Is Santa a god? (part 2)

He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, but is Santa Claus merely a magical entity or does he rise to the status of a god? In this pair of STBYM episodes, Robert and Joe discuss the general attributes of a deity and consider the awesome, reality-warping powers of the one we call Kris Kringle, Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas and of course Santa Claus.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff
to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of
our discussion of whether or not Santa Claus is technically
a god, at least according to the most common criteria

(00:24):
used by cognitive science of religion. Now we had to
break this discussion in two because it wins so long,
and now we're treating you to the second half of
our conversation about gods, our brains, and Santa Claus. We
hope you enjoy as we jump right back in. Okay,
so we've been talking about these criteria that Justin Barrett
raises that you will find a common to pretty much

(00:45):
all beliefs in gods among you know, religions you find
in the world. That gods tend to be counterintuitive in
some way, often minimally counterintuitive. That they tend to be
intentional agents, that they have strategic information, that they in
some way act in the world, and that they're capable
of motivating behaviors that reinforce belief. Oh and that's one

(01:08):
other thing we should have emphasized. I guess we did
in this that the most important thing about the behaviors
that the God's motivate, the rituals or whatever, is that
the the motivated action most important to this system is
that it reinforces the original belief itself. Yeah, because that's
how it continues. It's it has to sustain itself through that. Yes.

(01:29):
So I was just thinking to myself, Okay, these these
five criteria, what happens if we apply them to certain
fictional entities that either claim to be God or are
believed to be a god of some sort within the fiction.
Take Goes or the Gazarian, for instance, one of the best.
So it's it's a minimally counterintuitive concept. You know, it

(01:51):
has agency, it does a lot of stuff, But does
it offer strategic information? I don't know if it offers it.
I think it probably has it. Yeah. Uh. I also
about the only good example I had this is that, Okay,
I mean, certainly it has strategic information because it can
see into your thoughts and see what mental pictures you
are filling your brain with, so I think that would count.

(02:13):
It also has information that the world will be destroyed
by itself. So that's that's that's worth having. I guess, like,
is Godzilla a god? I mean, does god Zilla possess
strategic information or well? I don't know. I think Godzilla
is just a big monster, right, But go goes Are
the Gozarian uh comes from another dimension and it's like

(02:35):
a god that makes Godzilla's makes marshmallow Godzilla exactly. It
takes the form of Godzilla, right, Um, okay, the big
one with the Gozer. Though, does it offer motivating behaviors
that reinforce belief? Maybe? I mean, it seems only concerned
with the opening of the doors that will allow it
to destroy the world as it destroyed other worlds. I
don't know. I think the case is maybe a little weak,

(02:57):
but conceivable. I just realized I is calling goes Or
a heat. I'm not sure goes Or as a heat.
Goes Er might be a she or or neither gender
I'm not sure. Yeah, I think goes Are's gender neutral,
even though it does take the form of a feminine
figure in the in the movie. And I think but
I think in the original script it was going to
be played by pee Wee Hermann. Right. Oh wow, I

(03:20):
say goes Or transcends our puny concepts of gender. Right,
So we talked about as a thought, as a though,
as a thought, however you want to say it earlier.
I think this one fails because lax agency, and I'm
not sure it actually acts in the human world at all.
I think it's supposed to be just an entity out
there in the void, and it's just supposed to be
frightening and terrifying that it's out there at all. Um

(03:43):
Sutter Kane from John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness,
I think he checks off all the boxes. He's a
human that becomes a god. But then he's got I mean,
by the end of the film, there's no questioning it.
I gotta watch that again. It's it's it's pretty solid.
One of my favorites. Okay, here's one we have to discuss.
This is one we've talked about in greater detail on
a past episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind. Yeah,

(04:05):
the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Okay, the Postafarian concept, which granted
is kind of a it is it is a counter
religious argument. It is an idea that it's brought up.
It's kind of a contrary uh concept. Right, Well, it's
another one of those that's obviously a joke. At the
moment you hear it, right, you don't have to investigate,

(04:26):
like do people seriously believe? I mean, like you just
know instantly it's a joke. And again that's a clue
that there's like there are some kind of intuitive constraints
on what gods they're supposed to be, like, right, I mean,
his the flying spaghetti Monster. I think the biggest flaw
might be that it is not minimally counterintuitive. It is
it has two counter into two counterintuitive. It's like God

(04:48):
is a potato, right. But on the other hand, I
do think it checks off a number of the boxes. Uh,
you know, his he has detectable actions, and they see
that they seem to be limited to the creation of
the world and also the changing of scientific measurements with
his newly appendage changing radiocarbon dating. Uh, and so for well,

(05:08):
I mean, I guess another thing is the question of,
like whether people sincerely believe the things you're talking about
to meet these criteria or just propose them obviously ingest
because with all these fictional examples, I mean, you're thinking
up ideas of where you can create a something that
meets all the criteria, and yet obviously still is not

(05:29):
a legit god found in the world because nobody actually believes, right,
nobody actually worships goes or uh. I mean, this flying
spaghetti Monster is is an interesting case though, because I
think it's probably safe to say that nobody actually worships
the flying spaghetti Monster. No one truly believes in the
flying spaghetti Monster. But at what point does the current

(05:52):
um concept of the flying spaghetti Monster? At what point
does it at least partially transcended? Which which point does
it get one newly appendage over the line into godhood. Well,
if you go on with a joke long enough, you'll
start to want to find meaning in it. It always happens, Yeah,
I mean, I mean, there's something to be said in
mean culture with on that account, I believe. I think

(06:13):
that's absolutely true. I think it's also true. Watch any
irreverent TV show long enough eventually gets sentimental. It's true.
I mean, people want to start finding meaning in the
chaos of humor and satire. That's a good point, all right, Well,
let's bring it back around to Santa Claus at this point. Um, First,
I just want to recap a little bit about Santa.

