Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of
Speaker 1: our discussion of whether or not Santa Claus is technically
Speaker 1: a god, at least according to the most common criteria
Speaker 1: used by cognitive science of religion. Now we had to
Speaker 1: break this discussion in two because it wins so long,
Speaker 1: and now we're treating you to the second half of
Speaker 1: our conversation about gods, our brains, and Santa Claus. We
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy as we jump right back in. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've been talking about these criteria that Justin Barrett
Speaker 1: raises that you will find a common to pretty much
Speaker 1: all beliefs in gods among you know, religions you find
Speaker 1: in the world. That gods tend to be counterintuitive in
Speaker 1: some way, often minimally counterintuitive. That they tend to be
Speaker 1: intentional agents, that they have strategic information, that they in
Speaker 1: some way act in the world, and that they're capable
Speaker 1: of motivating behaviors that reinforce belief. Oh and that's one
Speaker 1: other thing we should have emphasized. I guess we did
Speaker 1: in this that the most important thing about the behaviors
Speaker 1: that the God's motivate, the rituals or whatever, is that
Speaker 1: the the motivated action most important to this system is
Speaker 1: that it reinforces the original belief itself. Yeah, because that's
Speaker 1: how it continues. It's it has to sustain itself through that. Yes.
Speaker 1: So I was just thinking to myself, Okay, these these
Speaker 1: five criteria, what happens if we apply them to certain
Speaker 1: fictional entities that either claim to be God or are
Speaker 1: believed to be a god of some sort within the fiction.
Speaker 1: Take Goes or the Gazarian, for instance, one of the best.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a minimally counterintuitive concept. You know, it
Speaker 1: has agency, it does a lot of stuff, But does
Speaker 1: it offer strategic information? I don't know if it offers it.
Speaker 1: I think it probably has it. Yeah. Uh. I also
Speaker 1: about the only good example I had this is that, Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly it has strategic information because it can
Speaker 1: see into your thoughts and see what mental pictures you
Speaker 1: are filling your brain with, so I think that would count.
Speaker 1: It also has information that the world will be destroyed
Speaker 1: by itself. So that's that's that's worth having. I guess, like,
Speaker 1: is Godzilla a god? I mean, does god Zilla possess
Speaker 1: strategic information or well? I don't know. I think Godzilla
Speaker 1: is just a big monster, right, But go goes Are
Speaker 1: the Gozarian uh comes from another dimension and it's like
Speaker 1: a god that makes Godzilla's makes marshmallow Godzilla exactly. It
Speaker 1: takes the form of Godzilla, right, Um, okay, the big
Speaker 1: one with the Gozer. Though, does it offer motivating behaviors
Speaker 1: that reinforce belief? Maybe? I mean, it seems only concerned
Speaker 1: with the opening of the doors that will allow it
Speaker 1: to destroy the world as it destroyed other worlds. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think the case is maybe a little weak,
Speaker 1: but conceivable. I just realized I is calling goes Or
Speaker 1: a heat. I'm not sure goes Or as a heat.
Speaker 1: Goes Er might be a she or or neither gender
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Yeah, I think goes Are's gender neutral,
Speaker 1: even though it does take the form of a feminine
Speaker 1: figure in the in the movie. And I think but
Speaker 1: I think in the original script it was going to
Speaker 1: be played by pee Wee Hermann. Right. Oh wow, I
Speaker 1: say goes Or transcends our puny concepts of gender. Right,
Speaker 1: So we talked about as a thought, as a though,
Speaker 1: as a thought, however you want to say it earlier.
Speaker 1: I think this one fails because lax agency, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it actually acts in the human world at all.
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to be just an entity out
Speaker 1: there in the void, and it's just supposed to be
Speaker 1: frightening and terrifying that it's out there at all. Um
Speaker 1: Sutter Kane from John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness,
Speaker 1: I think he checks off all the boxes. He's a
Speaker 1: human that becomes a god. But then he's got I mean,
Speaker 1: by the end of the film, there's no questioning it.
Speaker 1: I gotta watch that again. It's it's it's pretty solid.
Speaker 1: One of my favorites. Okay, here's one we have to discuss.
Speaker 1: This is one we've talked about in greater detail on
Speaker 1: a past episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Okay, the Postafarian concept, which granted
Speaker 1: is kind of a it is it is a counter
Speaker 1: religious argument. It is an idea that it's brought up.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a contrary uh concept. Right, Well, it's
Speaker 1: another one of those that's obviously a joke. At the
Speaker 1: moment you hear it, right, you don't have to investigate,
Speaker 1: like do people seriously believe? I mean, like you just
Speaker 1: know instantly it's a joke. And again that's a clue
Speaker 1: that there's like there are some kind of intuitive constraints
Speaker 1: on what gods they're supposed to be, like, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: his the flying spaghetti Monster. I think the biggest flaw
Speaker 1: might be that it is not minimally counterintuitive. It is
Speaker 1: it has two counter into two counterintuitive. It's like God
Speaker 1: is a potato, right. But on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: do think it checks off a number of the boxes. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, his he has detectable actions, and they see
Speaker 1: that they seem to be limited to the creation of
Speaker 1: the world and also the changing of scientific measurements with
Speaker 1: his newly appendage changing radiocarbon dating. Uh, and so for well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess another thing is the question of,
Speaker 1: like whether people sincerely believe the things you're talking about
Speaker 1: to meet these criteria or just propose them obviously ingest
Speaker 1: because with all these fictional examples, I mean, you're thinking
Speaker 1: up ideas of where you can create a something that
Speaker 1: meets all the criteria, and yet obviously still is not
Speaker 1: a legit god found in the world because nobody actually believes, right,
Speaker 1: nobody actually worships goes or uh. I mean, this flying
Speaker 1: spaghetti Monster is is an interesting case though, because I
Speaker 1: think it's probably safe to say that nobody actually worships
Speaker 1: the flying spaghetti Monster. No one truly believes in the
Speaker 1: flying spaghetti Monster. But at what point does the current
Speaker 1: um concept of the flying spaghetti Monster? At what point
Speaker 1: does it at least partially transcended? Which which point does
Speaker 1: it get one newly appendage over the line into godhood. Well,
Speaker 1: if you go on with a joke long enough, you'll
Speaker 1: start to want to find meaning in it. It always happens, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, there's something to be said in
Speaker 1: mean culture with on that account, I believe. I think
Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. I think it's also true. Watch any
Speaker 1: irreverent TV show long enough eventually gets sentimental. It's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, people want to start finding meaning in the
Speaker 1: chaos of humor and satire. That's a good point, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's bring it back around to Santa Claus at this point. Um, First,
Speaker 1: I just want to recap a little bit about Santa.
