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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of

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Speaker 1: our discussion of whether or not Santa Claus is technically

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Speaker 1: a god, at least according to the most common criteria

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Speaker 1: used by cognitive science of religion. Now we had to

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Speaker 1: break this discussion in two because it wins so long,

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Speaker 1: and now we're treating you to the second half of

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Speaker 1: our conversation about gods, our brains, and Santa Claus. We

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Speaker 1: hope you enjoy as we jump right back in. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we've been talking about these criteria that Justin Barrett

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Speaker 1: raises that you will find a common to pretty much

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Speaker 1: all beliefs in gods among you know, religions you find

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Speaker 1: in the world. That gods tend to be counterintuitive in

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Speaker 1: some way, often minimally counterintuitive. That they tend to be

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Speaker 1: intentional agents, that they have strategic information, that they in

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Speaker 1: some way act in the world, and that they're capable

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Speaker 1: of motivating behaviors that reinforce belief. Oh and that's one

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Speaker 1: other thing we should have emphasized. I guess we did

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Speaker 1: in this that the most important thing about the behaviors

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Speaker 1: that the God's motivate, the rituals or whatever, is that

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Speaker 1: the the motivated action most important to this system is

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Speaker 1: that it reinforces the original belief itself. Yeah, because that's

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Speaker 1: how it continues. It's it has to sustain itself through that. Yes.

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Speaker 1: So I was just thinking to myself, Okay, these these

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Speaker 1: five criteria, what happens if we apply them to certain

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Speaker 1: fictional entities that either claim to be God or are

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Speaker 1: believed to be a god of some sort within the fiction.

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Speaker 1: Take Goes or the Gazarian, for instance, one of the best.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's a minimally counterintuitive concept. You know, it

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Speaker 1: has agency, it does a lot of stuff, But does

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Speaker 1: it offer strategic information? I don't know if it offers it.

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Speaker 1: I think it probably has it. Yeah. Uh. I also

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Speaker 1: about the only good example I had this is that, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I mean, certainly it has strategic information because it can

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Speaker 1: see into your thoughts and see what mental pictures you

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Speaker 1: are filling your brain with, so I think that would count.

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Speaker 1: It also has information that the world will be destroyed

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Speaker 1: by itself. So that's that's that's worth having. I guess, like,

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Speaker 1: is Godzilla a god? I mean, does god Zilla possess

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Speaker 1: strategic information or well? I don't know. I think Godzilla

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Speaker 1: is just a big monster, right, But go goes Are

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Speaker 1: the Gozarian uh comes from another dimension and it's like

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Speaker 1: a god that makes Godzilla's makes marshmallow Godzilla exactly. It

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Speaker 1: takes the form of Godzilla, right, Um, okay, the big

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Speaker 1: one with the Gozer. Though, does it offer motivating behaviors

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Speaker 1: that reinforce belief? Maybe? I mean, it seems only concerned

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Speaker 1: with the opening of the doors that will allow it

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Speaker 1: to destroy the world as it destroyed other worlds. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I think the case is maybe a little weak,

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Speaker 1: but conceivable. I just realized I is calling goes Or

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Speaker 1: a heat. I'm not sure goes Or as a heat.

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Speaker 1: Goes Er might be a she or or neither gender

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Yeah, I think goes Are's gender neutral,

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Speaker 1: even though it does take the form of a feminine

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Speaker 1: figure in the in the movie. And I think but

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Speaker 1: I think in the original script it was going to

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Speaker 1: be played by pee Wee Hermann. Right. Oh wow, I

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Speaker 1: say goes Or transcends our puny concepts of gender. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we talked about as a thought, as a though,

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Speaker 1: as a thought, however you want to say it earlier.

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Speaker 1: I think this one fails because lax agency, and I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure it actually acts in the human world at all.

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Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to be just an entity out

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Speaker 1: there in the void, and it's just supposed to be

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Speaker 1: frightening and terrifying that it's out there at all. Um

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Speaker 1: Sutter Kane from John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness,

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Speaker 1: I think he checks off all the boxes. He's a

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Speaker 1: human that becomes a god. But then he's got I mean,

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Speaker 1: by the end of the film, there's no questioning it.

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Speaker 1: I gotta watch that again. It's it's it's pretty solid.

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Speaker 1: One of my favorites. Okay, here's one we have to discuss.

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Speaker 1: This is one we've talked about in greater detail on

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Speaker 1: a past episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Okay, the Postafarian concept, which granted

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Speaker 1: is kind of a it is it is a counter

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Speaker 1: religious argument. It is an idea that it's brought up.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a contrary uh concept. Right, Well, it's

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Speaker 1: another one of those that's obviously a joke. At the

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Speaker 1: moment you hear it, right, you don't have to investigate,

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Speaker 1: like do people seriously believe? I mean, like you just

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Speaker 1: know instantly it's a joke. And again that's a clue

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Speaker 1: that there's like there are some kind of intuitive constraints

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Speaker 1: on what gods they're supposed to be, like, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: his the flying spaghetti Monster. I think the biggest flaw

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Speaker 1: might be that it is not minimally counterintuitive. It is

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Speaker 1: it has two counter into two counterintuitive. It's like God

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Speaker 1: is a potato, right. But on the other hand, I

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Speaker 1: do think it checks off a number of the boxes. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, his he has detectable actions, and they see

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Speaker 1: that they seem to be limited to the creation of

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Speaker 1: the world and also the changing of scientific measurements with

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Speaker 1: his newly appendage changing radiocarbon dating. Uh, and so for well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess another thing is the question of,

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Speaker 1: like whether people sincerely believe the things you're talking about

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Speaker 1: to meet these criteria or just propose them obviously ingest

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Speaker 1: because with all these fictional examples, I mean, you're thinking

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Speaker 1: up ideas of where you can create a something that

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Speaker 1: meets all the criteria, and yet obviously still is not

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Speaker 1: a legit god found in the world because nobody actually believes, right,

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Speaker 1: nobody actually worships goes or uh. I mean, this flying

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Speaker 1: spaghetti Monster is is an interesting case though, because I

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Speaker 1: think it's probably safe to say that nobody actually worships

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Speaker 1: the flying spaghetti Monster. No one truly believes in the

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Speaker 1: flying spaghetti Monster. But at what point does the current

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Speaker 1: um concept of the flying spaghetti Monster? At what point

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Speaker 1: does it at least partially transcended? Which which point does

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Speaker 1: it get one newly appendage over the line into godhood. Well,

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Speaker 1: if you go on with a joke long enough, you'll

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Speaker 1: start to want to find meaning in it. It always happens, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, there's something to be said in

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Speaker 1: mean culture with on that account, I believe. I think

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Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. I think it's also true. Watch any

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Speaker 1: irreverent TV show long enough eventually gets sentimental. It's true.