(06:34):
But you know, I want to go I don't want
to go into a full history of Santa Claus, but
it's it's interesting to just remind everyone where the concept
came from. A few years ago I chatted with Aida
Adam C. English, chair of the Department of Christian Studies
at Campbell University, about the evolution of Santa and See
a Santa scholar. Yes, he is the author of the
book The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus? The True

(06:55):
Life and Trials of Nicholas of Mira. Uh that in
this book he point doubt that the modern Santa Claus
bears almost no resemblance to the historic origins of a
fourth century Christian bishop. UM, and his continued evolution reveals
a great deal about modern culture. Uh. This interview used
to be hosted a Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,

(07:16):
But now Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com is
um exists only in a very stripped down form. But
I'm gonna just read a few uh quotes here from
the author. Adam see English Uh wrote to me and said,
quote first and most obviously, Santa has been scrubbed of
any and all religious identity. I think that is something

(07:36):
people notice when they see the European Old World St. Nick's,
who are addressed like bishops with a miter stole, ecclesiastical vestiments,
a Crozier staff, and many times wearing a crucifix or
cross on the neck. In contrast, Santa has been domesticated, commercialized,
and universalized or secularized, depending on your viewpoint. The miter
has been softened into a floppy fur trimmed stocking cap,

(07:59):
the estimates have been turned into a red first suit
with white trimming, the stole into the big black belt
in the Crozier staff into a large sack of toy.
Even his name is under gone changed. Santa Claus is
an americanization of the Dutch center class, which is just St. Nicholas.
His other name, Chris Kringle, is the americanization of the

(08:20):
German Austrian uh Chris Kindle or christ Child. Martin Luther
attempted to replace Nicholas as the gift giver with the
baby Jesus. The Christmas gifts come from the Christ Child,
well the Kris Kringle. The religious With Chris Kringle, the
religious significance important to Luther has again been lost. He continues,

(08:41):
quote the first depiction of Nicholas in America by the
New York Historical Society showed him as a stern bishop
in the European fashion, but within fifty years he transformed
into the magical elf who drives a sleigh pulled by
reindeer and trops down chimneys. Um. And then also he
drove home that there was no here a once upon
a time pure religious Santa Claus Christmas has always been

(09:03):
a blend of the sacred and the secular, popular in
the solemn, commercial and the familial um. Also, he points
out that you know a lot of it also dates
back to older beliefs. Uh. He said that in pre
Christian times, the Greeks they celebrated Linnea, Romans had the
Saturnalia in late December as well as the Romalia. Germans

(09:26):
hunted and feasted at Yule Tide, the Irish had Rende.
So I mean, you have all these different midwinter festivals
and they all involve a lot of you know, merriment, feasting, etcetera. Okay, well,
this introduces some difficulty because if we're talking about evaluating
whether Santa Claus meets the cognitive science of religion criteria
of a god what Santa Claus do you go with?

(09:48):
Do you go with like, you know, St. Nicholas, or
do you go with like some kind of you know,
as defined in some traditional work, or do you try
to gather in the great you know, tapestry of different
Santa laws stuff out there today, and and and consider
it all together and and put together I don't know,
an amalgam. Yeah. And this is a problem that that

(10:09):
Barrett gets into in the paper because because really, on
one hand, you could you could really cherry pick from
global and historical Santa Claus ideas and concepts and then
choose the descriptions and attributes that best support your case.
If you're saying God, are you saying not a God?
You could point to evidence to support it. So, but

(10:31):
but but first of all, Barrett just says, okay. At
first glance, he thinks Santa meets all five criteria. First
of all, Santa is minimally counterintuitive. He's a flying, jolly, old,
kind hearted man. He's like he's grandfather Christmas. Also, Santa
is an intentional agent. Santa. Santa has a mind. Santa
wants to do things. He is not an unanimate carbon rod. Also,

(10:55):
he possesses strategic information. He knows if you've been bad
or good. He acts in at at actable way. He
leaves gifts or even a note in some cases. Uh,
and he motivates reinforcing behaviors. Kids leave out milk and
cookies for him. That is the sacred offering that is
made to the Great Elf himself. Well, I mean, and
I guess he would hope that his actions encourage children

(11:17):
to be good around Christmas. I mean, that's what it's
supposed to be. That's true, that's the whole other aspect
of it as well. But ultimately, Barrett, he's not convinced,
is he. No, he insisted Santa ultimately fails at being
a god. Okay, now what is his case here? Okay,
So on the counterintuitive point, he gets into this this
whole like cherry picking thing that we discussed earlier. He

(11:38):
counters that that we're not unified enough in our vision
of Santa. In some some belief incarnations or in some
media incarnations, we just see him as like a kind
old man, while others show him as being this magical
being that we've mostly been talking about. Right, this idea
that he lives forever at the North Pole and flies
through the air and doesn't obey the law of physics

(12:00):
and time. Uh. And he says that some films portray
him as as being a normal person who just has quote,
special friends, animals, and resources. Now, Barrett makes a distinction
that I'm not sure I fully get. I wonder what
you thought about this. Barrett makes a distinction between a
counterintuitive being, like a counterintuitive man who has some special qualities,

(12:23):
versus just like a regular being who uses magic powers.
I'm not sure I really understood what the distinction is there, Like,
if you can use magic powers, that seems counterintuitive to me. Yeah,
I don't know. The way I was thinking about it
when I read it was Okay, he's saying that sometimes
Santa Claus is Superman, sometimes Santa Claus is Batman. Superman
has amazing powers that are otherworldly. Batman is just a

(12:47):
normal guy, but he has special um gadgets and he
has special friends. Okay, So, like in the Santa Claus movie,
the Mexican Christmas movie, Um, Santa Claus doesn't have the
innate power to teleport. He has the flower to disappear.
That's right, yes, And if he loses the flower to disappear,
he can't teleport anymore. He's literally what he's treated by

(13:09):
a dog, I think in that, yes, you know so, Yeah,
that's a great exam That film is just a great
film in general, and I believe played a key role
in we're talking about the the idea that Santa Claus
must travel as a concept like that film, if I
remember correctly, played a very important role in introducing the
concept of modern western Santa Claus to a Mexican audience. Huh.