Speaker 1: But you know, I want to go I don't want
Speaker 1: to go into a full history of Santa Claus, but
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to just remind everyone where the concept
Speaker 1: came from. A few years ago I chatted with Aida
Speaker 1: Adam C. English, chair of the Department of Christian Studies
Speaker 1: at Campbell University, about the evolution of Santa and See
Speaker 1: a Santa scholar. Yes, he is the author of the
Speaker 1: book The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus? The True
Speaker 1: Life and Trials of Nicholas of Mira. Uh that in
Speaker 1: this book he point doubt that the modern Santa Claus
Speaker 1: bears almost no resemblance to the historic origins of a
Speaker 1: fourth century Christian bishop. UM, and his continued evolution reveals
Speaker 1: a great deal about modern culture. Uh. This interview used
Speaker 1: to be hosted a Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,
Speaker 1: But now Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com is
Speaker 1: um exists only in a very stripped down form. But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just read a few uh quotes here from
Speaker 1: the author. Adam see English Uh wrote to me and said,
Speaker 1: quote first and most obviously, Santa has been scrubbed of
Speaker 1: any and all religious identity. I think that is something
Speaker 1: people notice when they see the European Old World St. Nick's,
Speaker 1: who are addressed like bishops with a miter stole, ecclesiastical vestiments,
Speaker 1: a Crozier staff, and many times wearing a crucifix or
Speaker 1: cross on the neck. In contrast, Santa has been domesticated, commercialized,
Speaker 1: and universalized or secularized, depending on your viewpoint. The miter
Speaker 1: has been softened into a floppy fur trimmed stocking cap,
Speaker 1: the estimates have been turned into a red first suit
Speaker 1: with white trimming, the stole into the big black belt
Speaker 1: in the Crozier staff into a large sack of toy.
Speaker 1: Even his name is under gone changed. Santa Claus is
Speaker 1: an americanization of the Dutch center class, which is just St. Nicholas.
Speaker 1: His other name, Chris Kringle, is the americanization of the
Speaker 1: German Austrian uh Chris Kindle or christ Child. Martin Luther
Speaker 1: attempted to replace Nicholas as the gift giver with the
Speaker 1: baby Jesus. The Christmas gifts come from the Christ Child,
Speaker 1: well the Kris Kringle. The religious With Chris Kringle, the
Speaker 1: religious significance important to Luther has again been lost. He continues,
Speaker 1: quote the first depiction of Nicholas in America by the
Speaker 1: New York Historical Society showed him as a stern bishop
Speaker 1: in the European fashion, but within fifty years he transformed
Speaker 1: into the magical elf who drives a sleigh pulled by
Speaker 1: reindeer and trops down chimneys. Um. And then also he
Speaker 1: drove home that there was no here a once upon
Speaker 1: a time pure religious Santa Claus Christmas has always been
Speaker 1: a blend of the sacred and the secular, popular in
Speaker 1: the solemn, commercial and the familial um. Also, he points
Speaker 1: out that you know a lot of it also dates
Speaker 1: back to older beliefs. Uh. He said that in pre
Speaker 1: Christian times, the Greeks they celebrated Linnea, Romans had the
Speaker 1: Saturnalia in late December as well as the Romalia. Germans
Speaker 1: hunted and feasted at Yule Tide, the Irish had Rende.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you have all these different midwinter festivals
Speaker 1: and they all involve a lot of you know, merriment, feasting, etcetera. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: this introduces some difficulty because if we're talking about evaluating
Speaker 1: whether Santa Claus meets the cognitive science of religion criteria
Speaker 1: of a god what Santa Claus do you go with?
Speaker 1: Do you go with like, you know, St. Nicholas, or
Speaker 1: do you go with like some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: as defined in some traditional work, or do you try
Speaker 1: to gather in the great you know, tapestry of different
Speaker 1: Santa laws stuff out there today, and and and consider
Speaker 1: it all together and and put together I don't know,
Speaker 1: an amalgam. Yeah. And this is a problem that that
Speaker 1: Barrett gets into in the paper because because really, on
Speaker 1: one hand, you could you could really cherry pick from
Speaker 1: global and historical Santa Claus ideas and concepts and then
Speaker 1: choose the descriptions and attributes that best support your case.
Speaker 1: If you're saying God, are you saying not a God?
Speaker 1: You could point to evidence to support it. So, but
Speaker 1: but but first of all, Barrett just says, okay. At
Speaker 1: first glance, he thinks Santa meets all five criteria. First
Speaker 1: of all, Santa is minimally counterintuitive. He's a flying, jolly, old,
Speaker 1: kind hearted man. He's like he's grandfather Christmas. Also, Santa
Speaker 1: is an intentional agent. Santa. Santa has a mind. Santa
Speaker 1: wants to do things. He is not an unanimate carbon rod. Also,
Speaker 1: he possesses strategic information. He knows if you've been bad
Speaker 1: or good. He acts in at at actable way. He
Speaker 1: leaves gifts or even a note in some cases. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he motivates reinforcing behaviors. Kids leave out milk and
Speaker 1: cookies for him. That is the sacred offering that is
Speaker 1: made to the Great Elf himself. Well, I mean, and
Speaker 1: I guess he would hope that his actions encourage children
Speaker 1: to be good around Christmas. I mean, that's what it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be. That's true, that's the whole other aspect
Speaker 1: of it as well. But ultimately, Barrett, he's not convinced,
Speaker 1: is he. No, he insisted Santa ultimately fails at being
Speaker 1: a god. Okay, now what is his case here? Okay,
Speaker 1: So on the counterintuitive point, he gets into this this
Speaker 1: whole like cherry picking thing that we discussed earlier. He
Speaker 1: counters that that we're not unified enough in our vision
Speaker 1: of Santa. In some some belief incarnations or in some
Speaker 1: media incarnations, we just see him as like a kind
Speaker 1: old man, while others show him as being this magical
Speaker 1: being that we've mostly been talking about. Right, this idea
Speaker 1: that he lives forever at the North Pole and flies
Speaker 1: through the air and doesn't obey the law of physics
Speaker 1: and time. Uh. And he says that some films portray
Speaker 1: him as as being a normal person who just has quote,
Speaker 1: special friends, animals, and resources. Now, Barrett makes a distinction
Speaker 1: that I'm not sure I fully get. I wonder what
Speaker 1: you thought about this. Barrett makes a distinction between a
Speaker 1: counterintuitive being, like a counterintuitive man who has some special qualities,
Speaker 1: versus just like a regular being who uses magic powers.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I really understood what the distinction is there, Like,
Speaker 1: if you can use magic powers, that seems counterintuitive to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. The way I was thinking about it
Speaker 1: when I read it was Okay, he's saying that sometimes
Speaker 1: Santa Claus is Superman, sometimes Santa Claus is Batman. Superman
Speaker 1: has amazing powers that are otherworldly. Batman is just a
Speaker 1: normal guy, but he has special um gadgets and he
Speaker 1: has special friends. Okay, So, like in the Santa Claus movie,
Speaker 1: the Mexican Christmas movie, Um, Santa Claus doesn't have the
Speaker 1: innate power to teleport. He has the flower to disappear.
Speaker 1: That's right, yes, And if he loses the flower to disappear,
Speaker 1: he can't teleport anymore. He's literally what he's treated by
Speaker 1: a dog, I think in that, yes, you know so, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great exam That film is just a great
Speaker 1: film in general, and I believe played a key role
Speaker 1: in we're talking about the the idea that Santa Claus
Speaker 1: must travel as a concept like that film, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, played a very important role in introducing the
Speaker 1: concept of modern western Santa Claus to a Mexican audience. Huh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in that he seems like just a ridiculous
Speaker 1: old man. If he is if he loses any of
Speaker 1: his magical items, Okay, I can see this, and he
Speaker 1: depends on a lot of cooperation and support to really
Speaker 1: get the job done. Yes, he's got his friend Merlin,
Speaker 1: he's got all the children who help him. He's got
Speaker 1: the machine with the lips whatever he's going on there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's more of a batman Santa Claus for sure, Whereas
Speaker 1: in Santa Claus Versus the Martians, uh, the other m ST.
