{"id":5986,"date":"2015-01-21T08:46:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T13:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carleton.ca\/ics\/?p=5986"},"modified":"2015-01-21T08:58:01","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T13:58:01","slug":"santa-claus-god-prof-jim-davies-ics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/cognitivescience\/2015\/santa-claus-god-prof-jim-davies-ics\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Santa Claus a God?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jim Davies, associate professor at Carleton’s Institute of Cognitive Science, discusses how the idea of Santa Claus fits (and doesn’t fit) with what anthropologists consider gods in religion in this blog entry in Nautilus Magazine.<\/p>\n

S<\/span>anta Claus occupies a strange place in Christian belief. On the one hand, only children seem to really believe he exists; on the other, he gets a great deal more attention than many other purported supernatural beings, such as angels or Satan.<\/p>\n

Does Santa Claus count as a god of the Christian religion? (From an anthropological point of view, many different kinds of supernatural beings can be classified as \u201cgods.\u201d) Christians are likely to say no, in part because Christianity styles itself as a monotheistic religion. I say \u201cstyles itself,\u201d because there are several ways in which it looks quite polytheistic. For example, though there are plenty of Christians who believe only in the one capital-G God, there are also many who also believe in angels, saints, demons, and even ghosts\u2014and this is ignoring the complicating example of the <\/a>T<\/a>rinity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But although Santa would indeed count as a supernatural being if people believed in him, in fact not many people older than 7\u00bd actually do<\/a>. However, the nature of the Santa Claus myth bears some striking similarities to the gods of many religions.<\/p>\n

The most obvious similarity is that Santa is believed to have magical powers, such as being able to fly around the world and visit innumerable houses in very little time. He also has other supernatural beings in his service, including elves and flying reindeer. Like all god beliefs, he comes with an explanation for why we don\u2019t actually see him: He comes at night while everyone is asleep (the department store \u201cSanta\u201d being an interesting exception to this tendency).<\/p>\n

But the most interesting similarity to other gods is that Santa has special access to knowledge about the moral behavior of people. This is known in psychology as \u201cstrategic knowledge.\u201d Even gods believed to be all knowing are believed to pay more attention to people\u2019s moral behavior<\/a> than to, say, the average number of kibbles your dog eats every week and a half. Like many other gods privy to strategic knowledge<\/a>, Santa is associated with specific rituals. These rituals include the hanging of stockings and even offerings: cookies and milk. Gods that have strategic knowledge also tend to use it in some way, either to punish or reward people. The Santa myth supports this as well, in that Santa brings deserved surprises to his young believers: toys for the nice and coal for the naughty.<\/p>\n

Strategic knowledge is also the kind of information that people are more likely to gossip about. Both gossip and religion have been theorized to function as a way to keep people treating each other well. Many adults help maintain the illusion that Santa exists, in part because they think it will inspire their children to behave well. Similarly, psychologists such as Jesse Bering and Jonathan Haidt suggest that religion evolved (either culturally or genetically) to encourage people to not cheat each other when no actual human being is around to see it.<\/p>\n

But the fact that there is no cult of Santa Claus and that he doesn\u2019t have a substantial community of true believers might disqualify him from being a true god, as suggested by Justin L. Barrett<\/a>, who studies the cognitive psychology of religion.<\/p>\n

Still, if Santa is not a god, there is no mistaking the similarities:<\/p>\n

He sees you when you\u2019re sleeping.
\nHe knows when you\u2019re awake.
\nHe knows if you\u2019ve been bad or good
\nso be good for goodness\u2019 sake.<\/i><\/p>\n

Jim Davies is the author or <\/i>Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe<\/a>. He teaches cognitive science at Carleton University.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jim Davies, associate professor at Carleton’s Institute of Cognitive Science, discusses how the idea of Santa Claus fits (and doesn’t fit) with what anthropologists consider gods in religion in this blog entry in Nautilus Magazine. Santa Claus occupies a strange place in Christian belief. On the one hand, only children seem to really believe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs Santa Claus a God? - Department of Cognitive Science<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. Jim Davies, associate professor at Carleton's 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