(13:32):
But yeah, in that he seems like just a ridiculous
old man. If he is if he loses any of
his magical items, Okay, I can see this, and he
depends on a lot of cooperation and support to really
get the job done. Yes, he's got his friend Merlin,
he's got all the children who help him. He's got
the machine with the lips whatever he's going on there. Yeah,

(13:53):
he's more of a batman Santa Claus for sure, Whereas
in Santa Claus Versus the Martians, uh, the other m ST.
Three k Riff Santa Claus movie, in that he has powers,
he can make toys do his bidding. Yeah, he's Hermes.
I mean, all right, well, let's move on. To the
strategic information front. Okay, which again at the at the

(14:13):
surface level, it seems like it's He's got it. He
knows if you've been bad or good. Right, Yeah, But
Barrett again argues that it comes down to consistency, and
it's not consistent enough for Barrett, because does Santa truly
know if someone has done or plans to do something
morally objectionable? Yeah. Barrett says that knowing whether a person

(14:34):
has been bad or good is not actually strategic information.
It's the same kind of judgment another person could easily make. Uh.
And what would constitute strategic information is, for example, knowing
in advance whether somebody is going to be good or bad. Again,
I'm not sure if I agree with Barrett here. I

(14:54):
think that knowing whether somebody was bad or good, especially
if you know what they did in private when nobody
else was there to see them, that seems like strategic
information to me. Like, if you could watch what other
people did in private without them knowing, would that not
provide you with information that could give you a strategic advantage. Yeah,
I don't know. It's it's one of those areas of

(15:15):
the Santa Claus concept where it does seem like a
boiled down version of what you see in God right,
a more limited version. And I think part of this
is kids are generally children are not attributed with tremendous
powers of hiding their wrongdoing. Like generally, whatever they're doing bad,
it's super obvious because that's what we're getting onto them for.

(15:35):
You know. Okay, the next one, does Santa act in
the world in detectable ways? Well, Barrett says that Santa
meets this one but weekly, since the gifts come once
a year in a limited manner, so it's not you know,
he's not bringing you gifts every week or every month
even to to to really you know, make sure the

(15:55):
detection is uh is a is obvious, you know, Yeah,
And I would say the production of the gifts, as
with many of the things that are say prayed for,
petition for in religions, with things that are definitely recognized
as God's it's similarly ambiguous in terms of the mechanism.
You know, you like, go to sleep and then the
presents are there in the morning. There's a lot of

(16:17):
kind of wiggle room to think about what's going on there, right,
and then sometimes Santa, I mean as We've discussed previously
on the show. Santa tends to come if he if
it is if he has if it is discussed that
Santa might come, he tends to come. Generally, threats of
Santa might not come this year because E've ben bad,
generally those threats are not acted upon. But on the
other hand, Santa doesn't always bring everything you wanted, and

(16:38):
sometimes Santa doesn't bring those gifts that are ridiculous or dangerous. Right, So, yeah,
there's a lot of room to I don't know where.
It's up to the user kind of to infer the
amount of detectable behavior that they wish, and then let's
get around to motivating reinforcing behavior to Santa. Claus do
this well. We chatted about this a bit in our

(16:58):
Carampus episode Actually does Santa really work? Does the idea
actually make kids behave? And Barrett contends that it does not.
He says Santa is gonna come either way. And again,
it's also only going to impact Christmas. This is just
what we were talking about, Like, does does the idea
that Santa might not bring you any gifts at Christmas?

(17:18):
Does that have any impact at all on a child's behavior?
In March. I don't know, because because in March when
you're eight, like Christmas is a thousand years away. Yeah,
And just think also about like how long a month
is to a child compared to how long a month
is to an adult. Yeah. I guess that's what you
mean by a thousand years away. I mean every year
to to a five year old feels like an eternity. Um.

(17:41):
But yeah, there was another thing I was thinking about here,
which is the most important behavior for a god, belief
to reinforce in order to have memetic resilience, in order
to survive and spread, it's got to be belief in
the God itself. We mentioned this earlier. Does Santa's motivating
power in turn motivate belief in Santa or even if

(18:01):
it works, is it just to motivate like being well behaved. Yeah,
that's a very good point. Yeah, does it actually motivate
belief in Santa? Do? Kids? I mean you'll see I
guess you see a little of that, you know, um,
kind of like like in you know, an inquisition for
a normal religion, but applied to the Santa world, Like
you've got to believe or you'll get in trouble. Well,

(18:23):
I think the the area in the Santa concept as
as I experienced it growing up, and in the current
rights and rituals that we maintain that the real area
of of like proof, right is the is the carrot
that has been bitten by the reindeer and the half
consumed plate of cookies and milk like that, that, more
than the presence, is like the fingerprint of God. Explain that,

(18:47):
checkmate atheists, checkmate Richard Dawkins. Anyway, Barrett also points out
that a big problem facing Santa is to go back
to some of the origins we've mentioned earlier, is that St.
Nicholas is dead. Boo, No, he's not. No. No. The
connection to the long dead sat is clear, and myths

(19:10):
don't really explain it. He is not the resurrected St. Nicholas.
We're never told that's the case. He's not the ghost
of St. Nicholas. He's not Nicholas the White returned after
fighting the ball Rock. He's just he just also happens
to be the mortal man who definitely died in the
year three d and forty three CE. This is something
I'm gonna come back to in just a minute. But yeah,

(19:30):
there there are not very strong, coherent Santa apologetics that
are designed to work on adults. Right, Yeah, there's there's
no like if they explain, well, yes, Santa Claus was
once St. Nicholas and after his death in three three CE, etcetera, etcetera. No,
it's just like Barrett says, it's like you're into Santa
and then you look him up and you're like, oh St. Nicholas, Oh,