Speaker 1: Three k Riff Santa Claus movie, in that he has powers,
Speaker 1: he can make toys do his bidding. Yeah, he's Hermes.
Speaker 1: I mean, all right, well, let's move on. To the
Speaker 1: strategic information front. Okay, which again at the at the
Speaker 1: surface level, it seems like it's He's got it. He
Speaker 1: knows if you've been bad or good. Right, Yeah, But
Speaker 1: Barrett again argues that it comes down to consistency, and
Speaker 1: it's not consistent enough for Barrett, because does Santa truly
Speaker 1: know if someone has done or plans to do something
Speaker 1: morally objectionable? Yeah. Barrett says that knowing whether a person
Speaker 1: has been bad or good is not actually strategic information.
Speaker 1: It's the same kind of judgment another person could easily make. Uh.
Speaker 1: And what would constitute strategic information is, for example, knowing
Speaker 1: in advance whether somebody is going to be good or bad. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I agree with Barrett here. I
Speaker 1: think that knowing whether somebody was bad or good, especially
Speaker 1: if you know what they did in private when nobody
Speaker 1: else was there to see them, that seems like strategic
Speaker 1: information to me. Like, if you could watch what other
Speaker 1: people did in private without them knowing, would that not
Speaker 1: provide you with information that could give you a strategic advantage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's one of those areas of
Speaker 1: the Santa Claus concept where it does seem like a
Speaker 1: boiled down version of what you see in God right,
Speaker 1: a more limited version. And I think part of this
Speaker 1: is kids are generally children are not attributed with tremendous
Speaker 1: powers of hiding their wrongdoing. Like generally, whatever they're doing bad,
Speaker 1: it's super obvious because that's what we're getting onto them for.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, the next one, does Santa act in
Speaker 1: the world in detectable ways? Well, Barrett says that Santa
Speaker 1: meets this one but weekly, since the gifts come once
Speaker 1: a year in a limited manner, so it's not you know,
Speaker 1: he's not bringing you gifts every week or every month
Speaker 1: even to to to really you know, make sure the
Speaker 1: detection is uh is a is obvious, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I would say the production of the gifts, as
Speaker 1: with many of the things that are say prayed for,
Speaker 1: petition for in religions, with things that are definitely recognized
Speaker 1: as God's it's similarly ambiguous in terms of the mechanism.
Speaker 1: You know, you like, go to sleep and then the
Speaker 1: presents are there in the morning. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of wiggle room to think about what's going on there, right,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes Santa, I mean as We've discussed previously
Speaker 1: on the show. Santa tends to come if he if
Speaker 1: it is if he has if it is discussed that
Speaker 1: Santa might come, he tends to come. Generally, threats of
Speaker 1: Santa might not come this year because E've ben bad,
Speaker 1: generally those threats are not acted upon. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, Santa doesn't always bring everything you wanted, and
Speaker 1: sometimes Santa doesn't bring those gifts that are ridiculous or dangerous. Right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of room to I don't know where.
Speaker 1: It's up to the user kind of to infer the
Speaker 1: amount of detectable behavior that they wish, and then let's
Speaker 1: get around to motivating reinforcing behavior to Santa. Claus do
Speaker 1: this well. We chatted about this a bit in our
Speaker 1: Carampus episode Actually does Santa really work? Does the idea
Speaker 1: actually make kids behave? And Barrett contends that it does not.
Speaker 1: He says Santa is gonna come either way. And again,
Speaker 1: it's also only going to impact Christmas. This is just
Speaker 1: what we were talking about, Like, does does the idea
Speaker 1: that Santa might not bring you any gifts at Christmas?
Speaker 1: Does that have any impact at all on a child's behavior?
Speaker 1: In March. I don't know, because because in March when
Speaker 1: you're eight, like Christmas is a thousand years away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And just think also about like how long a month
Speaker 1: is to a child compared to how long a month
Speaker 1: is to an adult. Yeah. I guess that's what you
Speaker 1: mean by a thousand years away. I mean every year
Speaker 1: to to a five year old feels like an eternity. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there was another thing I was thinking about here,
Speaker 1: which is the most important behavior for a god, belief
Speaker 1: to reinforce in order to have memetic resilience, in order
Speaker 1: to survive and spread, it's got to be belief in
Speaker 1: the God itself. We mentioned this earlier. Does Santa's motivating
Speaker 1: power in turn motivate belief in Santa or even if
Speaker 1: it works, is it just to motivate like being well behaved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a very good point. Yeah, does it actually motivate
Speaker 1: belief in Santa? Do? Kids? I mean you'll see I
Speaker 1: guess you see a little of that, you know, um,
Speaker 1: kind of like like in you know, an inquisition for
Speaker 1: a normal religion, but applied to the Santa world, Like
Speaker 1: you've got to believe or you'll get in trouble. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the the area in the Santa concept as
Speaker 1: as I experienced it growing up, and in the current
Speaker 1: rights and rituals that we maintain that the real area
Speaker 1: of of like proof, right is the is the carrot
Speaker 1: that has been bitten by the reindeer and the half
Speaker 1: consumed plate of cookies and milk like that, that, more
Speaker 1: than the presence, is like the fingerprint of God. Explain that,
Speaker 1: checkmate atheists, checkmate Richard Dawkins. Anyway, Barrett also points out
Speaker 1: that a big problem facing Santa is to go back
Speaker 1: to some of the origins we've mentioned earlier, is that St.
Speaker 1: Nicholas is dead. Boo, No, he's not. No. No. The
Speaker 1: connection to the long dead sat is clear, and myths
Speaker 1: don't really explain it. He is not the resurrected St. Nicholas.