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Speaker 1: I mean, people want to start finding meaning in the

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Speaker 1: chaos of humor and satire. That's a good point, all right, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's bring it back around to Santa Claus at this point. Um, First,

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Speaker 1: I just want to recap a little bit about Santa.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I want to go I don't want

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Speaker 1: to go into a full history of Santa Claus, but

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Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to just remind everyone where the concept

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Speaker 1: came from. A few years ago I chatted with Aida

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Speaker 1: Adam C. English, chair of the Department of Christian Studies

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Speaker 1: at Campbell University, about the evolution of Santa and See

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Speaker 1: a Santa scholar. Yes, he is the author of the

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Speaker 1: book The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus? The True

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Speaker 1: Life and Trials of Nicholas of Mira. Uh that in

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Speaker 1: this book he point doubt that the modern Santa Claus

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Speaker 1: bears almost no resemblance to the historic origins of a

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Speaker 1: fourth century Christian bishop. UM, and his continued evolution reveals

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Speaker 1: a great deal about modern culture. Uh. This interview used

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Speaker 1: to be hosted a Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,

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Speaker 1: But now Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com is

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Speaker 1: um exists only in a very stripped down form. But

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna just read a few uh quotes here from

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Speaker 1: the author. Adam see English Uh wrote to me and said,

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Speaker 1: quote first and most obviously, Santa has been scrubbed of

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Speaker 1: any and all religious identity. I think that is something

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Speaker 1: people notice when they see the European Old World St. Nick's,

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Speaker 1: who are addressed like bishops with a miter stole, ecclesiastical vestiments,

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Speaker 1: a Crozier staff, and many times wearing a crucifix or

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Speaker 1: cross on the neck. In contrast, Santa has been domesticated, commercialized,

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Speaker 1: and universalized or secularized, depending on your viewpoint. The miter

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Speaker 1: has been softened into a floppy fur trimmed stocking cap,

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Speaker 1: the estimates have been turned into a red first suit

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Speaker 1: with white trimming, the stole into the big black belt

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Speaker 1: in the Crozier staff into a large sack of toy.

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Speaker 1: Even his name is under gone changed. Santa Claus is

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Speaker 1: an americanization of the Dutch center class, which is just St. Nicholas.

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Speaker 1: His other name, Chris Kringle, is the americanization of the

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Speaker 1: German Austrian uh Chris Kindle or christ Child. Martin Luther

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Speaker 1: attempted to replace Nicholas as the gift giver with the

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Speaker 1: baby Jesus. The Christmas gifts come from the Christ Child,

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Speaker 1: well the Kris Kringle. The religious With Chris Kringle, the

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Speaker 1: religious significance important to Luther has again been lost. He continues,

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Speaker 1: quote the first depiction of Nicholas in America by the

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Speaker 1: New York Historical Society showed him as a stern bishop

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Speaker 1: in the European fashion, but within fifty years he transformed

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Speaker 1: into the magical elf who drives a sleigh pulled by

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Speaker 1: reindeer and trops down chimneys. Um. And then also he

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Speaker 1: drove home that there was no here a once upon

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Speaker 1: a time pure religious Santa Claus Christmas has always been

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Speaker 1: a blend of the sacred and the secular, popular in

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Speaker 1: the solemn, commercial and the familial um. Also, he points

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Speaker 1: out that you know a lot of it also dates

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Speaker 1: back to older beliefs. Uh. He said that in pre

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Speaker 1: Christian times, the Greeks they celebrated Linnea, Romans had the

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Speaker 1: Saturnalia in late December as well as the Romalia. Germans

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Speaker 1: hunted and feasted at Yule Tide, the Irish had Rende.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, you have all these different midwinter festivals

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Speaker 1: and they all involve a lot of you know, merriment, feasting, etcetera. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: this introduces some difficulty because if we're talking about evaluating

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Speaker 1: whether Santa Claus meets the cognitive science of religion criteria

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Speaker 1: of a god what Santa Claus do you go with?

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Speaker 1: Do you go with like, you know, St. Nicholas, or

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Speaker 1: do you go with like some kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: as defined in some traditional work, or do you try

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Speaker 1: to gather in the great you know, tapestry of different

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Speaker 1: Santa laws stuff out there today, and and and consider

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Speaker 1: it all together and and put together I don't know,

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Speaker 1: an amalgam. Yeah. And this is a problem that that

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Speaker 1: Barrett gets into in the paper because because really, on

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Speaker 1: one hand, you could you could really cherry pick from

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Speaker 1: global and historical Santa Claus ideas and concepts and then

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Speaker 1: choose the descriptions and attributes that best support your case.

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Speaker 1: If you're saying God, are you saying not a God?

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Speaker 1: You could point to evidence to support it. So, but

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Speaker 1: but but first of all, Barrett just says, okay. At

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Speaker 1: first glance, he thinks Santa meets all five criteria. First

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Speaker 1: of all, Santa is minimally counterintuitive. He's a flying, jolly, old,

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Speaker 1: kind hearted man. He's like he's grandfather Christmas. Also, Santa

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Speaker 1: is an intentional agent. Santa. Santa has a mind. Santa

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Speaker 1: wants to do things. He is not an unanimate carbon rod. Also,

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Speaker 1: he possesses strategic information. He knows if you've been bad

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Speaker 1: or good. He acts in at at actable way. He

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Speaker 1: leaves gifts or even a note in some cases. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and he motivates reinforcing behaviors. Kids leave out milk and

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Speaker 1: cookies for him. That is the sacred offering that is

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Speaker 1: made to the Great Elf himself. Well, I mean, and

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Speaker 1: I guess he would hope that his actions encourage children

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Speaker 1: to be good around Christmas. I mean, that's what it's

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Speaker 1: supposed to be. That's true, that's the whole other aspect

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Speaker 1: of it as well. But ultimately, Barrett, he's not convinced,

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Speaker 1: is he. No, he insisted Santa ultimately fails at being

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Speaker 1: a god. Okay, now what is his case here? Okay,

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Speaker 1: So on the counterintuitive point, he gets into this this

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Speaker 1: whole like cherry picking thing that we discussed earlier. He

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Speaker 1: counters that that we're not unified enough in our vision

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Speaker 1: of Santa. In some some belief incarnations or in some

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Speaker 1: media incarnations, we just see him as like a kind

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Speaker 1: old man, while others show him as being this magical

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Speaker 1: being that we've mostly been talking about. Right, this idea

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Speaker 1: that he lives forever at the North Pole and flies

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Speaker 1: through the air and doesn't obey the law of physics

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Speaker 1: and time. Uh. And he says that some films portray

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Speaker 1: him as as being a normal person who just has quote,

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Speaker 1: special friends, animals, and resources. Now, Barrett makes a distinction

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Speaker 1: that I'm not sure I fully get. I wonder what

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Speaker 1: you thought about this. Barrett makes a distinction between a

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Speaker 1: counterintuitive being, like a counterintuitive man who has some special qualities,

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Speaker 1: versus just like a regular being who uses magic powers.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure I really understood what the distinction is there, Like,

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Speaker 1: if you can use magic powers, that seems counterintuitive to me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. The way I was thinking about it

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Speaker 1: when I read it was Okay, he's saying that sometimes

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Speaker 1: Santa Claus is Superman, sometimes Santa Claus is Batman. Superman

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Speaker 1: has amazing powers that are otherworldly. Batman is just a

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Speaker 1: normal guy, but he has special um gadgets and he

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Speaker 1: has special friends. Okay, So, like in the Santa Claus movie,

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Speaker 1: the Mexican Christmas movie, Um, Santa Claus doesn't have the

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Speaker 1: innate power to teleport. He has the flower to disappear.

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Speaker 1: That's right, yes, And if he loses the flower to disappear,

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Speaker 1: he can't teleport anymore. He's literally what he's treated by

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Speaker 1: a dog, I think in that, yes, you know so, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a great exam That film is just a great

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Speaker 1: film in general, and I believe played a key role

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Speaker 1: in we're talking about the the idea that Santa Claus

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Speaker 1: must travel as a concept like that film, if I

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Speaker 1: remember correctly, played a very important role in introducing the

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Speaker 1: concept of modern western Santa Claus to a Mexican audience. Huh.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, in that he seems like just a ridiculous

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Speaker 1: old man. If he is if he loses any of

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Speaker 1: his magical items, Okay, I can see this, and he

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Speaker 1: depends on a lot of cooperation and support to really

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Speaker 1: get the job done. Yes, he's got his friend Merlin,

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Speaker 1: he's got all the children who help him. He's got

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Speaker 1: the machine with the lips whatever he's going on there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's more of a batman Santa Claus for sure, Whereas

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Speaker 1: in Santa Claus Versus the Martians, uh, the other m ST.