(19:52):
and he's dead. And he says that that takes the
punch out of it. All Right, we're gonna jump in
here and take a quick break, but we'll be right back,
and we're back now. In discussing all of this, Barrett
also provides a humorous chart that compiles his thoughts and
his his interpretations of these five categories, not only on

(20:14):
Santa as a possible guy, but also Mickey Mouse, the
Tooth Fairy, and George Bush. I think this would have
been George W. Bush, Right, Yeah, I believe so. But
for instance, we area went through Santa Claus, but on
Mickey Mouse, he gave Mickey yes for counterintuitive, yes for
intentional agent, sure, but then then a no on having

(20:36):
strategic information and no on acting in the real world,
and a no unmotivating reinforcing behavior. Oh yeah, I'm with
all that. On the tooth fairy. Tooth Fairy gets yes
is across the board except for possessing strategic information, which, yeah,
does the tooth fairy really know anything you don't? I mean,
maybe knows a little bit more about your dental hygiene

(20:58):
than other entities. Doesn't really seem actionable him. And then finally,
George Bush. George Bush gets yeses across the board except
for counterintuitive. So he's an intentional agent. He at least
at the time, possessed strategic information. He acted in the
real world, and he motivated reinforcing behaviors, but he was
not counterintuitive. Right, does he motivate reinforcing behaviors? I guess so, yeah,

(21:21):
I got yeah, I think so. But you know, he
it was just a human, right, I mean, yeah, it's true,
any actually existing human walking around on the earth motivates
reinforcing behaviors, because if you act as if these people
don't exist, it will cause problems for you. I should
also point out that if you if you want to
actually look up this paper and the full title, which

(21:41):
we did not share earlier for reasons that we become
obvious is why Santa Claus is not a god again
Journal of Cognition and Culture, two thousand and eight. If
you look it up. He also has a wonderful Venn
diagram of how all five of these concepts interact, and
the like the one safe zone where you have candidates
for successful gods according to these these ideas. Now, I

(22:03):
would say to be critical of these uh criteria we've
been discussing. I think you could argue that Santa meets
all five criteria at least in some cases of belief,
and maybe not in other cases of belief, and yet
still there is no active cult of Santa whatsoever among adults.
And this suggests to me that while I think these

(22:24):
five criteria are all very good starting places for evaluating
god type agents in people's beliefs, there have got to
be some other criteria here that are not really accounted for.
I think one major factor playing against belief in Santa
Claus as a god is that there is, first of all,
a right of passage in which children become aware of

(22:45):
the underlying Christmas Gift mechanism, and there are not any
significant numbers of adults insisting to other adults that Santa
Claus is real and is a god. Like you've got
to have a foothold of people starting off insisting that
it's real in all cases, and not just say in
the presence of children, but like to other adults, and
they would have to be, you know, trying to make

(23:07):
a case, you know, and once you had that, actually,
I could see it being surprising how easy something like
god belief would pick up, because there's nothing as convincing
as other people's confidence. It's like embarrassing how susceptible we
are to just sensing confidence in other people and thinking, oh,
maybe there's something to that. So do you think that

(23:28):
there could come a day where we would say, oh, yeah,
when we when we were kids and when we were
you know, younger adults, Uh, Santa was just an idea
that we we told kids about and only kids believed
in it. But now we have all these adults all
over the news media and they're just fiercely defending belief
in Santa Claus. And I'm afraid to say anything. I
don't think you would get that because I don't see

(23:49):
that there's a major motivation to start a movement like that.
And I think that the people who tried to start
a movement like that, they would not have a major motivation,
and they would look foolish at least initially until they,
you know, got people believing them. So I I just
don't see that as likely to happen now. I think
you could probably propose things that are equally ridiculous, but

(24:11):
you can imagine more of a motivation for them to
come about. That maybe you could. I mean, they sound
crazy to us now, but if enough people were confidently
proclaiming them, Say, take a major political figure and start
saying that they're a god. And that sounds ridiculous to
us right now, but you just get a number of
people loudly, proudly proclaiming that, I think you could get

(24:32):
some buy in. Oh yeah, I mean you, if you
listen to the right people, you you hear that about
contemporary political figures to a certain extent. I don't think
I've heard anyone say that, uh, the individual in question
is a deity. But I have heard people say, well,
if you look at you know, the way such and
such as written in the Old Testament, then clearly that

(24:52):
makes room for me to, you know, to to look
over this particular individual shortcomings etcetera. And uh, yeah, I
mean it's it's not too much of an extra relation
to get to the point where you can imagine someone saying, no, this,
this politician is a god. Well, and the division between
a figure of major religious significance and a god themselves
is not always as clear as we might want it

(25:14):
to be or think it is. There's another thing that
I think is getting in the way of Santa Claus
becoming a legitimate god belief among adults. And this may
be a weirdly specific nit to pick, but I think
it hurts to suggest that there is a physical location
on Earth where he resides, and combining that with like
modern geo imaging and maps like, it would be really

(25:34):
hard to contend that Santa Claus is a literal, physical
being who lives in a toy workshop at the North Pole.
Most god beliefs that have survived into the modern technological
era have either always been or have had to retreat
into uh intangibility. For instance, it would it would be
hard to insist today that there are Greek gods that

(25:56):
literally inhabit a palace at the top of Mount Olympus,
like you see pictures of what it looks like up there,
um they would have to become invisible or start to
occupy some non physical dimension or something like that. Now,
as always when you're talking about you know, real phenomenon
and culture, there are exceptions. An exception. I can think
of his Mount Kailash, for instance, in in Hinduism, some