Speaker 1: We're never told that's the case. He's not the ghost
Speaker 1: of St. Nicholas. He's not Nicholas the White returned after
Speaker 1: fighting the ball Rock. He's just he just also happens
Speaker 1: to be the mortal man who definitely died in the
Speaker 1: year three d and forty three CE. This is something
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come back to in just a minute. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there there are not very strong, coherent Santa apologetics that
Speaker 1: are designed to work on adults. Right, Yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: no like if they explain, well, yes, Santa Claus was
Speaker 1: once St. Nicholas and after his death in three three CE, etcetera, etcetera. No,
Speaker 1: it's just like Barrett says, it's like you're into Santa
Speaker 1: and then you look him up and you're like, oh St. Nicholas, Oh,
Speaker 1: and he's dead. And he says that that takes the
Speaker 1: punch out of it. All Right, we're gonna jump in
Speaker 1: here and take a quick break, but we'll be right back,
Speaker 1: and we're back now. In discussing all of this, Barrett
Speaker 1: also provides a humorous chart that compiles his thoughts and
Speaker 1: his his interpretations of these five categories, not only on
Speaker 1: Santa as a possible guy, but also Mickey Mouse, the
Speaker 1: Tooth Fairy, and George Bush. I think this would have
Speaker 1: been George W. Bush, Right, Yeah, I believe so. But
Speaker 1: for instance, we area went through Santa Claus, but on
Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse, he gave Mickey yes for counterintuitive, yes for
Speaker 1: intentional agent, sure, but then then a no on having
Speaker 1: strategic information and no on acting in the real world,
Speaker 1: and a no unmotivating reinforcing behavior. Oh yeah, I'm with
Speaker 1: all that. On the tooth fairy. Tooth Fairy gets yes
Speaker 1: is across the board except for possessing strategic information, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: does the tooth fairy really know anything you don't? I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe knows a little bit more about your dental hygiene
Speaker 1: than other entities. Doesn't really seem actionable him. And then finally,
Speaker 1: George Bush. George Bush gets yeses across the board except
Speaker 1: for counterintuitive. So he's an intentional agent. He at least
Speaker 1: at the time, possessed strategic information. He acted in the
Speaker 1: real world, and he motivated reinforcing behaviors, but he was
Speaker 1: not counterintuitive. Right, does he motivate reinforcing behaviors? I guess so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got yeah, I think so. But you know, he
Speaker 1: it was just a human, right, I mean, yeah, it's true,
Speaker 1: any actually existing human walking around on the earth motivates
Speaker 1: reinforcing behaviors, because if you act as if these people
Speaker 1: don't exist, it will cause problems for you. I should
Speaker 1: also point out that if you if you want to
Speaker 1: actually look up this paper and the full title, which
Speaker 1: we did not share earlier for reasons that we become
Speaker 1: obvious is why Santa Claus is not a god again
Speaker 1: Journal of Cognition and Culture, two thousand and eight. If
Speaker 1: you look it up. He also has a wonderful Venn
Speaker 1: diagram of how all five of these concepts interact, and
Speaker 1: the like the one safe zone where you have candidates
Speaker 1: for successful gods according to these these ideas. Now, I
Speaker 1: would say to be critical of these uh criteria we've
Speaker 1: been discussing. I think you could argue that Santa meets
Speaker 1: all five criteria at least in some cases of belief,
Speaker 1: and maybe not in other cases of belief, and yet
Speaker 1: still there is no active cult of Santa whatsoever among adults.
Speaker 1: And this suggests to me that while I think these
Speaker 1: five criteria are all very good starting places for evaluating
Speaker 1: god type agents in people's beliefs, there have got to
Speaker 1: be some other criteria here that are not really accounted for.
Speaker 1: I think one major factor playing against belief in Santa
Speaker 1: Claus as a god is that there is, first of all,
Speaker 1: a right of passage in which children become aware of
Speaker 1: the underlying Christmas Gift mechanism, and there are not any
Speaker 1: significant numbers of adults insisting to other adults that Santa
Speaker 1: Claus is real and is a god. Like you've got
Speaker 1: to have a foothold of people starting off insisting that
Speaker 1: it's real in all cases, and not just say in
Speaker 1: the presence of children, but like to other adults, and
Speaker 1: they would have to be, you know, trying to make
Speaker 1: a case, you know, and once you had that, actually,
Speaker 1: I could see it being surprising how easy something like
Speaker 1: god belief would pick up, because there's nothing as convincing
Speaker 1: as other people's confidence. It's like embarrassing how susceptible we
Speaker 1: are to just sensing confidence in other people and thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe there's something to that. So do you think that
Speaker 1: there could come a day where we would say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: when we when we were kids and when we were
Speaker 1: you know, younger adults, Uh, Santa was just an idea
Speaker 1: that we we told kids about and only kids believed
Speaker 1: in it. But now we have all these adults all
Speaker 1: over the news media and they're just fiercely defending belief
Speaker 1: in Santa Claus. And I'm afraid to say anything. I
Speaker 1: don't think you would get that because I don't see
Speaker 1: that there's a major motivation to start a movement like that.
Speaker 1: And I think that the people who tried to start
Speaker 1: a movement like that, they would not have a major motivation,
Speaker 1: and they would look foolish at least initially until they,
Speaker 1: you know, got people believing them. So I I just
Speaker 1: don't see that as likely to happen now. I think
Speaker 1: you could probably propose things that are equally ridiculous, but
Speaker 1: you can imagine more of a motivation for them to
Speaker 1: come about. That maybe you could. I mean, they sound
Speaker 1: crazy to us now, but if enough people were confidently
Speaker 1: proclaiming them, Say, take a major political figure and start
Speaker 1: saying that they're a god. And that sounds ridiculous to
Speaker 1: us right now, but you just get a number of
Speaker 1: people loudly, proudly proclaiming that, I think you could get
Speaker 1: some buy in. Oh yeah, I mean you, if you
Speaker 1: listen to the right people, you you hear that about
Speaker 1: contemporary political figures to a certain extent. I don't think
Speaker 1: I've heard anyone say that, uh, the individual in question
Speaker 1: is a deity. But I have heard people say, well,
Speaker 1: if you look at you know, the way such and
Speaker 1: such as written in the Old Testament, then clearly that
Speaker 1: makes room for me to, you know, to to look
Speaker 1: over this particular individual shortcomings etcetera. And uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's not too much of an extra relation
Speaker 1: to get to the point where you can imagine someone saying, no, this,
Speaker 1: this politician is a god. Well, and the division between
Speaker 1: a figure of major religious significance and a god themselves
Speaker 1: is not always as clear as we might want it
Speaker 1: to be or think it is. There's another thing that
Speaker 1: I think is getting in the way of Santa Claus
Speaker 1: becoming a legitimate god belief among adults. And this may
Speaker 1: be a weirdly specific nit to pick, but I think
Speaker 1: it hurts to suggest that there is a physical location
Speaker 1: on Earth where he resides, and combining that with like
Speaker 1: modern geo imaging and maps like, it would be really
Speaker 1: hard to contend that Santa Claus is a literal, physical
Speaker 1: being who lives in a toy workshop at the North Pole.
Speaker 1: Most god beliefs that have survived into the modern technological
Speaker 1: era have either always been or have had to retreat
Speaker 1: into uh intangibility. For instance, it would it would be
Speaker 1: hard to insist today that there are Greek gods that
Speaker 1: literally inhabit a palace at the top of Mount Olympus,
Speaker 1: like you see pictures of what it looks like up there,
Speaker 1: um they would have to become invisible or start to
Speaker 1: occupy some non physical dimension or something like that. Now,
Speaker 1: as always when you're talking about you know, real phenomenon
Speaker 1: and culture, there are exceptions. An exception. I can think
Speaker 1: of his Mount Kailash, for instance, in in Hinduism, some
Speaker 1: believe this to be the you know, it's a physical mountain,
Speaker 1: It's a real mountain. You go there, people make pilgrimages
Speaker 1: there and they walk around it. Some people believe it
Speaker 1: to be the home of Lord Shiva and the goddess Parvadi.