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Speaker 1: Three k Riff Santa Claus movie, in that he has powers,

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Speaker 1: he can make toys do his bidding. Yeah, he's Hermes.

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Speaker 1: I mean, all right, well, let's move on. To the

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Speaker 1: strategic information front. Okay, which again at the at the

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Speaker 1: surface level, it seems like it's He's got it. He

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Speaker 1: knows if you've been bad or good. Right, Yeah, But

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Speaker 1: Barrett again argues that it comes down to consistency, and

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Speaker 1: it's not consistent enough for Barrett, because does Santa truly

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Speaker 1: know if someone has done or plans to do something

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Speaker 1: morally objectionable? Yeah. Barrett says that knowing whether a person

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Speaker 1: has been bad or good is not actually strategic information.

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Speaker 1: It's the same kind of judgment another person could easily make. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And what would constitute strategic information is, for example, knowing

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Speaker 1: in advance whether somebody is going to be good or bad. Again,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I agree with Barrett here. I

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Speaker 1: think that knowing whether somebody was bad or good, especially

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Speaker 1: if you know what they did in private when nobody

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Speaker 1: else was there to see them, that seems like strategic

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Speaker 1: information to me. Like, if you could watch what other

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Speaker 1: people did in private without them knowing, would that not

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Speaker 1: provide you with information that could give you a strategic advantage. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's one of those areas of

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Speaker 1: the Santa Claus concept where it does seem like a

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Speaker 1: boiled down version of what you see in God right,

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Speaker 1: a more limited version. And I think part of this

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Speaker 1: is kids are generally children are not attributed with tremendous

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Speaker 1: powers of hiding their wrongdoing. Like generally, whatever they're doing bad,

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Speaker 1: it's super obvious because that's what we're getting onto them for.

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Speaker 1: You know. Okay, the next one, does Santa act in

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Speaker 1: the world in detectable ways? Well, Barrett says that Santa

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Speaker 1: meets this one but weekly, since the gifts come once

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Speaker 1: a year in a limited manner, so it's not you know,

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Speaker 1: he's not bringing you gifts every week or every month

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Speaker 1: even to to to really you know, make sure the

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Speaker 1: detection is uh is a is obvious, you know, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I would say the production of the gifts, as

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Speaker 1: with many of the things that are say prayed for,

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Speaker 1: petition for in religions, with things that are definitely recognized

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Speaker 1: as God's it's similarly ambiguous in terms of the mechanism.

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Speaker 1: You know, you like, go to sleep and then the

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Speaker 1: presents are there in the morning. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: kind of wiggle room to think about what's going on there, right,

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Speaker 1: and then sometimes Santa, I mean as We've discussed previously

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Speaker 1: on the show. Santa tends to come if he if

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Speaker 1: it is if he has if it is discussed that

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Speaker 1: Santa might come, he tends to come. Generally, threats of

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Speaker 1: Santa might not come this year because E've ben bad,

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Speaker 1: generally those threats are not acted upon. But on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, Santa doesn't always bring everything you wanted, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes Santa doesn't bring those gifts that are ridiculous or dangerous. Right, So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of room to I don't know where.

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Speaker 1: It's up to the user kind of to infer the

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Speaker 1: amount of detectable behavior that they wish, and then let's

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Speaker 1: get around to motivating reinforcing behavior to Santa. Claus do

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Speaker 1: this well. We chatted about this a bit in our

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Speaker 1: Carampus episode Actually does Santa really work? Does the idea

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Speaker 1: actually make kids behave? And Barrett contends that it does not.

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Speaker 1: He says Santa is gonna come either way. And again,

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Speaker 1: it's also only going to impact Christmas. This is just

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Speaker 1: what we were talking about, Like, does does the idea

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Speaker 1: that Santa might not bring you any gifts at Christmas?

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Speaker 1: Does that have any impact at all on a child's behavior?

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Speaker 1: In March. I don't know, because because in March when

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Speaker 1: you're eight, like Christmas is a thousand years away. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And just think also about like how long a month

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Speaker 1: is to a child compared to how long a month

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Speaker 1: is to an adult. Yeah. I guess that's what you

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Speaker 1: mean by a thousand years away. I mean every year

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Speaker 1: to to a five year old feels like an eternity. Um.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, there was another thing I was thinking about here,

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Speaker 1: which is the most important behavior for a god, belief

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Speaker 1: to reinforce in order to have memetic resilience, in order

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Speaker 1: to survive and spread, it's got to be belief in

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Speaker 1: the God itself. We mentioned this earlier. Does Santa's motivating

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Speaker 1: power in turn motivate belief in Santa or even if

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Speaker 1: it works, is it just to motivate like being well behaved. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a very good point. Yeah, does it actually motivate

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Speaker 1: belief in Santa? Do? Kids? I mean you'll see I

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Speaker 1: guess you see a little of that, you know, um,

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Speaker 1: kind of like like in you know, an inquisition for

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Speaker 1: a normal religion, but applied to the Santa world, Like

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Speaker 1: you've got to believe or you'll get in trouble. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think the the area in the Santa concept as

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Speaker 1: as I experienced it growing up, and in the current

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Speaker 1: rights and rituals that we maintain that the real area

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Speaker 1: of of like proof, right is the is the carrot

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Speaker 1: that has been bitten by the reindeer and the half

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Speaker 1: consumed plate of cookies and milk like that, that, more

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Speaker 1: than the presence, is like the fingerprint of God. Explain that,

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Speaker 1: checkmate atheists, checkmate Richard Dawkins. Anyway, Barrett also points out

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Speaker 1: that a big problem facing Santa is to go back

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Speaker 1: to some of the origins we've mentioned earlier, is that St.

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Speaker 1: Nicholas is dead. Boo, No, he's not. No. No. The

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Speaker 1: connection to the long dead sat is clear, and myths

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Speaker 1: don't really explain it. He is not the resurrected St. Nicholas.

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Speaker 1: We're never told that's the case. He's not the ghost

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Speaker 1: of St. Nicholas. He's not Nicholas the White returned after

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Speaker 1: fighting the ball Rock. He's just he just also happens

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Speaker 1: to be the mortal man who definitely died in the

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Speaker 1: year three d and forty three CE. This is something

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna come back to in just a minute. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: there there are not very strong, coherent Santa apologetics that

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Speaker 1: are designed to work on adults. Right, Yeah, there's there's

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Speaker 1: no like if they explain, well, yes, Santa Claus was

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Speaker 1: once St. Nicholas and after his death in three three CE, etcetera, etcetera. No,

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Speaker 1: it's just like Barrett says, it's like you're into Santa

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Speaker 1: and then you look him up and you're like, oh St. Nicholas, Oh,

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Speaker 1: and he's dead. And he says that that takes the

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Speaker 1: punch out of it. All Right, we're gonna jump in

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Speaker 1: here and take a quick break, but we'll be right back,

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Speaker 1: and we're back now. In discussing all of this, Barrett

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Speaker 1: also provides a humorous chart that compiles his thoughts and

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Speaker 1: his his interpretations of these five categories, not only on

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Speaker 1: Santa as a possible guy, but also Mickey Mouse, the

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Speaker 1: Tooth Fairy, and George Bush. I think this would have

