WEBVTT - Is Santa a god? (part 1) 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:13.880 I Heart Radios Howstuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.160 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.279 I'm Joe McCormick. In today, Santa Claus is coming to town. 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:22.239 That's right. This is an episode about Santa Claus. It's 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.720 also an episode about gods and our ideas about God's, 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:30.560 our god concepts and what that that all means. And 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:32.600 we are going to get into the question of whether 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.239 Santa is a god or not. I do want to 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:38.959 just have a couple of quick reminders here as we 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.279 dive into this one. First of all, uh, yes, this 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:44.479 episode it has to do with Santa, But if you 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.440 are attempted to listen to it outside of the holiday season, 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.640 no worries, because there's gonna be a lot of talk 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.760 that does not directly apply to Santa Claus. Sure, this 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.680 is an episode about the cognitive science of religion. And secondly, 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.640 we will be discussing the magic of Santa Claus in 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.720 this episode, so just keep that in mind, parents, if 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.800 you're listening with your children. Sure, alright, So most of 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.360 us would not say that Santa Claus is a god, right, 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.479 I mean, we we don't necessarily maybe we're not always 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.680 able to define God in a dictionary definition kind of way, 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.199 but you have an intuitive sense of how this word 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.880 is used, and for some reason, Santa Claus doesn't usually 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:27.480 fit into that definition, right, that intuitive definition. Right, even 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.280 if you are, let's say, a child who is a 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:36.760 Santa fundamentalist who believes in, you know, very literally in 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.400 Santa Claus, even then I don't think they would necessarily 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.160 confuse the the idea of Santa Claus with the idea 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:48.080 of say, the Judeo Christian deity. Sure, but on the 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:49.920 same hand, and then the same hand is, as we're 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.280 going to discuss in this episode, there are a lot 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.560 of similarity. So first of all, I want to just 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.840 talk a little bit about Santa Claus, this magical being 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.160 the factor so heavily into Western holiday traditions as well 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.920 as traditions around the world that have been influenced by 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.880 the notion of the Great Jolly Old Elf. The exact 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.280 mythology is going to vary, of course, but but here 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.600 are just some of the often highlighted aspects of the 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.280 mythos Okay, first of all, Santa is at at the 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:23.400 very least extremely long lived, if not undying, immortal or eternal. 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.280 I mean he's been doing this thing for a long time, 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:29.440 that's right. Secondly, uh, Santa is I guess you would 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.160 say pan sofick or all knowing. He knows when you 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.280 were sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.359 you've been bad or good. I'm not sure he's supposed 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.200 to know your inner thoughts, but he is privy to 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.360 an awful lot. I think a lot of conceptions of 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:48.239 Santa would even give him like inner psychic access. Yeah, 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.280 I mean if if Santa can, well, Santa can at 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.520 least see what you're doing when other people aren't around 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:56.200 to see what you're doing, and he sees what you're 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:00.120 doing in private, right that that seems like that's virgin on. 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.600 I mean, it's got to be like supernatural. They're oh yeah, absolutely. 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.520 It's not like he's just getting reports about your behavior, right. 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.520 He definitely has supernatural abilities. It just it comes down 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.080 to whether he can see inside your brain or not, 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.280 if he can see your thoughts at all, if he 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:20.480 can anticipate your actions based on that information. Also, he 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:25.040 receives mail from all over the world often through magical means, 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:30.399 or at least magical variations of the postal system. Uh. 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:32.799 And you know that that includes things like letters can 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.360 find him no matter where you mail them. You can 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:37.120 mail them at the zoo, you can mail them at home, 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.160 you can mail them through the chimney, things like that. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:42.800 You know another thing that's very common about God's is 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.920 they tend to live in inaccessible places, if not in 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:51.560 a like extra dimensional, completely fundamentally inaccessible place, even when 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:52.920 they live on Earth, they tend to be at the 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:54.680 top of a mountain or at the bottom of the 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.600 ocean or something like. Yeah. I think that the mountaintop 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.800 God as as an excellent example because the modern sense, 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.040 what is the top of the world mountain? It is 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.000 the North Pole, of course, which is which is where 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.160 Santa Claus is said to reside, and it is an 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:13.600 insanely hostile environment um fighting off polar bears, and he 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.760 seems to reside there without any outside support aside from 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.440 the milk and cookies that he collects every year, and 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:22.880 of course the big ones. Santa can travel around the 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.839 entire world and visit every home in a single evening 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.880 every year. I remember thinking about this as a child 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.840 and thinking like, well, I don't know, that sounds really difficult, 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.760 but it's probably not impossible. Right. It seemed within the 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.719 stretching of plausibility to me, right, Like the magic makes 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:44.520 sense at first, and then you start thinking about the 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.000 magic and you're like, wow, this is some potent magic. 