Speaker 1: But you're not allowed to climb up on the mountain
Speaker 1: to see for yourself. And I think this belief would
Speaker 1: probably also tolerate some non physical interpretations. And yet, as
Speaker 1: I think, you could potentially imagine, imagine a world, if
Speaker 1: you will, in which St. Nicholas is never fully divested
Speaker 1: from his religious origins and and and instead of it being,
Speaker 1: instead of Santa Claus being this thing that is sometimes
Speaker 1: brought up about the secular war on Christmas, you know,
Speaker 1: and taking Christ out of Christmas, what if St. Nicholas
Speaker 1: on the whole across you know, Western civilization remains this um,
Speaker 1: this religious figure who also comes at Christmas and brings
Speaker 1: toys and lives at the North Pole. And then you
Speaker 1: have all Santa believing nations agree to not explore the
Speaker 1: the Arctic because that is where Santa lives, and then
Speaker 1: forging treaties with non Santa believing nations UH that where
Speaker 1: they agree, yes, we won't explore the Arctic because we
Speaker 1: realize that's sacred to you. Then perhaps you could keep
Speaker 1: you could keep the the the residents of Santa an
Speaker 1: article of faith or not. It might not actually work,
Speaker 1: but it's possible. I think. I think you'd still have
Speaker 1: the major problem of like the the generational transfer of
Speaker 1: the knowledge of the Christmas gift mechanism, you know, like
Speaker 1: the fact that at some point you meet the man
Speaker 1: behind the curtain and its mom and dad. I think
Speaker 1: that has an incredibly powerful demotivating effect unbelief, Like you're
Speaker 1: really going for the throat with that one. Joe, I didn't,
Speaker 1: I didn't go that far and talking about the magic
Speaker 1: of Santa. It's weird though, because I feel I feel
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did I do bad? Well? It's weird for
Speaker 1: me because I feel more I feel less pressure about
Speaker 1: discussing uh, like religious concepts. Uh, you know we've been
Speaker 1: saying that. Okay, you know, we have this concept of God,
Speaker 1: but there's no actual deity that resides in the heaven. Like,
Speaker 1: I feel better about saying that than to come out
Speaker 1: and say that Santa Claus is your parents. We already said, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, I don't know. I'm not saying it makes sense.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, um, that's how it feels. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's that's a step too far to say, not only
Speaker 1: there is no Santa and he is me. That's that's
Speaker 1: exactly in fact that you're exactly making my point, because
Speaker 1: it's not just that at some point that the other
Speaker 1: kids on the playground start saying, oh, you still believe
Speaker 1: in Santa. Santa isn't real. I mean, that would be
Speaker 1: one thing if that was happening. You could still maintain
Speaker 1: belief even in a hostile atmosphere. People maintain religious beliefs
Speaker 1: in a hostile atmosphere among nonbelievers who challenge their beliefs.
Speaker 1: But the fact that they're the mechanism is revealed by
Speaker 1: the by the people pulling the levers that the the
Speaker 1: it is me statement is the most powerful moment there
Speaker 1: that's where like it can't really survive that moment. But
Speaker 1: sometimes you don't completely have that moment. I don't know,
Speaker 1: like some some parents, they don't have like a sit
Speaker 1: down and say like, all right, here's the here's the truth.
Speaker 1: So um, I think another important Sorry, I didn't mean
Speaker 1: to do something that. No, no, you didn't. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that that kind of I felt that it says
Speaker 1: more about me as a as a parent that's currently
Speaker 1: maintaining the magic of Santa and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: like where it goes from here, you know. But I
Speaker 1: do want to come back to again to Santa and godhood.
Speaker 1: I think it's worth mentioning. First of all, Santa has
Speaker 1: encompassed aspects of old gods already. You have such characters
Speaker 1: as the Germanic god vote in, the godlike entity of
Speaker 1: Russia's dead de Morez or old Man Frost of course,
Speaker 1: factors into another MST three k Rifft film, Jack Frost. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I think he's more there's certainly a clear cut
Speaker 1: case for Jack Frost being a deity. Uh, since he
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, he's he's can he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a natural force. And that is personified.
Speaker 1: But then also we have to get into discussing just
Speaker 1: like how the how concepts of God and God's are
Speaker 1: going to vary from culture to culture, because a lot
Speaker 1: of this has revolved around very I think Western concepts
Speaker 1: of an all powerful god, you know, or or even
Speaker 1: like ancient Greek concepts of like really highly powerful anthropomorphic entities. Right. Yeah, um.
Speaker 1: I mean it's something that Barrett mentions in the paper
Speaker 1: is that there these criteria are supposed to apply to
Speaker 1: all kinds of gods. I mean, so they would apply
Speaker 1: to you know, uh, spirit gods that live in the
Speaker 1: trees and stuff like that, or household gods and like,
Speaker 1: they should apply to all of these categories. But it's
Speaker 1: clear that at least I think you and I, by
Speaker 1: our cultural context are very conditioned when we talk about
Speaker 1: gods to think about like the monotheistic religions, right. But
Speaker 1: I do wonder if, despite what Barrett says, I wonder
Speaker 1: if some of the household god concepts do kind of
Speaker 1: fall through the cracks of this a little bit. I
Speaker 1: was thinking particularly about about about China here, because in China,
Speaker 1: U Santa has really only gained traction there during really
Speaker 1: gain traction there in the nineteen nineties. So you won't
Speaker 1: find Santa wearing Confucian robes or anything, but apparently you
Speaker 1: will see him on doors in places often relegated for
Speaker 1: the gods. Chinese households with double doors sometimes boast twin
Speaker 1: images of Santa, a place also reserved for Chinese New
Speaker 1: Year posters and the traditional uh min Shin or door
Speaker 1: gods of of Chinese tradition. And I think it this
Speaker 1: forces us to realize that there's you know, there's again,
Speaker 1: there's God in the monotheistic tradition, and then there are
Speaker 1: the gods of various non monotheistic religions, and and we
Speaker 1: hardly just mean the pantheons of Hinduism in ancient Greece.
Speaker 1: But again these household deities, such as the Chinese domestic
Speaker 1: odds like the kitchen or stove god, and then you
Speaker 1: know their variations of this in Western traditions as well.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, though, it is sometimes held that the kitchen
Speaker 1: God in Chinese custom returns to the celestial realm shortly
Speaker 1: before lunar New Year in order to report household activities
Speaker 1: directly to the all powerful Jade Emperor, whoa so um
Speaker 1: some strategic information there. So you know, at first it
Speaker 1: might seem like there's not anything strategic there, but clearly
Speaker 1: the kitchen God has strategic information that then has an
Speaker 1: important ramifications for the household effected. Well, one thing I
Speaker 1: was thinking to complicate this is I used the obvious
Speaker 1: example that seems laughable to us of the crunch rap
Speaker 1: supreme God. But I think that they're in fact are
Speaker 1: some types of household god type entities that are they
Speaker 1: are intentional agents and that they can act and they
Speaker 1: have like thoughts and stuff like that, but they're also
Speaker 1: inanimate objects, right, Yeah about that. So there are are
Speaker 1: like household appliances that are gods and like food items
Speaker 1: that are gods, but they're just imagined to be those
Speaker 1: inanimate objects with intentional agency. All right, we're gonna jump
Speaker 1: in here and take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: right back. And we're back. So there's another way to
Speaker 1: think about Santa in relationship to gods and religion, and
Speaker 1: that's by focusing on the fact that if he is
Speaker 1: a god, he's a specific kind of god, right, which
Speaker 1: is a moralizing god, like he knows if you've been
Speaker 1: bad or good, so be good for goodness sake, and
Speaker 1: I think two people who are primarily familiar with only
Speaker 1: the largest world religions today. You know, you've got Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism,
Speaker 1: all that. It probably just seems like moralizing is an
Speaker 1: inherent part of what a religion is, right, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would think so. I mean, especially with the major monotheistic religions,
Speaker 1: and that is the model, right, the big the big
Speaker 1: sky Daddy that is going to be disappointed in you
Speaker 1: and punish you if you do not behave morally totally. Like,
Speaker 1: all those religions have concepts or codes that in some
Speaker 1: way regulate moral conduct. They encourage one type of behavior
Speaker 1: over another. So you've got the you know, supernatural justice
Speaker 1: in heaven and hell, divine retribution or resolution in the
Speaker 1: workings of karma, etcetera. But not all religions are especially moralizing,
Speaker 1: and not all gods are especially concerned with moral behavior.