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Speaker 1: been George W. Bush, Right, Yeah, I believe so. But

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Speaker 1: for instance, we area went through Santa Claus, but on

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Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse, he gave Mickey yes for counterintuitive, yes for

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Speaker 1: intentional agent, sure, but then then a no on having

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Speaker 1: strategic information and no on acting in the real world,

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Speaker 1: and a no unmotivating reinforcing behavior. Oh yeah, I'm with

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Speaker 1: all that. On the tooth fairy. Tooth Fairy gets yes

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Speaker 1: is across the board except for possessing strategic information, which, yeah,

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Speaker 1: does the tooth fairy really know anything you don't? I mean,

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Speaker 1: maybe knows a little bit more about your dental hygiene

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Speaker 1: than other entities. Doesn't really seem actionable him. And then finally,

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Speaker 1: George Bush. George Bush gets yeses across the board except

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Speaker 1: for counterintuitive. So he's an intentional agent. He at least

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Speaker 1: at the time, possessed strategic information. He acted in the

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Speaker 1: real world, and he motivated reinforcing behaviors, but he was

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Speaker 1: not counterintuitive. Right, does he motivate reinforcing behaviors? I guess so, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I got yeah, I think so. But you know, he

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Speaker 1: it was just a human, right, I mean, yeah, it's true,

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Speaker 1: any actually existing human walking around on the earth motivates

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Speaker 1: reinforcing behaviors, because if you act as if these people

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Speaker 1: don't exist, it will cause problems for you. I should

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Speaker 1: also point out that if you if you want to

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Speaker 1: actually look up this paper and the full title, which

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Speaker 1: we did not share earlier for reasons that we become

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Speaker 1: obvious is why Santa Claus is not a god again

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Speaker 1: Journal of Cognition and Culture, two thousand and eight. If

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Speaker 1: you look it up. He also has a wonderful Venn

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Speaker 1: diagram of how all five of these concepts interact, and

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Speaker 1: the like the one safe zone where you have candidates

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Speaker 1: for successful gods according to these these ideas. Now, I

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Speaker 1: would say to be critical of these uh criteria we've

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Speaker 1: been discussing. I think you could argue that Santa meets

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Speaker 1: all five criteria at least in some cases of belief,

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Speaker 1: and maybe not in other cases of belief, and yet

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Speaker 1: still there is no active cult of Santa whatsoever among adults.

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Speaker 1: And this suggests to me that while I think these

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Speaker 1: five criteria are all very good starting places for evaluating

403
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Speaker 1: god type agents in people's beliefs, there have got to

404
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Speaker 1: be some other criteria here that are not really accounted for.

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Speaker 1: I think one major factor playing against belief in Santa

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Speaker 1: Claus as a god is that there is, first of all,

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Speaker 1: a right of passage in which children become aware of

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Speaker 1: the underlying Christmas Gift mechanism, and there are not any

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Speaker 1: significant numbers of adults insisting to other adults that Santa

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Speaker 1: Claus is real and is a god. Like you've got

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Speaker 1: to have a foothold of people starting off insisting that

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Speaker 1: it's real in all cases, and not just say in

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Speaker 1: the presence of children, but like to other adults, and

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Speaker 1: they would have to be, you know, trying to make

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Speaker 1: a case, you know, and once you had that, actually,

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Speaker 1: I could see it being surprising how easy something like

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Speaker 1: god belief would pick up, because there's nothing as convincing

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Speaker 1: as other people's confidence. It's like embarrassing how susceptible we

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Speaker 1: are to just sensing confidence in other people and thinking, oh,

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Speaker 1: maybe there's something to that. So do you think that

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Speaker 1: there could come a day where we would say, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: when we when we were kids and when we were

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Speaker 1: you know, younger adults, Uh, Santa was just an idea

424
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 1: that we we told kids about and only kids believed

425
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: in it. But now we have all these adults all

426
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: over the news media and they're just fiercely defending belief

427
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:47,119
Speaker 1: in Santa Claus. And I'm afraid to say anything. I

428
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 1: don't think you would get that because I don't see

429
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 1: that there's a major motivation to start a movement like that.

430
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: And I think that the people who tried to start

431
00:23:57,080 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: a movement like that, they would not have a major motivation,

432
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:02,920
Speaker 1: and they would look foolish at least initially until they,

433
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:05,639
Speaker 1: you know, got people believing them. So I I just

434
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:07,880
Speaker 1: don't see that as likely to happen now. I think

435
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,119
Speaker 1: you could probably propose things that are equally ridiculous, but

436
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: you can imagine more of a motivation for them to

437
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:16,920
Speaker 1: come about. That maybe you could. I mean, they sound

438
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: crazy to us now, but if enough people were confidently

439
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 1: proclaiming them, Say, take a major political figure and start

440
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:26,119
Speaker 1: saying that they're a god. And that sounds ridiculous to

441
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,040
Speaker 1: us right now, but you just get a number of

442
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 1: people loudly, proudly proclaiming that, I think you could get

443
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: some buy in. Oh yeah, I mean you, if you

444
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: listen to the right people, you you hear that about

445
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: contemporary political figures to a certain extent. I don't think

446
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,840
Speaker 1: I've heard anyone say that, uh, the individual in question

447
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: is a deity. But I have heard people say, well,

448
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: if you look at you know, the way such and

449
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,239
Speaker 1: such as written in the Old Testament, then clearly that

450
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 1: makes room for me to, you know, to to look

451
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: over this particular individual shortcomings etcetera. And uh, yeah, I

452
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: mean it's it's not too much of an extra relation

453
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: to get to the point where you can imagine someone saying, no, this,

454
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 1: this politician is a god. Well, and the division between

455
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: a figure of major religious significance and a god themselves

456
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: is not always as clear as we might want it

457
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: to be or think it is. There's another thing that

458
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,119
Speaker 1: I think is getting in the way of Santa Claus

459
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 1: becoming a legitimate god belief among adults. And this may

460
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: be a weirdly specific nit to pick, but I think

461
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: it hurts to suggest that there is a physical location

462
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: on Earth where he resides, and combining that with like

463
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,880
Speaker 1: modern geo imaging and maps like, it would be really

464
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,480
Speaker 1: hard to contend that Santa Claus is a literal, physical

465
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: being who lives in a toy workshop at the North Pole.

466
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: Most god beliefs that have survived into the modern technological

467
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: era have either always been or have had to retreat

468
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: into uh intangibility. For instance, it would it would be

469
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 1: hard to insist today that there are Greek gods that

470
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 1: literally inhabit a palace at the top of Mount Olympus,

471
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: like you see pictures of what it looks like up there,

472
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: um they would have to become invisible or start to

473
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 1: occupy some non physical dimension or something like that. Now,

474
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: as always when you're talking about you know, real phenomenon

475
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 1: and culture, there are exceptions. An exception. I can think

476
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 1: of his Mount Kailash, for instance, in in Hinduism, some

477
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: believe this to be the you know, it's a physical mountain,

478
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 1: It's a real mountain. You go there, people make pilgrimages

479
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: there and they walk around it. Some people believe it

480
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: to be the home of Lord Shiva and the goddess Parvadi.