(26:18):
believe this to be the you know, it's a physical mountain,
It's a real mountain. You go there, people make pilgrimages
there and they walk around it. Some people believe it
to be the home of Lord Shiva and the goddess Parvadi.
But you're not allowed to climb up on the mountain
to see for yourself. And I think this belief would
probably also tolerate some non physical interpretations. And yet, as
I think, you could potentially imagine, imagine a world, if

(26:41):
you will, in which St. Nicholas is never fully divested
from his religious origins and and and instead of it being,
instead of Santa Claus being this thing that is sometimes
brought up about the secular war on Christmas, you know,
and taking Christ out of Christmas, what if St. Nicholas
on the whole across you know, Western civilization remains this um,

(27:06):
this religious figure who also comes at Christmas and brings
toys and lives at the North Pole. And then you
have all Santa believing nations agree to not explore the
the Arctic because that is where Santa lives, and then
forging treaties with non Santa believing nations UH that where
they agree, yes, we won't explore the Arctic because we

(27:27):
realize that's sacred to you. Then perhaps you could keep
you could keep the the the residents of Santa an
article of faith or not. It might not actually work,
but it's possible. I think. I think you'd still have
the major problem of like the the generational transfer of
the knowledge of the Christmas gift mechanism, you know, like
the fact that at some point you meet the man

(27:47):
behind the curtain and its mom and dad. I think
that has an incredibly powerful demotivating effect unbelief, Like you're
really going for the throat with that one. Joe, I didn't,
I didn't go that far and talking about the magic
of Santa. It's weird though, because I feel I feel
I'm sorry, did I do bad? Well? It's weird for
me because I feel more I feel less pressure about
discussing uh, like religious concepts. Uh, you know we've been

(28:12):
saying that. Okay, you know, we have this concept of God,
but there's no actual deity that resides in the heaven. Like,
I feel better about saying that than to come out
and say that Santa Claus is your parents. We already said, oh,
come on, I don't know. I'm not saying it makes sense.
I'm just saying, um, that's how it feels. I'm like, oh,
that's that's a step too far to say, not only
there is no Santa and he is me. That's that's

(28:37):
exactly in fact that you're exactly making my point, because
it's not just that at some point that the other
kids on the playground start saying, oh, you still believe
in Santa. Santa isn't real. I mean, that would be
one thing if that was happening. You could still maintain
belief even in a hostile atmosphere. People maintain religious beliefs
in a hostile atmosphere among nonbelievers who challenge their beliefs.
But the fact that they're the mechanism is revealed by

(29:00):
the by the people pulling the levers that the the
it is me statement is the most powerful moment there
that's where like it can't really survive that moment. But
sometimes you don't completely have that moment. I don't know,
like some some parents, they don't have like a sit
down and say like, all right, here's the here's the truth.
So um, I think another important Sorry, I didn't mean

(29:22):
to do something that. No, no, you didn't. I'm just
saying that that kind of I felt that it says
more about me as a as a parent that's currently
maintaining the magic of Santa and trying to figure out
like where it goes from here, you know. But I
do want to come back to again to Santa and godhood.
I think it's worth mentioning. First of all, Santa has

(29:43):
encompassed aspects of old gods already. You have such characters
as the Germanic god vote in, the godlike entity of
Russia's dead de Morez or old Man Frost of course,
factors into another MST three k Rifft film, Jack Frost. Uh,
and I think he's more there's certainly a clear cut

(30:03):
case for Jack Frost being a deity. Uh, since he
is uh, you know, he's he's can he's you know,
he's a he's a natural force. And that is personified.
But then also we have to get into discussing just
like how the how concepts of God and God's are
going to vary from culture to culture, because a lot
of this has revolved around very I think Western concepts

(30:25):
of an all powerful god, you know, or or even
like ancient Greek concepts of like really highly powerful anthropomorphic entities. Right. Yeah, um.
I mean it's something that Barrett mentions in the paper
is that there these criteria are supposed to apply to
all kinds of gods. I mean, so they would apply
to you know, uh, spirit gods that live in the
trees and stuff like that, or household gods and like,

(30:48):
they should apply to all of these categories. But it's
clear that at least I think you and I, by
our cultural context are very conditioned when we talk about
gods to think about like the monotheistic religions, right. But
I do wonder if, despite what Barrett says, I wonder
if some of the household god concepts do kind of
fall through the cracks of this a little bit. I
was thinking particularly about about about China here, because in China,

(31:13):
U Santa has really only gained traction there during really
gain traction there in the nineteen nineties. So you won't
find Santa wearing Confucian robes or anything, but apparently you
will see him on doors in places often relegated for
the gods. Chinese households with double doors sometimes boast twin
images of Santa, a place also reserved for Chinese New

(31:36):
Year posters and the traditional uh min Shin or door
gods of of Chinese tradition. And I think it this
forces us to realize that there's you know, there's again,
there's God in the monotheistic tradition, and then there are
the gods of various non monotheistic religions, and and we
hardly just mean the pantheons of Hinduism in ancient Greece.
But again these household deities, such as the Chinese domestic

(32:00):
odds like the kitchen or stove god, and then you
know their variations of this in Western traditions as well.
Interestingly enough, though, it is sometimes held that the kitchen
God in Chinese custom returns to the celestial realm shortly
before lunar New Year in order to report household activities
directly to the all powerful Jade Emperor, whoa so um

(32:23):
some strategic information there. So you know, at first it
might seem like there's not anything strategic there, but clearly
the kitchen God has strategic information that then has an
important ramifications for the household effected. Well, one thing I
was thinking to complicate this is I used the obvious
example that seems laughable to us of the crunch rap
supreme God. But I think that they're in fact are

(32:46):
some types of household god type entities that are they
are intentional agents and that they can act and they
have like thoughts and stuff like that, but they're also
inanimate objects, right, Yeah about that. So there are are
like household appliances that are gods and like food items
that are gods, but they're just imagined to be those