Speaker 1: Like if you look at smaller religions practiced stall around
Speaker 1: the world and especially deeper into history, you start to
Speaker 1: get the picture that many gods and many religions are
Speaker 1: basically a moral that that they involve myths and rituals,
Speaker 1: and that the gods don't really care whether or not
Speaker 1: you are morally good or bad. They care whether you say,
Speaker 1: perform the rituals or not. And of course this isn't
Speaker 1: to say that the people practicing these religions are a
Speaker 1: moral They of course would have ideas about moral conduct,
Speaker 1: just like anybody else would. It's just that the you know,
Speaker 1: in these societies, the regulation of morality does not seem
Speaker 1: to come from the gods or religion. It comes from
Speaker 1: other sources in the same way that the amoral god
Speaker 1: it doesn't care if you've been bad or good. We
Speaker 1: can easily imagine like the tyrannical king who doesn't care
Speaker 1: if you are a good person or not. But are
Speaker 1: you are you paying your tribute to him? Are you
Speaker 1: obeying the laws that he set out not because they're more,
Speaker 1: but because they reinforce his rule? Right? It's not follow
Speaker 1: the Golden rule or something. It's neil Before's odd right now. Now,
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier how the Jade emperor in Chinese traditions,
Speaker 1: in Chinese mythology does seem concerned with what's been happening
Speaker 1: in your house via intel provided by a household God.
Speaker 1: But I think what's interesting concerning that, I don't bring
Speaker 1: it up to trying, like, you know, cast down this idea,
Speaker 1: but rather to like add maybe a few wrinkles to it.
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting is that Chinese customs put a
Speaker 1: huge emphasis on anset Jews, and I think you see
Speaker 1: this in other models as well from around the world.
Speaker 1: That stress spirits of the dead is entities that have
Speaker 1: not completely faded away and maybe connected to the gods
Speaker 1: in some way. I guess a true moralizing god in
Speaker 1: the form we're talking about here is one that has
Speaker 1: no shall we say, blood relation to the mortals in question. Zeus,
Speaker 1: for instance, always seems more keen than Father, even in
Speaker 1: dealing with his own demi god offspring. You know, he's
Speaker 1: he's certainly not a moral entity himself. No, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: you look at the Greek gods. They don't seem at
Speaker 1: all concerned with moral behavior. I mean you might get
Speaker 1: little snippets of that here and there, It does not
Speaker 1: seem to be the main focus of the Greek religion, right,
Speaker 1: and then many of them too are of course more
Speaker 1: it's not even it's limiting to try and even think
Speaker 1: of them as being a moral or a moral because
Speaker 1: they are more embodiments of drives and aspects of the
Speaker 1: human condition. Yeah, totally. I mean they serve they serve
Speaker 1: a narrative function, right, just the way that like the
Speaker 1: characters in your novel don't necessary they're not necessarily gonna
Speaker 1: be good people, like they're they're doing things to serve
Speaker 1: a narrative function. I think a lot of gods in
Speaker 1: history are that way, except you did need to do
Speaker 1: the rituals right well, like Bacchus for example. You know,
Speaker 1: like Bacchus, I guess you could say Bacchus is a
Speaker 1: moral but but even that kind of puts a luminal
Speaker 1: what Bacchus is, Like, Bacchus is more the embodiment of
Speaker 1: like sort of primal instinct and primal drive and desire
Speaker 1: right now. Of course, whenever you're talking about like a
Speaker 1: big complex human phenomenon like religion, there's gonna be all
Speaker 1: kinds of variation. There's no you know, it's hard to
Speaker 1: make generalized statements that are always true. But historically it
Speaker 1: does appear to a lot of scholars of religion that
Speaker 1: over time there was a pretty major shift in the
Speaker 1: world from a moral religions to moralizing religions. And again
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean a moral people. It just means like,
Speaker 1: you know, gods that aren't concerned with moral behavior only
Speaker 1: with rituals to gods that have moral codes and stuff.
Speaker 1: And the era of moralizing god's also seems to be
Speaker 1: linked with like other rates of the religions that bear them.
Speaker 1: For example, the trend toward moralizing god seems to be
Speaker 1: paired with features like omniscience. Like in order for a
Speaker 1: god to be aware of your moral conduct at all
Speaker 1: times and punish you even for doing wrong in private,
Speaker 1: the god needs to be all perceptive, you know, he
Speaker 1: sees you when you're sleeping and so forth. And so
Speaker 1: some scholars have actually proposed that the emergence of big
Speaker 1: moralizing gods and big moralizing religions could have had major
Speaker 1: effects on sort of society and ecology and and the
Speaker 1: history of human civilization. Like one hypothesis that's been knocking
Speaker 1: around for years. I've mainly seen it associated with a
Speaker 1: book by the Canadian psychologist Dr Era nor in Zion
Speaker 1: called Big Gods, How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Uh,
Speaker 1: I might not be fully doing a justice, but the
Speaker 1: basic idea here is that like big, powerful, moralizing gods
Speaker 1: made civilization with large settlements and lots of trade and
Speaker 1: interaction between strangers possible. I think the basic reasoning is
Speaker 1: that if people only live in small settlements, it's hard
Speaker 1: for individuals to get away with bad dishonest behavior, because
Speaker 1: you quickly get a bad reputation if you know everybody
Speaker 1: around you knows you. There's only one person selling brad
Speaker 1: you know it's it's a small community. But so yeah,
Speaker 1: so they get punished in social ways, you know, by
Speaker 1: other people. But in a world with big cities and
Speaker 1: lots of business and interactions between people who are probably
Speaker 1: never even going to see each other again, it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier to be a cheat or a thief for
Speaker 1: whatever and just keep getting away with it. Thus the
Speaker 1: need for a belief in an all seeing judge who
Speaker 1: holds you accountable, who won't just let you cheat and
Speaker 1: harm people and then escape into the anonymity made possible
Speaker 1: by a big society with lots of trade and lots
Speaker 1: of strangers. Um. Now, as always with this kind of hypothesis,
Speaker 1: it's important to remember the difference between like telling a
Speaker 1: plausible story and proving an explanation is correct. I'm all
Speaker 1: for informed speculation in areas where hard evidence is lacking.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of fun to do, and we like
Speaker 1: to we talk about that stuff all the time. But
Speaker 1: it's also important to remember the difference between that and proof.