481
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,639
Speaker 1: But you're not allowed to climb up on the mountain

482
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: to see for yourself. And I think this belief would

483
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: probably also tolerate some non physical interpretations. And yet, as

484
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: I think, you could potentially imagine, imagine a world, if

485
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: you will, in which St. Nicholas is never fully divested

486
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:51,120
Speaker 1: from his religious origins and and and instead of it being,

487
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: instead of Santa Claus being this thing that is sometimes

488
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: brought up about the secular war on Christmas, you know,

489
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: and taking Christ out of Christmas, what if St. Nicholas

490
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: on the whole across you know, Western civilization remains this um,

491
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: this religious figure who also comes at Christmas and brings

492
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: toys and lives at the North Pole. And then you

493
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: have all Santa believing nations agree to not explore the

494
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: the Arctic because that is where Santa lives, and then

495
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: forging treaties with non Santa believing nations UH that where

496
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:27,159
Speaker 1: they agree, yes, we won't explore the Arctic because we

497
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: realize that's sacred to you. Then perhaps you could keep

498
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 1: you could keep the the the residents of Santa an

499
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: article of faith or not. It might not actually work,

500
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 1: but it's possible. I think. I think you'd still have

501
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: the major problem of like the the generational transfer of

502
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:45,679
Speaker 1: the knowledge of the Christmas gift mechanism, you know, like

503
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: the fact that at some point you meet the man

504
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: behind the curtain and its mom and dad. I think

505
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: that has an incredibly powerful demotivating effect unbelief, Like you're

506
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: really going for the throat with that one. Joe, I didn't,

507
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 1: I didn't go that far and talking about the magic

508
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:00,640
Speaker 1: of Santa. It's weird though, because I feel I feel

509
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did I do bad? Well? It's weird for

510
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: me because I feel more I feel less pressure about

511
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: discussing uh, like religious concepts. Uh, you know we've been

512
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: saying that. Okay, you know, we have this concept of God,

513
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: but there's no actual deity that resides in the heaven. Like,

514
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:20,199
Speaker 1: I feel better about saying that than to come out

515
00:28:20,280 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 1: and say that Santa Claus is your parents. We already said, oh,

516
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:26,400
Speaker 1: come on, I don't know. I'm not saying it makes sense.

517
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, um, that's how it feels. I'm like, oh,

518
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: that's that's a step too far to say, not only

519
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 1: there is no Santa and he is me. That's that's

520
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: exactly in fact that you're exactly making my point, because

521
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: it's not just that at some point that the other

522
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: kids on the playground start saying, oh, you still believe

523
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: in Santa. Santa isn't real. I mean, that would be

524
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: one thing if that was happening. You could still maintain

525
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: belief even in a hostile atmosphere. People maintain religious beliefs

526
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: in a hostile atmosphere among nonbelievers who challenge their beliefs.

527
00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: But the fact that they're the mechanism is revealed by

528
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: the by the people pulling the levers that the the

529
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: it is me statement is the most powerful moment there

530
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: that's where like it can't really survive that moment. But

531
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: sometimes you don't completely have that moment. I don't know,

532
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: like some some parents, they don't have like a sit

533
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: down and say like, all right, here's the here's the truth.

534
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: So um, I think another important Sorry, I didn't mean

535
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: to do something that. No, no, you didn't. I'm just

536
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: saying that that kind of I felt that it says

537
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: more about me as a as a parent that's currently

538
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: maintaining the magic of Santa and trying to figure out

539
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: like where it goes from here, you know. But I

540
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: do want to come back to again to Santa and godhood.

541
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: I think it's worth mentioning. First of all, Santa has

542
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: encompassed aspects of old gods already. You have such characters

543
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:51,959
Speaker 1: as the Germanic god vote in, the godlike entity of

544
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: Russia's dead de Morez or old Man Frost of course,

545
00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: factors into another MST three k Rifft film, Jack Frost. Uh,

546
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 1: and I think he's more there's certainly a clear cut

547
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: case for Jack Frost being a deity. Uh, since he

548
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, he's he's can he's you know,

549
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: he's a he's a natural force. And that is personified.

550
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: But then also we have to get into discussing just

551
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: like how the how concepts of God and God's are

552
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: going to vary from culture to culture, because a lot

553
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: of this has revolved around very I think Western concepts

554
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 1: of an all powerful god, you know, or or even

555
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 1: like ancient Greek concepts of like really highly powerful anthropomorphic entities. Right. Yeah, um.

556
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: I mean it's something that Barrett mentions in the paper

557
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,239
Speaker 1: is that there these criteria are supposed to apply to

558
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: all kinds of gods. I mean, so they would apply

559
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: to you know, uh, spirit gods that live in the

560
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: trees and stuff like that, or household gods and like,

561
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: they should apply to all of these categories. But it's

562
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: clear that at least I think you and I, by

563
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 1: our cultural context are very conditioned when we talk about

564
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: gods to think about like the monotheistic religions, right. But

565
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: I do wonder if, despite what Barrett says, I wonder

566
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: if some of the household god concepts do kind of

567
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:08,479
Speaker 1: fall through the cracks of this a little bit. I

568
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: was thinking particularly about about about China here, because in China,

569
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: U Santa has really only gained traction there during really

570
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 1: gain traction there in the nineteen nineties. So you won't

571
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: find Santa wearing Confucian robes or anything, but apparently you

572
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: will see him on doors in places often relegated for

573
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 1: the gods. Chinese households with double doors sometimes boast twin

574
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: images of Santa, a place also reserved for Chinese New

575
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: Year posters and the traditional uh min Shin or door

576
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: gods of of Chinese tradition. And I think it this

577
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: forces us to realize that there's you know, there's again,

578
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: there's God in the monotheistic tradition, and then there are

579
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: the gods of various non monotheistic religions, and and we

580
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: hardly just mean the pantheons of Hinduism in ancient Greece.

581
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 1: But again these household deities, such as the Chinese domestic

582
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: odds like the kitchen or stove god, and then you

583
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: know their variations of this in Western traditions as well.

584
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, though, it is sometimes held that the kitchen

585
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 1: God in Chinese custom returns to the celestial realm shortly

586
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: before lunar New Year in order to report household activities

587
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: directly to the all powerful Jade Emperor, whoa so um

588
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 1: some strategic information there. So you know, at first it

589
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: might seem like there's not anything strategic there, but clearly

590
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: the kitchen God has strategic information that then has an

591
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: important ramifications for the household effected. Well, one thing I

592
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 1: was thinking to complicate this is I used the obvious

593
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: example that seems laughable to us of the crunch rap

594
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: supreme God. But I think that they're in fact are

595
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 1: some types of household god type entities that are they

596
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: are intentional agents and that they can act and they

597
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: have like thoughts and stuff like that, but they're also

598
00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: inanimate objects, right, Yeah about that. So there are are

599
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: like household appliances that are gods and like food items

600
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: that are gods, but they're just imagined to be those

601
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: inanimate objects with intentional agency. All right, we're gonna jump

602
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: in here and take a quick break, but we'll be

603
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: right back. And we're back. So there's another way to

604
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: think about Santa in relationship to gods and religion, and

605
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: that's by focusing on the fact that if he is

606
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 1: a god, he's a specific kind of god, right, which

607
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: is a moralizing god, like he knows if you've been

608
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: bad or good, so be good for goodness sake, and

609
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: I think two people who are primarily familiar with only

610
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: the largest world religions today. You know, you've got Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism,

611
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: all that. It probably just seems like moralizing is an

612
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 1: inherent part of what a religion is, right, yeah, I

613
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: would think so. I mean, especially with the major monotheistic religions,

614
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: and that is the model, right, the big the big

615
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: sky Daddy that is going to be disappointed in you

616
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,959
Speaker 1: and punish you if you do not behave morally totally. Like,

617
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,839
Speaker 1: all those religions have concepts or codes that in some

618
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: way regulate moral conduct. They encourage one type of behavior

619
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: over another. So you've got the you know, supernatural justice

620
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: in heaven and hell, divine retribution or resolution in the

621
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:26,720
Speaker 1: workings of karma, etcetera. But not all religions are especially moralizing,

622
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 1: and not all gods are especially concerned with moral behavior.