(33:08):
inanimate objects with intentional agency. All right, we're gonna jump
in here and take a quick break, but we'll be
right back. And we're back. So there's another way to
think about Santa in relationship to gods and religion, and
that's by focusing on the fact that if he is
a god, he's a specific kind of god, right, which

(33:28):
is a moralizing god, like he knows if you've been
bad or good, so be good for goodness sake, and
I think two people who are primarily familiar with only
the largest world religions today. You know, you've got Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism,
all that. It probably just seems like moralizing is an

(33:50):
inherent part of what a religion is, right, yeah, I
would think so. I mean, especially with the major monotheistic religions,
and that is the model, right, the big the big
sky Daddy that is going to be disappointed in you
and punish you if you do not behave morally totally. Like,
all those religions have concepts or codes that in some

(34:10):
way regulate moral conduct. They encourage one type of behavior
over another. So you've got the you know, supernatural justice
in heaven and hell, divine retribution or resolution in the
workings of karma, etcetera. But not all religions are especially moralizing,
and not all gods are especially concerned with moral behavior.

(34:31):
Like if you look at smaller religions practiced stall around
the world and especially deeper into history, you start to
get the picture that many gods and many religions are
basically a moral that that they involve myths and rituals,
and that the gods don't really care whether or not
you are morally good or bad. They care whether you say,
perform the rituals or not. And of course this isn't

(34:54):
to say that the people practicing these religions are a
moral They of course would have ideas about moral conduct,
just like anybody else would. It's just that the you know,
in these societies, the regulation of morality does not seem
to come from the gods or religion. It comes from
other sources in the same way that the amoral god
it doesn't care if you've been bad or good. We

(35:16):
can easily imagine like the tyrannical king who doesn't care
if you are a good person or not. But are
you are you paying your tribute to him? Are you
obeying the laws that he set out not because they're more,
but because they reinforce his rule? Right? It's not follow
the Golden rule or something. It's neil Before's odd right now. Now,
we mentioned earlier how the Jade emperor in Chinese traditions,

(35:40):
in Chinese mythology does seem concerned with what's been happening
in your house via intel provided by a household God.
But I think what's interesting concerning that, I don't bring
it up to trying, like, you know, cast down this idea,
but rather to like add maybe a few wrinkles to it.
I think what's interesting is that Chinese customs put a
huge emphasis on anset Jews, and I think you see

(36:01):
this in other models as well from around the world.
That stress spirits of the dead is entities that have
not completely faded away and maybe connected to the gods
in some way. I guess a true moralizing god in
the form we're talking about here is one that has
no shall we say, blood relation to the mortals in question. Zeus,
for instance, always seems more keen than Father, even in

(36:23):
dealing with his own demi god offspring. You know, he's
he's certainly not a moral entity himself. No, I mean, yeah,
you look at the Greek gods. They don't seem at
all concerned with moral behavior. I mean you might get
little snippets of that here and there, It does not
seem to be the main focus of the Greek religion, right,
and then many of them too are of course more
it's not even it's limiting to try and even think

(36:44):
of them as being a moral or a moral because
they are more embodiments of drives and aspects of the
human condition. Yeah, totally. I mean they serve they serve
a narrative function, right, just the way that like the
characters in your novel don't necessary they're not necessarily gonna
be good people, like they're they're doing things to serve
a narrative function. I think a lot of gods in

(37:05):
history are that way, except you did need to do
the rituals right well, like Bacchus for example. You know,
like Bacchus, I guess you could say Bacchus is a
moral but but even that kind of puts a luminal
what Bacchus is, Like, Bacchus is more the embodiment of
like sort of primal instinct and primal drive and desire
right now. Of course, whenever you're talking about like a

(37:26):
big complex human phenomenon like religion, there's gonna be all
kinds of variation. There's no you know, it's hard to
make generalized statements that are always true. But historically it
does appear to a lot of scholars of religion that
over time there was a pretty major shift in the
world from a moral religions to moralizing religions. And again

(37:46):
that doesn't mean a moral people. It just means like,
you know, gods that aren't concerned with moral behavior only
with rituals to gods that have moral codes and stuff.
And the era of moralizing god's also seems to be
linked with like other rates of the religions that bear them.
For example, the trend toward moralizing god seems to be
paired with features like omniscience. Like in order for a

(38:08):
god to be aware of your moral conduct at all
times and punish you even for doing wrong in private,
the god needs to be all perceptive, you know, he
sees you when you're sleeping and so forth. And so
some scholars have actually proposed that the emergence of big
moralizing gods and big moralizing religions could have had major
effects on sort of society and ecology and and the

(38:32):
history of human civilization. Like one hypothesis that's been knocking
around for years. I've mainly seen it associated with a
book by the Canadian psychologist Dr Era nor in Zion
called Big Gods, How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Uh,
I might not be fully doing a justice, but the
basic idea here is that like big, powerful, moralizing gods

(38:52):
made civilization with large settlements and lots of trade and
interaction between strangers possible. I think the basic reasoning is
that if people only live in small settlements, it's hard
for individuals to get away with bad dishonest behavior, because
you quickly get a bad reputation if you know everybody
around you knows you. There's only one person selling brad

(39:15):
you know it's it's a small community. But so yeah,
so they get punished in social ways, you know, by
other people. But in a world with big cities and
lots of business and interactions between people who are probably
never even going to see each other again, it's a
lot easier to be a cheat or a thief for
whatever and just keep getting away with it. Thus the

(39:35):
need for a belief in an all seeing judge who
holds you accountable, who won't just let you cheat and
harm people and then escape into the anonymity made possible
by a big society with lots of trade and lots
of strangers. Um. Now, as always with this kind of hypothesis,
it's important to remember the difference between like telling a
plausible story and proving an explanation is correct. I'm all