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:49.880 And then along the way, you know, you you introduce 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:54.080 some science fiction concepts, and you introduce some some elaborate 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:56.600 visions of the nature of time, and then okay, you 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.200 can create some versions of it that makes a little 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.480 bit more sense for hals. But at the very least, 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.799 Santa has amazing abilities to travel in ways that immortal 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.320 human cannot, of course, and there's there's much more than 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.000 that that we might add, based not only on beliefs, 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.720 but on films as well that features Santa Claus. So 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.599 he has been spotted in the presence of inhuman in 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.880 human beast men, as we discussed in our Crampus episode. Okay, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.200 sometimes appears in the guise of Tim Allen and Goldberg. 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.080 That's true. Uh, also whole cogd and Whole cokean play 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.200 of Santa Claus. Oh I don't remember that. Definitely in 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.200 the movie Santa Sleigh which is you know, you can 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.560 probably guess what it's about. Also, Santa can communicate with 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.760 magical deer that also fly and enable him to fly. 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.880 He can control robots, as he has the power over 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.159 all toys and machines that might be argued to be toys. 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.600 This of course from Santa Claus versus the Martians uh 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:55.839 and imports in that Santa Claus is also drawn into 0:05:55.880 --> 0:06:02.240 an interplanetary dispute. Santa associates known wizards such as Merlin. Uh. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:06.200 If he's watched the old Mexican Santa Claus film, we 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.360 of course see him hanging out with Merlin and then 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:13.320 dealing with demons, engaging in direct conflict with at least 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.120 demons who serve the Christian Devil, if not the Christian 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.960 Devil himself. Oh no, yeah, he's straight up fights demons 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.320 in the movie, Oh that Devil. It's like it's like 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.839 Gandal versus the Bell Rock. It's Santa versus whatever that 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.599 demon's name is. Yes, I mean he gets into some 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:33.400 serious theological territory in that film. He also may or 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.120 may not play the saxophone when visiting Asian countries, which 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.320 isn't as remarkable, I guess, but it's a it's an 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.560 additional wrinkle in the myth of Santa. Now, we're obviously 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.279 not the first people to raise these parallels between the 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.360 Santa Claus that brings magical delight to children and all 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.880 over the place and uh and you know, basically gods 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.880 that are found throughout history all over the world. In fact, 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.880 I would say it's almost like a cliche joke at 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.680 this point to kind of uh a point out that 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:06.159 Santa Claus and God are in some sense interchangeable to 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.720 too many children. Yeah, my favorite example of this goes 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.600 back to the year two thousand and one of you know, 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.520 our shared favorite shows, The Simpsons. There's the episode where 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.000 Bart goes in to his bedroom and he kneels by 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.480 his bed, and then he begins to pray, and he says, quote, 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.040 dear Santa, if you bring me lots of good stuff, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.240 I promised not to do anything bad between now and 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.120 when I wake up. Amen. It's the best kind of 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.760 Simpson's joke, because there's a joke in what he says 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.040 between now and when I wake up. But actually, the 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.480 even funnier part is the very concept of him saying 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.160 it that he's praying to Santa in the first place. Yeah. 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.160 And one of the things I always loved about it 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.560 is is that it takes me a second to catch it, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.840 you know, because it's not instantly clear that it's something 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.400 out of the ordinary. I think I vaguely remember almost 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.040 doing this at one point as a child, even uh, 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:02.200 sort of at least subconsciously getting the idea confused. Uh. 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.240 You know, praying to Santa is only a few degrees 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.640 to the left of sending a letter to an entity 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.240 that can observe your every move, And it's not that 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:13.720 different from the idea of praying to this divine entity 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.200 that you're told about, say it's Sunday school. Yeah. And 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:18.320 so for the rest of the episode today, we're going 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.280 to be focusing on a paper that actually asks the 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:25.040 question of, well, in the terms of cognitive science of religion, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.680 does Santa Claus actually qualify as a god or not? 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.160 Does he match the other things that would be called 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.000 a god within this uh, this sort of like scientific 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.360 academic framework. In particular, we're going to be looking at 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.599 an article by experimental psychologist Justin Barrett published in the 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:44.839 Journal of Cognition and Culture back in two thousand and 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.320 eight and and Barrett is an interesting character here. He 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.720 wrote a book titled Why Would Anyone Believe in God? 