Speaker 1: So it is an interesting hypothesis. But like, is there
Speaker 1: any way to test its predictions? And I think the
Speaker 1: answer is sort of. It's the kind of historical explanation
Speaker 1: that would be difficult to be sure about. But one
Speaker 1: study I was looking at found an interesting way to
Speaker 1: test its consistency with the facts, and this was by
Speaker 1: using a big historical database called set shot to check
Speaker 1: to check the timelines basically on average, based on what
Speaker 1: we know about history, does evidence for big moralizing gods
Speaker 1: tend to show up in a region of the world
Speaker 1: directly before big increases in social complexity. Does it look
Speaker 1: like the emergence of these big moralizing gods is making
Speaker 1: like big cities and complex trade possible. Uh? So there
Speaker 1: was a paper published in Nature in twenty nineteen by
Speaker 1: Harvey white House at all Um and the results were
Speaker 1: interesting that they did not find, in fact, the big
Speaker 1: moralizing god's created booms in social complexity in the region.
Speaker 1: But they did find a historical association between the emergence
Speaker 1: or like our first evidence of big moralizing gods and
Speaker 1: booms in social complexity in the timeline. It's just that
Speaker 1: the order was reversed. Quote. Our statistical analysis showed that
Speaker 1: beliefs in supernatural punishment tend to appear only when societies
Speaker 1: make the transition from simple to complex, around the time
Speaker 1: when the overall population exceeded about a million individuals. So
Speaker 1: it looks like they found there is an association between
Speaker 1: you know, big booms in population and social complexity, but
Speaker 1: it looks like that the religious changes came about after
Speaker 1: the transformation or you know, the formation of big complex societies.
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting. Well, yeah, it reminds me of
Speaker 1: our discussions on health theologies in the past, uh, you know, particular,
Speaker 1: you know, the ideas of as this this study points
Speaker 1: out supernatural punishment, and uh I have frequently uh you know,
Speaker 1: stated my displeasure with with any health theology model. I
Speaker 1: think that it is largely a supernatural revenge fantasy and
Speaker 1: a barbaric one in which we we uh commit individuals
Speaker 1: or groups of people uh to some sort of fiery
Speaker 1: torture and rape in the in the afterlife for things
Speaker 1: that we see them or we perceive them getting away
Speaker 1: with in this life. We're not being properly punished for
Speaker 1: in this life. So I can see that very much
Speaker 1: lining up with this. It's the idea of there are
Speaker 1: people out there that are getting away with it. There
Speaker 1: has to be they cannot do that. They would not
Speaker 1: be able to do that in the smaller realm, and
Speaker 1: here in the larger realm of the city, there still
Speaker 1: must be some sort of of punishment, and therefore it
Speaker 1: becomes necessary to have this imagine punishment in the afterlife.
Speaker 1: So the moralizing gods with divine retribution or perhaps not
Speaker 1: something that makes big civilization possible, but something that happens
Speaker 1: because of the resentments narrated in a big civilization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder, I wonder. I think that's an interesting way
Speaker 1: of looking at Again, one is hesitant to to find
Speaker 1: nice concise explanation for anything that emerges and all the
Speaker 1: caveats we already stated, yeah, um, but yeah, I'm wondering.
Speaker 1: So if they're on the right track that this historically
Speaker 1: was the trend, Like first, you get a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people together, all trading with strangers and stuff, and
Speaker 1: then shortly after that you start to get the moralizing
Speaker 1: gods who see you when you're sleeping and know when
Speaker 1: you're awake. Does this have any relevance to Santa? Does
Speaker 1: it tell us anything about the jelly old Elf? I
Speaker 1: mean maybe in the sense that Santa is a concept
Speaker 1: that is bestowed on young minds by adult minds, and
Speaker 1: so therefore we could be taking the larger model, boiling
Speaker 1: it down into a simplified form, and giving it to them.
Speaker 1: So you know, ultimately, I don't know how much. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know to what extent. There's really
Speaker 1: a lot of pleasure to be gained for a child
Speaker 1: imagining the bad kids not getting anything for Christmas. I
Speaker 1: don't remember dwelling on that as a kid. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: just you. Some kids do like the idea of other
Speaker 1: kids getting punished. You can see the delight in their eyes.
Speaker 1: You never noticed this when like the bad kid gets
Speaker 1: there come up and well, I don't know. Maybe it
Speaker 1: depends on the environment in which the child is brought up,
Speaker 1: because I feel like currently with my child, I don't
Speaker 1: I've never heard him bring up the idea of somebody
Speaker 1: getting away with bad behavior, you know, like either bad
Speaker 1: behavior is dealt with by teachers or by another parent.
Speaker 1: That's there. Uh. You know, certainly we live in the
Speaker 1: age of of you know, so called helicopter parents, where
Speaker 1: there's generally there generally are a number of parents hovering
Speaker 1: around the playground environment, etcetera. So maybe he just hasn't
Speaker 1: gotten to the point where there's this realization that, yes,
Speaker 1: sometimes when you are bad, you absolutely get away with it,
Speaker 1: at least in this lifetime, or at least until Christmas
Speaker 1: rolls around. That's interesting, but it comes back to I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's the flip side of the coin, right, of
Speaker 1: the classic theological quandary, why do bad things happen to
Speaker 1: good people? Why do good things happen to bad people?
Speaker 1: Why do bad people get away with being bad? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: if you have the concept of an all powerful, moralizing God,
Speaker 1: it necessarily invites that question. When you start to see
Speaker 1: flaws in the system, just don't look like they're working.
