide people with community, clarity, and confidence, to improve people’s lives with a sense of positive identity and direction.

But we also know that these benefits are only possible if those values are freely chosen, not imposed.

For much of human history, despots and tyrants have weaponized belief to consolidate power and compel conformity. To narrow minds and silence critics. To rob people of the dignity and empowerment of choosing for themselves the sources from which they draw their meaning and inspiration.

But from the beginning, America was different.

Our national spirit of independence, self-determination, and free thought is inseparable from our history as a haven for religious refugees: Protestants and Catholics, Puritans, Jesuits, Mennonites, Quakers, Jews. And, we believe, more than a few humanists.

Our founders understood the dangers of religious law. They were very familiar with the oppression it had wrought in Europe. And that’s why they created what Congressman Raskin calls “that great American invention” – constitutional religious freedom.

In the second year of his presidency, George Washington wrote a letter to a Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, where he laid out very clearly American values on freedom of thought.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

For happily the Government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. Everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

There shall be none to make him afraid.

As we’ll see in the presentation of tonight’s report, we live in a world that sometimes falls short even of the low bar of toleration. Where many religious minorities – and particularly many humanists and nontheists – are stripped of dignity and made to live in fear. The extremist murder of Salwan Momika in Sweden yesterday is just the latest tragic and terrifying example.

This year’s report, as you’ll hear, focuses on blasphemy. On the idea that it is a crime to say what you believe. In 89 countries across the world, it is still the case that people can be denied the right to marry, denied the right to hold public office, can even be put to death for having the “wrong” beliefs about religion.

Attacks on free thought are attacks on universal human rights. Attacks on civil liberties. And attacks on the human spirit.

It’s our job not just to be aware of them, not just to investigate them, but to protect our fellow humans from them.

Religious liberty isn’t just one of America’s greatest inventions. It’s also one of our greatest exports.

And we gather to present this report in Washington today in acknowledgement of the important role American diplomacy has played in increasing religious freedom around the world, in partnership with allies committed to religious liberty: from rolling back blasphemy laws to helping facilitate the release of Mubraka Bala, speaking with us tonight, who for years was made a prisoner for the crime of free thinking.

We acknowledge the role American diplomacy has played and also acknowledge that there is much more we can do. We hope that work, in partnership with other supporters of freethought around the globe, will continue in earnest under a new administration.

And we also acknowledge that none of this would be possible without the tireless work of Humanists International to research, identify, and remedy the injustices mentioned in this year’s report. The American Humanist Association is proud to donate a percentage of our budget to Humanists International and partner with them to encourage American efforts to protect the freedom of thought worldwide. I hope, as you learn about more about the work they’ve done tonight, you’ll be inspired to support them, and consider attending the 2026 World Humanist Conference which will be hosted right here in Washington, DC.

Frederick Douglass – an American hero and American humanist – had this to say about the power and potential of free thought.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason.

That’s the American legacy we’re here to uphold, and the global shared ideal we’re here to advance – the freedom of thought, not just for its own sake, but for its power to help people live free lives and create free societies. It’s work that takes generations, takes cleverness, and – most importantly – takes courage. And that’s why we’re so grateful to have you all as partners in that work.