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.200 And he himself is a Christian, but he also sees 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.720 God as a byproduct of our mental architecture, and he 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.520 sees this in a way where these two concepts have 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.959 room to coexist. Yeah, he seems like an interesting figure 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:05.680 to me, Like, having read a bit about him, I 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.720 think he's in the spirit of those who would believe that, like, 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.240 the existence of God is not in conflict with naturalistic 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.360 explanations for religion. Yeah. Like, for instance, when he was 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.480 asked about about this potential conflict in in a two 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:24.080 thousand seven New York Times article titled Darwin's God, Uh, 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.559 he said the following quote. Christian theology teaches that people 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.160 were crafted by God to be in a loving relationship 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.240 with him and other people. Why wouldn't God then design 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.679 us in such a way as to find belief in divinity? 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.600 Quite natural? Suppose science produces a convincing account for why 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.480 I think my wife loves me? Should I then stop 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.480 believing that she does? Which I thought was a nice 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.480 answer to that question. Yeah, that's interesting, like that you 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.240 can you can put together all kinds of uh, coherent 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.800 scientific explanations for what the feeling of love is, why 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.800 this is an emotion that's generated by the primate b 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.480 and what kind of relationship it has to you know, 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.760 the evolutionary pressures that created our bodies and our brains. 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:07.800 But at the same time, it doesn't make the love 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.120 not real. And so applying that to religion, you could say, okay, well, 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.319 here's a list of reasons we think that, like evolution, 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.959 natural selection could have shaped our brains to be geared 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:22.120 toward religion. Uh, unless so you have totally mechanistic, natural 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.720 type explanations for where religion comes from. And yet you 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.320 could still, under this theory potentially believe your religion to 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.280 be true, or multiple religions to be true. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.920 And I think that that that goes along with the 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.960 way we tend to approach religious concepts on this show. 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.280 I think that that we can certainly explain where they 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.200 come from. They can we can discuss, uh, you know, 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.800 how they evolve over time and the different influences wound 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:51.440 up in them. But at the same time we can 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.440 respect that yes, this this story, this myth, this idea, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.160 this concept can still be very weighty and very important 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.240 to the individuals that value it. Well. Yeah, and and 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.920 that also though gets into another layer of complexity, which 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.480 is what it actually means to quote believe in a religion, 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.920 like can you believe in a religion? Does not necessarily 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.680 mean that you accept, say it's story of the creation 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.120 of the world as literally true, or that it suggests 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.160 or that it that it's propositions about metaphysics are literally 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.080 physically real. Yeah. Absolutely, and and and just to to 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.280 drive home a fact here again parental warning, Santa Claus 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.079 is not real in the sense that that Santa Claus 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.840 does not physically exist in the world. He's not actually 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.600 doing these these uh, these great deeds that we attribute 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:41.959 to him. But on the other hand, he is an 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.280 obviously an important cultural idea. And for my own part, 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.040 like I try and drive home the importance of mythology 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:54.640 and belief alongside the importance of you know, of a 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:59.360 fundamental reality I guess and scientific reality when talking about 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.080 these things with with my own son, Uh, you know 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.320 that currently he's really invested in the idea of Santa 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.640 But I am hopefully laying the groundwork that when Santa 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:13.720 falls from the lofty realm of of presumed magical reality. 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.080 He's not going to plumb it into the hellish depths 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.600 of lies and inaccuracies. He will instead fall into this 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:25.920 realm of mythological u and this this realm of magical 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:30.960 concepts that are valued by human culture. If that makes sense, Well, yeah, 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.040 Santa Claus is not physically real, but the magic of 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.960 Santa Claus is absolutely real. Like it's one of the 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.440 most powerful mind states that I can recall from my 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:45.280 entire life is the anticipation magic of the Christmas season 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.280 when I was young. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And I also 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:53.080 remember sort of going through the struggle of then realizing, Okay, 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.679 Santa Claus is not objectively real, but then gradually then 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.600 growing to to realize that, okay, the idea of laws 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.240 can still be very important and can still be very 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:05.560 real in that sense, in the way the same way 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:09.000 that you know, one grows to learn that that fictional 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.360 characters and uh and uh and other stories can be 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.720 extremely important to us in a way that where there 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.160 is sometimes even more important than than flesh and blood 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:22.840 individuals and in very real events in the world. But anyway, 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.840 I want to get back to Barrett's work again. He's 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.599 he's working in the realm of cognitive science of religion, exploring, 