Speaker 1: I mean to come back to again to the idea
Speaker 1: that Santa does tend to come through even for the
Speaker 1: bad kids, Like there's gonna come a point where realized, no,
Speaker 1: my classmate Um Damien was terrible this year, like he
Speaker 1: is awful in Santa gave him everything he desired and
Speaker 1: then some something is wrong with this system. It's all
Speaker 1: for you exactly because I guess the basically, given a
Speaker 1: complex society, that's going to happen inevitably, even or perhaps
Speaker 1: especially with environments where you have like really Tyranne Cole
Speaker 1: rule in place takes a like a North Korea situation,
Speaker 1: where you have like informers in UM, like in smaller
Speaker 1: groups that report back if anybody's speaking, you know, out
Speaker 1: of line about the regime. Like even of course, within
Speaker 1: a regime like that, you're going to have people to
Speaker 1: then abuse the already abusive system and find ways to
Speaker 1: benefit from it. So there's always going to be somebody
Speaker 1: in these systems getting away with it no matter what.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, cultural um institutions and systems are put
Speaker 1: in place to prevent it. Yeah, I think that's a
Speaker 1: good point now, you know, on the subject of of
Speaker 1: city gods and moral gods, I can't help but turn
Speaker 1: my mind back to the work of Julian Jayne's, author
Speaker 1: of the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of a
Speaker 1: bicameral mind, which we we discussed in a couple of
Speaker 1: older episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I think
Speaker 1: we more or less recently re ran those and occasionally
Speaker 1: it pops up. But he spends a fair amount of
Speaker 1: time pointing to the structure of ancient cities with their
Speaker 1: houses of the gods at the center, what he refers
Speaker 1: to as bicameral architecture, each city centering upon steeply rising
Speaker 1: pyramids topped with god houses, where he says, quote, the
Speaker 1: king dead is a living god. The king's tomb is
Speaker 1: the god's house, the beginning of the elaborate god house
Speaker 1: or temples. And you know that this gets a little
Speaker 1: bit into the the idea of the the the ancestors
Speaker 1: remaining alive, like the dead king has not died. The
Speaker 1: the idea of the dead king is the form through
Speaker 1: which one hemisphere of our brain speaks to the other. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that was the basis of his He's trying to
Speaker 1: prove his case that like there was this historical transition
Speaker 1: where like, you know, where the gods were literally talking
Speaker 1: to people. But of course it wasn't supernatural entities. It
Speaker 1: was the non dominant hemisphere of the brain. But It's
Speaker 1: important to note that like in the purely bicameral scenario
Speaker 1: here that he was describing, like the God would not
Speaker 1: be reminding you what the rules are, that God would
Speaker 1: be telling you what to do. So he would point
Speaker 1: to the difference between moralizing and non moralizing gods as
Speaker 1: being key to the breakdown of the bicameral mind. For example,
Speaker 1: he points out that no one is moral among the
Speaker 1: god control puppets of the Iliad. Good and evil do
Speaker 1: not exist. But he points out in the Odyssey, the
Speaker 1: character Clydemestra is able to resist a justice because her
Speaker 1: mind is like that of a god. So he writes, quote,
Speaker 1: consciousness and morality are a single development. For without God's
Speaker 1: morality based on a consciousness of the consequences of action,
Speaker 1: must tell men what to do. So I think the
Speaker 1: idea here is that there is no Santa Claus in
Speaker 1: the Iliad, and then he would not be necessary for
Speaker 1: the children of the bicameral mind. Certainly in the James
Speaker 1: verse that is the case. It is interesting this is
Speaker 1: this is something that is perhaps a difference between uh
Speaker 1: Santa and various incarnations of the God. Is that God
Speaker 1: and God's speak to humans in a way that Santa
Speaker 1: doesn't really speak to us. I mean, I guess Santa
Speaker 1: does take the form of a like there's a Santa's
Speaker 1: helper at the mall and he directly speaks to you,
Speaker 1: and then there's the letter writing, etcetera. But there's no
Speaker 1: voice of Santa that comes to your mind. Do pretty
Speaker 1: much all kids are they told that when they sit
Speaker 1: on Santa's lap at the mall, this is not the
Speaker 1: real Santa. This guy works for Santa, I believe. So
Speaker 1: now now, I don't know if that used to be
Speaker 1: the case. Certainly if you had like a small it's
Speaker 1: kind of like Crampus and Santa, right, Like, do you
Speaker 1: tell them it's really the crampas is coming down from
Speaker 1: the mountain and that's really saying nick uh, or or
Speaker 1: do you let them in on the fact that these
Speaker 1: are people pretending embodying these things. Well, I wonder if
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, you know, the priest of a
Speaker 1: religion dressing up in garb that indicates the deity itself
Speaker 1: and being sort of your your intercessor, like the person
Speaker 1: who intervenes on your behalf for the deity. I have
Speaker 1: to say, since we began recording the this this pair
Speaker 1: of episodes on Santa I have introduced and sort of
Speaker 1: reintroduced my son to both the Mexican Santa Claus film
Speaker 1: and Santa Claus versus the Martians. And that also like
Speaker 1: brought up the question of, like, Okay, what is this
Speaker 1: version of Santa I'm seeing here? This is not the
Speaker 1: real Santa story because you know, this doesn't line up
Speaker 1: with what I've been told. This doesn't line up with
Speaker 1: what I've been told, so already you're having to here's
Speaker 1: another layer of having to say, well, this is an
Speaker 1: interpretation of what Santa is and it it made me
Speaker 1: think back to a film I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: seen this titled Santa Claus the I think with Santa
Speaker 1: Claus the motion picture with John lithcalin it. No, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it. I think Deadly more may Or may
Speaker 1: not have played an elf. It's been a long time,
Speaker 1: but it came out at just the right time in
Speaker 1: my childhood where I still largely believed in Santa Claus.
Speaker 1: And here was a movie about Santa that even at
Speaker 1: that point was ridiculous, and I wonder, I remember wondering
Speaker 1: what the real Santa thought of this film, you know,
Speaker 1: like did he approve like this? Was it blasphemous in
Speaker 1: a sense? You know, because like I'm I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 1: the reindeer don't fly because they eat a special candy
Speaker 1: and then humans John Lithcow wouldn't be able to fly
Speaker 1: because he ate a special candy cane? How did Dr
Speaker 1: Lozardo become Santa Claus exactly? So, I don't know. That
Speaker 1: doesn't really answer any questions, raises more questions about, you know,
Speaker 1: the hoops we make our children jump through when it
Speaker 1: comes to our our mythical god like beings. All Right,
Speaker 1: So in the end, Barrett says, Santa Claus not a god?
Speaker 1: What are you saying, Joe? Uh, Yeah, I think not
Speaker 1: a god. Though I think it's not necessarily because I
Speaker 1: uh come down the same side as him on all
Speaker 1: of his main five criteria. I do think those criteria
Speaker 1: are interesting and worth talking about. I'd say the main
Speaker 1: things that make Santa Claus not a god are like
Speaker 1: this other stuff we were talking about. For my money,
Speaker 1: I'd say, Okay, Santa is not a god, but he
Speaker 1: contains pieces of a god, and I think you could
Speaker 1: imagine a world in which he one day becomes a god.
Speaker 1: I think what it would take was adults insisting continuously,
Speaker 1: like a significant number of adults insisting it's true, and
Speaker 1: the cultivation of a like the the editing and the
Speaker 1: cultivation of a version of Santa Clause that works for
Speaker 1: adults as well. Yeah. Uh, And I don't know what
Speaker 1: would ever cause that. I kind of doubt that would
Speaker 1: ever happen, But if it did, then I think you
Speaker 1: I think you could be there. Yeah all right, So
Speaker 1: obviously we'd love to hear from everyone about this particular question,
Speaker 1: because a number of you out there have either you
Speaker 1: grew up with some sort of Santa concept in your
Speaker 1: household and or you have a cut Santa concept in
Speaker 1: your current household, or you have in an outsider's view
Speaker 1: of all of this, which of course would be very helpful.
Speaker 1: And then one thing I'm curious about real quick, how
Speaker 1: does how when you're growing up, how did your Santa
Speaker 1: concept interact with your religious beliefs? Right? Yeah, Like, especially
Speaker 1: maybe if you weren't a Christian but believed in Santa, Like,
Speaker 1: how us that fit together? I think you know, I
Speaker 1: have a feeling that sometimes Santa Clause is in a
Speaker 1: way kind of like cruelly and intentionally sacrificed in order
Speaker 1: to drive home the difference between a religious a concept
Speaker 1: like Santa and the religious concepts that are upheld in
Speaker 1: the household. You know, not a war on Christmas, but
Speaker 1: a war on Santa. Yeah, alright, so let us know.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from everybody. In the meantime, If
Speaker 1: you want to find other episodes of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind, uh, well, you can go Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. It will redirect you to UM
Speaker 1: a listing of episodes, and you can find a listing
Speaker 1: of episodes more or less just like that anywhere you
Speaker 1: get podcasts. UM. I don't know. We can't keep up
Speaker 1: with all these websites, but they're out there. You can go,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe, you can rate, you can review. That
Speaker 1: will help out the show. Uh, let's see what else
Speaker 1: um Oh, and if you uh, if you want to,
Speaker 1: I guess you can follow us on social media. We're
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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your my discussion module, which we'll find
Speaker 1: on the Book of Faces. Huge thanks, as always to
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
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