623
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 1: Like if you look at smaller religions practiced stall around

624
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: the world and especially deeper into history, you start to

625
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: get the picture that many gods and many religions are

626
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:44,400
Speaker 1: basically a moral that that they involve myths and rituals,

627
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: and that the gods don't really care whether or not

628
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,959
Speaker 1: you are morally good or bad. They care whether you say,

629
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: perform the rituals or not. And of course this isn't

630
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: to say that the people practicing these religions are a

631
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 1: moral They of course would have ideas about moral conduct,

632
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 1: just like anybody else would. It's just that the you know,

633
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:07,720
Speaker 1: in these societies, the regulation of morality does not seem

634
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 1: to come from the gods or religion. It comes from

635
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: other sources in the same way that the amoral god

636
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: it doesn't care if you've been bad or good. We

637
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:19,399
Speaker 1: can easily imagine like the tyrannical king who doesn't care

638
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: if you are a good person or not. But are

639
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: you are you paying your tribute to him? Are you

640
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: obeying the laws that he set out not because they're more,

641
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: but because they reinforce his rule? Right? It's not follow

642
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,839
Speaker 1: the Golden rule or something. It's neil Before's odd right now. Now,

643
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier how the Jade emperor in Chinese traditions,

644
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 1: in Chinese mythology does seem concerned with what's been happening

645
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:47,919
Speaker 1: in your house via intel provided by a household God.

646
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 1: But I think what's interesting concerning that, I don't bring

647
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 1: it up to trying, like, you know, cast down this idea,

648
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 1: but rather to like add maybe a few wrinkles to it.

649
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting is that Chinese customs put a

650
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 1: huge emphasis on anset Jews, and I think you see

651
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: this in other models as well from around the world.

652
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: That stress spirits of the dead is entities that have

653
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:10,280
Speaker 1: not completely faded away and maybe connected to the gods

654
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: in some way. I guess a true moralizing god in

655
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:15,919
Speaker 1: the form we're talking about here is one that has

656
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: no shall we say, blood relation to the mortals in question. Zeus,

657
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: for instance, always seems more keen than Father, even in

658
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: dealing with his own demi god offspring. You know, he's

659
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: he's certainly not a moral entity himself. No, I mean, yeah,

660
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:31,359
Speaker 1: you look at the Greek gods. They don't seem at

661
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 1: all concerned with moral behavior. I mean you might get

662
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: little snippets of that here and there, It does not

663
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 1: seem to be the main focus of the Greek religion, right,

664
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: and then many of them too are of course more

665
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: it's not even it's limiting to try and even think

666
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: of them as being a moral or a moral because

667
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: they are more embodiments of drives and aspects of the

668
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:55,359
Speaker 1: human condition. Yeah, totally. I mean they serve they serve

669
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: a narrative function, right, just the way that like the

670
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,800
Speaker 1: characters in your novel don't necessary they're not necessarily gonna

671
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: be good people, like they're they're doing things to serve

672
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,400
Speaker 1: a narrative function. I think a lot of gods in

673
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: history are that way, except you did need to do

674
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: the rituals right well, like Bacchus for example. You know,

675
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: like Bacchus, I guess you could say Bacchus is a

676
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 1: moral but but even that kind of puts a luminal

677
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: what Bacchus is, Like, Bacchus is more the embodiment of

678
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 1: like sort of primal instinct and primal drive and desire

679
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 1: right now. Of course, whenever you're talking about like a

680
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: big complex human phenomenon like religion, there's gonna be all

681
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:32,840
Speaker 1: kinds of variation. There's no you know, it's hard to

682
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 1: make generalized statements that are always true. But historically it

683
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: does appear to a lot of scholars of religion that

684
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: over time there was a pretty major shift in the

685
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 1: world from a moral religions to moralizing religions. And again

686
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean a moral people. It just means like,

687
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 1: you know, gods that aren't concerned with moral behavior only

688
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 1: with rituals to gods that have moral codes and stuff.

689
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: And the era of moralizing god's also seems to be

690
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,919
Speaker 1: linked with like other rates of the religions that bear them.

691
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: For example, the trend toward moralizing god seems to be

692
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 1: paired with features like omniscience. Like in order for a

693
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:11,920
Speaker 1: god to be aware of your moral conduct at all

694
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: times and punish you even for doing wrong in private,

695
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 1: the god needs to be all perceptive, you know, he

696
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 1: sees you when you're sleeping and so forth. And so

697
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: some scholars have actually proposed that the emergence of big

698
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:28,320
Speaker 1: moralizing gods and big moralizing religions could have had major

699
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: effects on sort of society and ecology and and the

700
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 1: history of human civilization. Like one hypothesis that's been knocking

701
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,320
Speaker 1: around for years. I've mainly seen it associated with a

702
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: book by the Canadian psychologist Dr Era nor in Zion

703
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:46,720
Speaker 1: called Big Gods, How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Uh,

704
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: I might not be fully doing a justice, but the

705
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: basic idea here is that like big, powerful, moralizing gods

706
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 1: made civilization with large settlements and lots of trade and

707
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: interaction between strangers possible. I think the basic reasoning is

708
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: that if people only live in small settlements, it's hard

709
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: for individuals to get away with bad dishonest behavior, because

710
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,920
Speaker 1: you quickly get a bad reputation if you know everybody

711
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: around you knows you. There's only one person selling brad

712
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: you know it's it's a small community. But so yeah,

713
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: so they get punished in social ways, you know, by

714
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: other people. But in a world with big cities and

715
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: lots of business and interactions between people who are probably

716
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: never even going to see each other again, it's a

717
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:32,400
Speaker 1: lot easier to be a cheat or a thief for

718
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 1: whatever and just keep getting away with it. Thus the

719
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: need for a belief in an all seeing judge who

720
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,800
Speaker 1: holds you accountable, who won't just let you cheat and

721
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: harm people and then escape into the anonymity made possible

722
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:47,399
Speaker 1: by a big society with lots of trade and lots

723
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: of strangers. Um. Now, as always with this kind of hypothesis,

724
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 1: it's important to remember the difference between like telling a

725
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:57,439
Speaker 1: plausible story and proving an explanation is correct. I'm all

726
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 1: for informed speculation in areas where hard evidence is lacking.

727
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 1: That's a lot of fun to do, and we like

728
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 1: to we talk about that stuff all the time. But

729
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: it's also important to remember the difference between that and proof.

730
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 1: So it is an interesting hypothesis. But like, is there

731
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:12,400
Speaker 1: any way to test its predictions? And I think the

732
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 1: answer is sort of. It's the kind of historical explanation

733
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: that would be difficult to be sure about. But one

734
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: study I was looking at found an interesting way to

735
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 1: test its consistency with the facts, and this was by

736
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: using a big historical database called set shot to check

737
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 1: to check the timelines basically on average, based on what

738
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:35,720
Speaker 1: we know about history, does evidence for big moralizing gods

739
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: tend to show up in a region of the world

740
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 1: directly before big increases in social complexity. Does it look

741
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: like the emergence of these big moralizing gods is making

742
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 1: like big cities and complex trade possible. Uh? So there

743
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: was a paper published in Nature in twenty nineteen by

744
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: Harvey white House at all Um and the results were

745
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: interesting that they did not find, in fact, the big

746
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: moralizing god's created booms in social complexity in the region.