(39:57):
for informed speculation in areas where hard evidence is lacking.
That's a lot of fun to do, and we like
to we talk about that stuff all the time. But
it's also important to remember the difference between that and proof.
So it is an interesting hypothesis. But like, is there
any way to test its predictions? And I think the
answer is sort of. It's the kind of historical explanation
that would be difficult to be sure about. But one

(40:18):
study I was looking at found an interesting way to
test its consistency with the facts, and this was by
using a big historical database called set shot to check
to check the timelines basically on average, based on what
we know about history, does evidence for big moralizing gods
tend to show up in a region of the world

(40:38):
directly before big increases in social complexity. Does it look
like the emergence of these big moralizing gods is making
like big cities and complex trade possible. Uh? So there
was a paper published in Nature in twenty nineteen by
Harvey white House at all Um and the results were
interesting that they did not find, in fact, the big

(41:00):
moralizing god's created booms in social complexity in the region.
But they did find a historical association between the emergence
or like our first evidence of big moralizing gods and
booms in social complexity in the timeline. It's just that
the order was reversed. Quote. Our statistical analysis showed that
beliefs in supernatural punishment tend to appear only when societies

(41:23):
make the transition from simple to complex, around the time
when the overall population exceeded about a million individuals. So
it looks like they found there is an association between
you know, big booms in population and social complexity, but
it looks like that the religious changes came about after
the transformation or you know, the formation of big complex societies.

(41:45):
I think that's interesting. Well, yeah, it reminds me of
our discussions on health theologies in the past, uh, you know, particular,
you know, the ideas of as this this study points
out supernatural punishment, and uh I have frequently uh you know,
stated my displeasure with with any health theology model. I

(42:05):
think that it is largely a supernatural revenge fantasy and
a barbaric one in which we we uh commit individuals
or groups of people uh to some sort of fiery
torture and rape in the in the afterlife for things
that we see them or we perceive them getting away
with in this life. We're not being properly punished for

(42:27):
in this life. So I can see that very much
lining up with this. It's the idea of there are
people out there that are getting away with it. There
has to be they cannot do that. They would not
be able to do that in the smaller realm, and
here in the larger realm of the city, there still
must be some sort of of punishment, and therefore it
becomes necessary to have this imagine punishment in the afterlife.

(42:49):
So the moralizing gods with divine retribution or perhaps not
something that makes big civilization possible, but something that happens
because of the resentments narrated in a big civilization. Yeah,
I wonder, I wonder. I think that's an interesting way
of looking at Again, one is hesitant to to find
nice concise explanation for anything that emerges and all the

(43:12):
caveats we already stated, yeah, um, but yeah, I'm wondering.
So if they're on the right track that this historically
was the trend, Like first, you get a whole bunch
of people together, all trading with strangers and stuff, and
then shortly after that you start to get the moralizing
gods who see you when you're sleeping and know when
you're awake. Does this have any relevance to Santa? Does
it tell us anything about the jelly old Elf? I

(43:33):
mean maybe in the sense that Santa is a concept
that is bestowed on young minds by adult minds, and
so therefore we could be taking the larger model, boiling
it down into a simplified form, and giving it to them.
So you know, ultimately, I don't know how much. I

(43:54):
don't know. I don't know to what extent. There's really
a lot of pleasure to be gained for a child
imagining the bad kids not getting anything for Christmas. I
don't remember dwelling on that as a kid. Maybe that's
just you. Some kids do like the idea of other
kids getting punished. You can see the delight in their eyes.
You never noticed this when like the bad kid gets

(44:16):
there come up and well, I don't know. Maybe it
depends on the environment in which the child is brought up,
because I feel like currently with my child, I don't
I've never heard him bring up the idea of somebody
getting away with bad behavior, you know, like either bad
behavior is dealt with by teachers or by another parent.

(44:40):
That's there. Uh. You know, certainly we live in the
age of of you know, so called helicopter parents, where
there's generally there generally are a number of parents hovering
around the playground environment, etcetera. So maybe he just hasn't
gotten to the point where there's this realization that, yes,
sometimes when you are bad, you absolutely get away with it,
at least in this lifetime, or at least until Christmas

(45:02):
rolls around. That's interesting, but it comes back to I mean,
it's it's the flip side of the coin, right, of
the classic theological quandary, why do bad things happen to
good people? Why do good things happen to bad people?
Why do bad people get away with being bad? Right? Well,
if you have the concept of an all powerful, moralizing God,
it necessarily invites that question. When you start to see

(45:22):
flaws in the system, just don't look like they're working.
I mean to come back to again to the idea
that Santa does tend to come through even for the
bad kids, Like there's gonna come a point where realized, no,
my classmate Um Damien was terrible this year, like he
is awful in Santa gave him everything he desired and
then some something is wrong with this system. It's all

(45:44):
for you exactly because I guess the basically, given a
complex society, that's going to happen inevitably, even or perhaps
especially with environments where you have like really Tyranne Cole
rule in place takes a like a North Korea situation,
where you have like informers in UM, like in smaller

(46:08):
groups that report back if anybody's speaking, you know, out
of line about the regime. Like even of course, within
a regime like that, you're going to have people to
then abuse the already abusive system and find ways to
benefit from it. So there's always going to be somebody
in these systems getting away with it no matter what.
Uh you know, cultural um institutions and systems are put

(46:30):
in place to prevent it. Yeah, I think that's a
good point now, you know, on the subject of of
city gods and moral gods, I can't help but turn
my mind back to the work of Julian Jayne's, author
of the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of a
bicameral mind, which we we discussed in a couple of
older episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I think
we more or less recently re ran those and occasionally

(46:54):
it pops up. But he spends a fair amount of
time pointing to the structure of ancient cities with their
houses of the gods at the center, what he refers
to as bicameral architecture, each city centering upon steeply rising
pyramids topped with god houses, where he says, quote, the
king dead is a living god. The king's tomb is