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.760 in his words, quote why religious thoughts and actions only 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.680 occupy a small area in the vast landscape of possible 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:42.040 belief systems. And that's actually, I think a fascinating question, right, 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:47.840 Like religious beliefs could in theory be anything. Anything could 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:52.280 be a religious belief. Example, my friend Julian believes that 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.040 a breakfast crunch Rap Supreme that he got from Taco 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.400 bell in t is the creator of the universe and 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.559 only by its zesty cell ovation can he be saved 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:07.360 from annihilation. Why is it obvious this is a joke? Seriously, Like, 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.600 how come as soon as I said that, you knew 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.040 that I was kidding. You don't need to go like 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.319 look that up on Google and see if there really 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.240 is a sincere crunch Rap Supreme cult. You just immediately 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.160 know that people don't believe that sort of thing as 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.520 a sincere religion. And yet people believe in all kinds 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.880 of strange things, things that would of course seem strange 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.320 to those who don't share their religious beliefs. So why 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.320 is it that religious beliefs can and do involve all 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.880 kinds of strange things and narratives and propositions, and yet 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.840 there's actually a pretty constrained set of things even within 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:48.160 that fantastical landscape that would truly seem acceptable as a 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.720 god or a religious narrative. Like for some reason, thumbs 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.000 up to the immortal, all powerful person who reads your 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:58.160 thoughts as God, but thumbs down to the fast food 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.760 item as creator God. Right, So, like religious beliefs are 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.480 not usually constrained by things like the normal functioning of 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.800 physics or biology, but they are clearly constrained by something. 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.359 If they weren't constrained by something, it wouldn't be obvious 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.400 that the crunch rap Supreme God was a joke. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.800 I think it is. It is fascinating that, yes, okay, 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.920 world religion involves so many wonderful concepts and so many 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:24.840 things that when you first introduced to them, they seem 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.120 strange and new and and and and and you know, 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.800 perplexing at times, and and we celebrate that on on 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:33.800 this show. And yet at the same time you know 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:37.560 that there's not a tremendous amount of difference between you know, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.240 the details of this religion and the next religion. Well, yeah, 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.960 there is this funny tension where in one sense there's 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.720 incredible diversity and difference, but on the other hand, that's 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.400 all constrained within some kind of lane that we sort 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.680 of have a sense. For you, you might not be 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.600 able to define exactly what all the parameters are, though 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:57.640 Barrett's going to try to do that in a minute. 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.640 But you've got a sense that, like, for some reason, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.280 the crunch rap doesn't work. That's just not a thing 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.880 people would believe in as God. You just know it automatically. 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:11.400 So what do people's actual beliefs in God's seem to 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.600 have in common? Barrett argues that the cognitive science of 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.320 religion has actually been pretty successful in identifying the most 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.520 common features of human religious beliefs, including what kinds of 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.600 concepts people most often find intuitive as God's uh, And 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:28.440 I guess we'll get into those in just a minute, 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:30.400 but first we should talk about some of his like 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.800 basic criteria for for what even constitutes the category. Right, 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:36.840 So the first one, and this is a big one, 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.640 is that multiple individuals must share a given idea for 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:44.000 it to be a genuine culture or religious concept. And 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:45.320 this is this is kind of a no brainer, but 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.520 it's important to note he gives it. This example, if 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.800 one person believes their lamp can grant wishes and control 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.160 the weather, that's not a god. That's just one person 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.560 who has a crazy idea about their lamp. But if 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.360 a bunch of people share this idea about a given lamp, 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.080 it might just be a god concept. Sure uh, And 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.560 I agree that religion has a very strong and possibly 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.760 necessary social component, And yet I do think there are 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.800 some interesting counter examples that we might want to think about, 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.720 like hermetic mystics who live in isolation. They cut themselves 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.800 off from the world to develop private, personal, almost secretive 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.960 relationships with and understandings of God or of the gods. 