747
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 1: But they did find a historical association between the emergence

748
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 1: or like our first evidence of big moralizing gods and

749
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 1: booms in social complexity in the timeline. It's just that

750
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 1: the order was reversed. Quote. Our statistical analysis showed that

751
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: beliefs in supernatural punishment tend to appear only when societies

752
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 1: make the transition from simple to complex, around the time

753
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: when the overall population exceeded about a million individuals. So

754
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:34,440
Speaker 1: it looks like they found there is an association between

755
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 1: you know, big booms in population and social complexity, but

756
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: it looks like that the religious changes came about after

757
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: the transformation or you know, the formation of big complex societies.

758
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting. Well, yeah, it reminds me of

759
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:53,280
Speaker 1: our discussions on health theologies in the past, uh, you know, particular,

760
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 1: you know, the ideas of as this this study points

761
00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: out supernatural punishment, and uh I have frequently uh you know,

762
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: stated my displeasure with with any health theology model. I

763
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 1: think that it is largely a supernatural revenge fantasy and

764
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 1: a barbaric one in which we we uh commit individuals

765
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: or groups of people uh to some sort of fiery

766
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 1: torture and rape in the in the afterlife for things

767
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 1: that we see them or we perceive them getting away

768
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 1: with in this life. We're not being properly punished for

769
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 1: in this life. So I can see that very much

770
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:31,839
Speaker 1: lining up with this. It's the idea of there are

771
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 1: people out there that are getting away with it. There

772
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 1: has to be they cannot do that. They would not

773
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: be able to do that in the smaller realm, and

774
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 1: here in the larger realm of the city, there still

775
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,319
Speaker 1: must be some sort of of punishment, and therefore it

776
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: becomes necessary to have this imagine punishment in the afterlife.

777
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 1: So the moralizing gods with divine retribution or perhaps not

778
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 1: something that makes big civilization possible, but something that happens

779
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 1: because of the resentments narrated in a big civilization. Yeah,

780
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:05,279
Speaker 1: I wonder, I wonder. I think that's an interesting way

781
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: of looking at Again, one is hesitant to to find

782
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: nice concise explanation for anything that emerges and all the

783
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: caveats we already stated, yeah, um, but yeah, I'm wondering.

784
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: So if they're on the right track that this historically

785
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:20,879
Speaker 1: was the trend, Like first, you get a whole bunch

786
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: of people together, all trading with strangers and stuff, and

787
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 1: then shortly after that you start to get the moralizing

788
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 1: gods who see you when you're sleeping and know when

789
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 1: you're awake. Does this have any relevance to Santa? Does

790
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: it tell us anything about the jelly old Elf? I

791
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: mean maybe in the sense that Santa is a concept

792
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: that is bestowed on young minds by adult minds, and

793
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 1: so therefore we could be taking the larger model, boiling

794
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 1: it down into a simplified form, and giving it to them.

795
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: So you know, ultimately, I don't know how much. I

796
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:56,359
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know to what extent. There's really

797
00:43:56,400 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: a lot of pleasure to be gained for a child

798
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: imagining the bad kids not getting anything for Christmas. I

799
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 1: don't remember dwelling on that as a kid. Maybe that's

800
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: just you. Some kids do like the idea of other

801
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: kids getting punished. You can see the delight in their eyes.

802
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:16,600
Speaker 1: You never noticed this when like the bad kid gets

803
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 1: there come up and well, I don't know. Maybe it

804
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,399
Speaker 1: depends on the environment in which the child is brought up,

805
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 1: because I feel like currently with my child, I don't

806
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 1: I've never heard him bring up the idea of somebody

807
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: getting away with bad behavior, you know, like either bad

808
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: behavior is dealt with by teachers or by another parent.

809
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: That's there. Uh. You know, certainly we live in the

810
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: age of of you know, so called helicopter parents, where

811
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: there's generally there generally are a number of parents hovering

812
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,959
Speaker 1: around the playground environment, etcetera. So maybe he just hasn't

813
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,719
Speaker 1: gotten to the point where there's this realization that, yes,

814
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 1: sometimes when you are bad, you absolutely get away with it,

815
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: at least in this lifetime, or at least until Christmas

816
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: rolls around. That's interesting, but it comes back to I mean,

817
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 1: it's it's the flip side of the coin, right, of

818
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: the classic theological quandary, why do bad things happen to

819
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:13,800
Speaker 1: good people? Why do good things happen to bad people?

820
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: Why do bad people get away with being bad? Right? Well,

821
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: if you have the concept of an all powerful, moralizing God,

822
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 1: it necessarily invites that question. When you start to see

823
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 1: flaws in the system, just don't look like they're working.

824
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: I mean to come back to again to the idea

825
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: that Santa does tend to come through even for the

826
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: bad kids, Like there's gonna come a point where realized, no,

827
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: my classmate Um Damien was terrible this year, like he

828
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: is awful in Santa gave him everything he desired and

829
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,240
Speaker 1: then some something is wrong with this system. It's all

830
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: for you exactly because I guess the basically, given a

831
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 1: complex society, that's going to happen inevitably, even or perhaps

832
00:45:55,800 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 1: especially with environments where you have like really Tyranne Cole

833
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 1: rule in place takes a like a North Korea situation,

834
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: where you have like informers in UM, like in smaller

835
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: groups that report back if anybody's speaking, you know, out

836
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: of line about the regime. Like even of course, within

837
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: a regime like that, you're going to have people to

838
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: then abuse the already abusive system and find ways to

839
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: benefit from it. So there's always going to be somebody

840
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,919
Speaker 1: in these systems getting away with it no matter what.

841
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: Uh you know, cultural um institutions and systems are put

842
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 1: in place to prevent it. Yeah, I think that's a

843
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: good point now, you know, on the subject of of

844
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: city gods and moral gods, I can't help but turn

845
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: my mind back to the work of Julian Jayne's, author

846
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: of the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of a

847
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,640
Speaker 1: bicameral mind, which we we discussed in a couple of

848
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: older episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I think

849
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:54,320
Speaker 1: we more or less recently re ran those and occasionally

850
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: it pops up. But he spends a fair amount of

851
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: time pointing to the structure of ancient cities with their

852
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 1: houses of the gods at the center, what he refers

853
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:09,280
Speaker 1: to as bicameral architecture, each city centering upon steeply rising

854
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: pyramids topped with god houses, where he says, quote, the

855
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,759
Speaker 1: king dead is a living god. The king's tomb is

856
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:19,360
Speaker 1: the god's house, the beginning of the elaborate god house

857
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 1: or temples. And you know that this gets a little

858
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: bit into the the idea of the the the ancestors

859
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: remaining alive, like the dead king has not died. The

860
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: the idea of the dead king is the form through

861
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: which one hemisphere of our brain speaks to the other. Right, Yeah,

862
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,880
Speaker 1: that that was the basis of his He's trying to

863
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: prove his case that like there was this historical transition

864
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:41,760
Speaker 1: where like, you know, where the gods were literally talking

865
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 1: to people. But of course it wasn't supernatural entities. It

866
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 1: was the non dominant hemisphere of the brain. But It's

867
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: important to note that like in the purely bicameral scenario

868
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 1: here that he was describing, like the God would not

869
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: be reminding you what the rules are, that God would

870
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 1: be telling you what to do. So he would point

871
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 1: to the difference between moralizing and non moralizing gods as

872
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:08,720
Speaker 1: being key to the breakdown of the bicameral mind. For example,

873
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: he points out that no one is moral among the

874
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: god control puppets of the Iliad. Good and evil do

875
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 1: not exist. But he points out in the Odyssey, the