(47:15):
the god's house, the beginning of the elaborate god house
or temples. And you know that this gets a little
bit into the the idea of the the the ancestors
remaining alive, like the dead king has not died. The
the idea of the dead king is the form through
which one hemisphere of our brain speaks to the other. Right, Yeah,
that that was the basis of his He's trying to

(47:35):
prove his case that like there was this historical transition
where like, you know, where the gods were literally talking
to people. But of course it wasn't supernatural entities. It
was the non dominant hemisphere of the brain. But It's
important to note that like in the purely bicameral scenario
here that he was describing, like the God would not
be reminding you what the rules are, that God would

(47:58):
be telling you what to do. So he would point
to the difference between moralizing and non moralizing gods as
being key to the breakdown of the bicameral mind. For example,
he points out that no one is moral among the
god control puppets of the Iliad. Good and evil do
not exist. But he points out in the Odyssey, the
character Clydemestra is able to resist a justice because her

(48:22):
mind is like that of a god. So he writes, quote,
consciousness and morality are a single development. For without God's
morality based on a consciousness of the consequences of action,
must tell men what to do. So I think the
idea here is that there is no Santa Claus in
the Iliad, and then he would not be necessary for

(48:43):
the children of the bicameral mind. Certainly in the James
verse that is the case. It is interesting this is
this is something that is perhaps a difference between uh
Santa and various incarnations of the God. Is that God
and God's speak to humans in a way that Santa
doesn't really speak to us. I mean, I guess Santa

(49:05):
does take the form of a like there's a Santa's
helper at the mall and he directly speaks to you,
and then there's the letter writing, etcetera. But there's no
voice of Santa that comes to your mind. Do pretty
much all kids are they told that when they sit
on Santa's lap at the mall, this is not the
real Santa. This guy works for Santa, I believe. So
now now, I don't know if that used to be

(49:27):
the case. Certainly if you had like a small it's
kind of like Crampus and Santa, right, Like, do you
tell them it's really the crampas is coming down from
the mountain and that's really saying nick uh, or or
do you let them in on the fact that these
are people pretending embodying these things. Well, I wonder if
it's kind of like, you know, the priest of a
religion dressing up in garb that indicates the deity itself

(49:48):
and being sort of your your intercessor, like the person
who intervenes on your behalf for the deity. I have
to say, since we began recording the this this pair
of episodes on Santa I have introduced and sort of
reintroduced my son to both the Mexican Santa Claus film
and Santa Claus versus the Martians. And that also like

(50:10):
brought up the question of, like, Okay, what is this
version of Santa I'm seeing here? This is not the
real Santa story because you know, this doesn't line up
with what I've been told. This doesn't line up with
what I've been told, so already you're having to here's
another layer of having to say, well, this is an
interpretation of what Santa is and it it made me
think back to a film I don't know if you've

(50:30):
seen this titled Santa Claus the I think with Santa
Claus the motion picture with John lithcalin it. No, I
haven't seen it. I think Deadly more may Or may
not have played an elf. It's been a long time,
but it came out at just the right time in
my childhood where I still largely believed in Santa Claus.
And here was a movie about Santa that even at
that point was ridiculous, and I wonder, I remember wondering

(50:55):
what the real Santa thought of this film, you know,
like did he approve like this? Was it blasphemous in
a sense? You know, because like I'm I'm thinking, well,
the reindeer don't fly because they eat a special candy
and then humans John Lithcow wouldn't be able to fly
because he ate a special candy cane? How did Dr
Lozardo become Santa Claus exactly? So, I don't know. That

(51:17):
doesn't really answer any questions, raises more questions about, you know,
the hoops we make our children jump through when it
comes to our our mythical god like beings. All Right,
So in the end, Barrett says, Santa Claus not a god?
What are you saying, Joe? Uh, Yeah, I think not
a god. Though I think it's not necessarily because I

(51:38):
uh come down the same side as him on all
of his main five criteria. I do think those criteria
are interesting and worth talking about. I'd say the main
things that make Santa Claus not a god are like
this other stuff we were talking about. For my money,
I'd say, Okay, Santa is not a god, but he
contains pieces of a god, and I think you could
imagine a world in which he one day becomes a god.

(52:00):
I think what it would take was adults insisting continuously,
like a significant number of adults insisting it's true, and
the cultivation of a like the the editing and the
cultivation of a version of Santa Clause that works for
adults as well. Yeah. Uh, And I don't know what
would ever cause that. I kind of doubt that would

(52:21):
ever happen, But if it did, then I think you
I think you could be there. Yeah all right, So
obviously we'd love to hear from everyone about this particular question,
because a number of you out there have either you
grew up with some sort of Santa concept in your
household and or you have a cut Santa concept in
your current household, or you have in an outsider's view

(52:43):
of all of this, which of course would be very helpful.
And then one thing I'm curious about real quick, how
does how when you're growing up, how did your Santa
concept interact with your religious beliefs? Right? Yeah, Like, especially
maybe if you weren't a Christian but believed in Santa, Like,
how us that fit together? I think you know, I
have a feeling that sometimes Santa Clause is in a

(53:05):
way kind of like cruelly and intentionally sacrificed in order
to drive home the difference between a religious a concept
like Santa and the religious concepts that are upheld in
the household. You know, not a war on Christmas, but
a war on Santa. Yeah, alright, so let us know.
We'd love to hear from everybody. In the meantime, If
you want to find other episodes of Stuff to Blow

(53:27):
your Mind, uh, well, you can go Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. It will redirect you to UM
a listing of episodes, and you can find a listing
of episodes more or less just like that anywhere you
get podcasts. UM. I don't know. We can't keep up
with all these websites, but they're out there. You can go,
you can subscribe, you can rate, you can review. That
will help out the show. Uh, let's see what else

(53:50):
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I guess you can follow us on social media. We're
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only one we're really likely to interact with is the
Stuff to Blow your my discussion module, which we'll find
on the Book of Faces. Huge thanks, as always to
our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you'd like

(54:13):
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(54:35):
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