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.040 And yet I think Barrett is still correct because we 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:33.879 don't usually grant these idiosyncratic, private mystical practices the status 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.640 of a religion unless they're supported by a wider structure 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.520 of belief shared by larger numbers of people. Like the 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.440 mystical traditions often tend to be a kind of monastic 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:49.040 offshoot or branch of larger religions with regular social adherents, 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.520 right right, like So, yes, while we may celebrate the 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.080 the ideas of say someone like a William Blake, you know, 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.040 who you know, certainly had his his own sort of 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:01.800 spin on what to on on what God was and 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.439 what the you know, the cosmology of of of the 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.560 universe happened to be. But we're probably not going to 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.160 buy into every detail of it. We're willing to sort 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.600 of stand a foot back and say like, Okay, he 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.320 has his own take on this, but I'm I'm still 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:19.880 keeping to the canon. You know, this is the extended 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.800 universe star Wars, And I'm more of a you know, 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.280 the Star Wars films, right, And and we accept Blake's 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.880 idiosyncratic ideas as religious because I think they grow out 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.600 of a larger existing religion. You know, they're they're like, 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.960 they're this kind of extended universe, the expanded universe of Christianity. 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.560 I guess one can also say that it helps in 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.760 these cases of other people do not start flocking to 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.720 your your extended universe concept of religion, because then you 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:52.160 stand the risk of being a heresy and or creating 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.240 a new, different religion. Right, Yeah, And that's another thought entirely. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.240 It seems to me also that only widely distribute did 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:04.840 beliefs are likely to have stable contents. Because one member 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.440 of the religion tends to mediate any potential like deviation 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.320 from the orthodoxy by another member of the religion. But 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.320 private religious beliefs, they seem to be radically unstable. You know, 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.640 they're liable to change constantly. It's like asking how many 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.320 editors have access to a given UH wiki page, you know, 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:24.879 and if it's a if it's a Wikipedia page and 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.800 it's one that is UH that gets a lot of 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.879 traffic and has a lot of eyes on it, you know, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.920 by and large you can assume that the information there 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.080 is probably going to be on the level or if 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:39.520 it's or if anything crazy is at it, it's going 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.000 to be taken out pretty quickly. You know, the the 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.840 the inquisition is going to move in on those heretics. Now, 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:49.280 if it is an off brand wiki and it has 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.119 like two editors or one editor, UH, then it's up 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.960 for grabs, right, right, Yeah, maybe one day somebody gets 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:57.920 a wild hair they're like, I'm gonna go in make 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.440 some major changes. Those changes probably stick, right, nobody comes 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:03.399 in to change it back. I mean, there's there's no 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.679 controlling influence, right, and then if it does change, you know, 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:08.879 when it does change over time, I think the idea 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.440 of a you know again, a high profile wiki, Wikipedia page, 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.600 or a a widely accepted god. Like, the changes are 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.760 gonna occur gradually and they're going to emerge from the 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:23.320 culture at large. Yes, yeah, having more adherents makes an 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.400 orthodoxy more generally stable, though of course they do still 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:30.200 change over time. It's just, uh, there's just less potential 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.720 for sudden radical change, I think, right, unless certain individuals 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.960 have a tremendous amount of power over it. And then 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:38.600 in that case, you know, you have like the ancient 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.439 adyption model where suddenly a ruler decides actually it's just 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.120 the sun disc and that's what we're doing now exactly. 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.800 But that was one guy and it didn't stick, right, Yeah, 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.280 So yeah, I think ultimately I agree with Barrett that 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:55.880 if we're going with normal usage what people usually mean 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.520 when they talk about a religious belief, it needs to 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:02.040 be a distributed if it's held by a decent number 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:04.239 of people. I'm not sure exactly what the number is, 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:07.320 but like private beliefs of a single person or a 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:11.200 handful of people, I probably don't count as religions yet. 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.680 All right. Number two, Religious concepts and god concepts can 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.560 spread due to quote features of human minds that transcend 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:24.040 cultural environmental variations unquote. And I'm assuming that's something like 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:26.640 the fear of death and the desire to avoid pain 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.640 might be such features as an example. Yeah, you're you're 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:32.560 correct about that. I mean, what he means is just 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:36.400 that it's obvious that influences on religion can be cultural 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.879 or social. Right, they can come from, you know, just 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.679 contingent facts about history and what else is going on 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:44.119 in the culture and politics and all that. But there 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:46.520 can be these What he's arguing is that there are 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:48.960 these internal factors as well. And this is what the 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:52.280 cognitive science of religion is about. It's about brains, right. 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.879 There are some religious beliefs that will be better adapted 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.840 to survive in the environment of the human primate brain 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.520 than other beliefs will be, regardless of cultural factors. Like, 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:07.080 some beliefs just fit like a puzzle piece with our instincts, 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:11.680 emotional tendencies, cognitive capacities, and others don't fit quite so well. 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:14.639 I was trying to think of a few simple, obvious examples. 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.360 Here's a clerkey in kind of one. You probably wouldn't 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.400