876
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 1: character Clydemestra is able to resist a justice because her

877
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 1: mind is like that of a god. So he writes, quote,

878
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: consciousness and morality are a single development. For without God's

879
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:33,240
Speaker 1: morality based on a consciousness of the consequences of action,

880
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 1: must tell men what to do. So I think the

881
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 1: idea here is that there is no Santa Claus in

882
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:43,719
Speaker 1: the Iliad, and then he would not be necessary for

883
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:46,760
Speaker 1: the children of the bicameral mind. Certainly in the James

884
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 1: verse that is the case. It is interesting this is

885
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: this is something that is perhaps a difference between uh

886
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: Santa and various incarnations of the God. Is that God

887
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:02,960
Speaker 1: and God's speak to humans in a way that Santa

888
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: doesn't really speak to us. I mean, I guess Santa

889
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:07,719
Speaker 1: does take the form of a like there's a Santa's

890
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: helper at the mall and he directly speaks to you,

891
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 1: and then there's the letter writing, etcetera. But there's no

892
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 1: voice of Santa that comes to your mind. Do pretty

893
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:20,399
Speaker 1: much all kids are they told that when they sit

894
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 1: on Santa's lap at the mall, this is not the

895
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 1: real Santa. This guy works for Santa, I believe. So

896
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 1: now now, I don't know if that used to be

897
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: the case. Certainly if you had like a small it's

898
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,799
Speaker 1: kind of like Crampus and Santa, right, Like, do you

899
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 1: tell them it's really the crampas is coming down from

900
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: the mountain and that's really saying nick uh, or or

901
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 1: do you let them in on the fact that these

902
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,759
Speaker 1: are people pretending embodying these things. Well, I wonder if

903
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, you know, the priest of a

904
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: religion dressing up in garb that indicates the deity itself

905
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 1: and being sort of your your intercessor, like the person

906
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 1: who intervenes on your behalf for the deity. I have

907
00:49:55,520 --> 00:50:00,120
Speaker 1: to say, since we began recording the this this pair

908
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:03,440
Speaker 1: of episodes on Santa I have introduced and sort of

909
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: reintroduced my son to both the Mexican Santa Claus film

910
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,400
Speaker 1: and Santa Claus versus the Martians. And that also like

911
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: brought up the question of, like, Okay, what is this

912
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 1: version of Santa I'm seeing here? This is not the

913
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:19,399
Speaker 1: real Santa story because you know, this doesn't line up

914
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:21,440
Speaker 1: with what I've been told. This doesn't line up with

915
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:23,319
Speaker 1: what I've been told, so already you're having to here's

916
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: another layer of having to say, well, this is an

917
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:29,040
Speaker 1: interpretation of what Santa is and it it made me

918
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:30,839
Speaker 1: think back to a film I don't know if you've

919
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:33,399
Speaker 1: seen this titled Santa Claus the I think with Santa

920
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:37,279
Speaker 1: Claus the motion picture with John lithcalin it. No, I

921
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 1: haven't seen it. I think Deadly more may Or may

922
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:41,760
Speaker 1: not have played an elf. It's been a long time,

923
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 1: but it came out at just the right time in

924
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 1: my childhood where I still largely believed in Santa Claus.

925
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 1: And here was a movie about Santa that even at

926
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: that point was ridiculous, and I wonder, I remember wondering

927
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 1: what the real Santa thought of this film, you know,

928
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 1: like did he approve like this? Was it blasphemous in

929
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:04,399
Speaker 1: a sense? You know, because like I'm I'm thinking, well,

930
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 1: the reindeer don't fly because they eat a special candy

931
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 1: and then humans John Lithcow wouldn't be able to fly

932
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:13,319
Speaker 1: because he ate a special candy cane? How did Dr

933
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: Lozardo become Santa Claus exactly? So, I don't know. That

934
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:22,239
Speaker 1: doesn't really answer any questions, raises more questions about, you know,

935
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: the hoops we make our children jump through when it

936
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: comes to our our mythical god like beings. All Right,

937
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 1: So in the end, Barrett says, Santa Claus not a god?

938
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:34,360
Speaker 1: What are you saying, Joe? Uh, Yeah, I think not

939
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 1: a god. Though I think it's not necessarily because I

940
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:40,839
Speaker 1: uh come down the same side as him on all

941
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:43,240
Speaker 1: of his main five criteria. I do think those criteria

942
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:45,439
Speaker 1: are interesting and worth talking about. I'd say the main

943
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 1: things that make Santa Claus not a god are like

944
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 1: this other stuff we were talking about. For my money,

945
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 1: I'd say, Okay, Santa is not a god, but he

946
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 1: contains pieces of a god, and I think you could

947
00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: imagine a world in which he one day becomes a god.

948
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: I think what it would take was adults insisting continuously,

949
00:52:05,520 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 1: like a significant number of adults insisting it's true, and

950
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: the cultivation of a like the the editing and the

951
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: cultivation of a version of Santa Clause that works for

952
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 1: adults as well. Yeah. Uh, And I don't know what

953
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 1: would ever cause that. I kind of doubt that would

954
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 1: ever happen, But if it did, then I think you

955
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 1: I think you could be there. Yeah all right, So

956
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,000
Speaker 1: obviously we'd love to hear from everyone about this particular question,

957
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 1: because a number of you out there have either you

958
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 1: grew up with some sort of Santa concept in your

959
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 1: household and or you have a cut Santa concept in

960
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:42,960
Speaker 1: your current household, or you have in an outsider's view

961
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: of all of this, which of course would be very helpful.

962
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 1: And then one thing I'm curious about real quick, how

963
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 1: does how when you're growing up, how did your Santa

964
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:56,640
Speaker 1: concept interact with your religious beliefs? Right? Yeah, Like, especially

965
00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:59,719
Speaker 1: maybe if you weren't a Christian but believed in Santa, Like,

966
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 1: how us that fit together? I think you know, I

967
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:05,840
Speaker 1: have a feeling that sometimes Santa Clause is in a

968
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:09,720
Speaker 1: way kind of like cruelly and intentionally sacrificed in order

969
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 1: to drive home the difference between a religious a concept

970
00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: like Santa and the religious concepts that are upheld in

971
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 1: the household. You know, not a war on Christmas, but

972
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 1: a war on Santa. Yeah, alright, so let us know.

973
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:25,799
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from everybody. In the meantime, If

974
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 1: you want to find other episodes of Stuff to Blow

975
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 1: your Mind, uh, well, you can go Stuff to Blow

976
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. It will redirect you to UM

977
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,240
Speaker 1: a listing of episodes, and you can find a listing

978
00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 1: of episodes more or less just like that anywhere you

979
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 1: get podcasts. UM. I don't know. We can't keep up

980
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:43,319
Speaker 1: with all these websites, but they're out there. You can go,

981
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:46,360
Speaker 1: you can subscribe, you can rate, you can review. That

982
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:50,360
Speaker 1: will help out the show. Uh, let's see what else

983
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:52,960
Speaker 1: um Oh, and if you uh, if you want to,

984
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:55,399
Speaker 1: I guess you can follow us on social media. We're

985
00:53:55,440 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: on various UM civilization destroying platforms out there, but the

986
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:04,080
Speaker 1: only one we're really likely to interact with is the

987
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:06,879
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your my discussion module, which we'll find

988
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: on the Book of Faces. Huge thanks, as always to

989
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:13,759
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you'd like

990
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

991
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,360
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,

992
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at

993
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:31,359
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

994
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:33,360
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's

995
00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

996
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

997
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:49,040
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.