All those years not believing in Santa Claus. All those wasted years...

"The phases of life: You believe in Santa; you don't believe in Santa; you are Santa."

Now I have a great way to explain Santa to kids WITHOUT lying to them! Gracias Jonathan.

the Pageau fairy puts insight and understanding under my pillow every week

The Truth Fairy puts wisdom under your pillow.

Your mouth is your helper, and the mall Santa is... Santa's helper.

The video succinctly describes my suspicion on the flaw of objectively viewing the world. I was an atheist(as in I want to view the world as objectively as possible). But I encounter the "rock" problem. Let's ask the question if a rock exists? Technically, no. What you really have is a collection of quarks arranging themselves into protons and neutrons circling by a cloud of electrons that arranged themselves into an energetically stable configuration that gives rise to their periodic structural lattice which we then calls a crystal and the collection of crystals that clumps together through Van der Waals force is what known colloquially as a 'Rock'. A rock is merely the conceptual representation of the arrangements of quarks in a very very very specific ways, just like Santa Claus is a conceptual representation of a very very very specific network of electrons moving around in the neurons of around 2 billion people(Christians). A rock's existence is no more valid than the way we perceive it and if our perception is what makes something real, the permanent rise of something like Santa Claus must therefore be real too by definition. You can say its not real because you can't weigh it. There's something you can't weight too. KZfaq. Does KZfaq exist? What KZfaq really is from an objective point of view is a collection of sequentially firing of nano-sized transistors in a computer/server. You can't measure KZfaq nor can you weigh it. You can obviously weigh the electrical charge on all the transistor that involved in generating KZfaq, or the staffs from the Janitor to the CEO of KZfaq, or perhaps the weight in gold its revenue represents. But is KZfaq merely the firings of transistors, or the company staff that runs it, or the staff that runs its parent company Alphabet Inc., or is it the culmination of our collective consciousness manifesting via the generation and viewership of KZfaq content that makes up KZfaq? Or is it just Quarks? Technically yes. But it's not a helpful analysis.

I _really_ loved the story of your daughter and the tooth fairy. Thank you Jonathan. Sometimes children are much wiser than we think.

The fact you can talk that way with children makes me smile

I actually shed a tear at the tooth fairy story. Beautifully put.

This brings so much more depth to “god is dead and we’ve killed him” and “there is no such thing as govt, just people acting as govt”...among others. Thank you.

The question is...do parents exists?

About Santa - good demonstration of how phenomenological method works.

This is without a doubt one of the best videos I've seen in a very long time. I've not yet come across any thinker who explains these concepts with the wit, brevity and humour that you do, Jonathan. All of your work should be compulsory viewing for anyone remotely interested in the times we live in, because your videos above all others that I have seen truly shine a light on the dark age we currently live in. By which I mean that the world as presented by the materialists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins is so drab, 2D and lifeless in contrast to the rich tapestry of being that you describe. Can I just add that I became a Christian in my late 20s because all throughout my childhood and early adulthood, although it was cool to be atheist, I couldn't help but intuit that there was much more to this universe than meets the eye. It is such a relief to find that I am not the only person who has noticed this, and a pure delight to have its geography laid out in so lively and vivacious a manner. Thank you, brother!

Santa Claus is not one physical deity. But instead is made up of the carols and the laughs who are in reference to Santa Claus. Santa Claus is made up of the people who dress up as him, the figure in children's minds who put the presents under the tree (the mystery and delightful anticipation accompanying the night before Christmas) - the old man on the street who wishes you a merry Christmas and as you walk past him, laughs; oh oh oh oh. Santa Claus is the personification of Christmas, and to say he doesn't exist is like saying Christmas doesn't exist. Santa Claus is the spirit of Christmas. I never thought of it like this; thank you; insightful video and you put a smile to my face. I've always given my children presents under the guise of being Santa, and now I realise I was Santa; I was a manifestation of him. I'm always going to play Santa and when my children grow old I'll tell them what you have told me in the hope that they shall do the same. I now believe again in Santa.

"To me it seems completely absurd to say Santa Claus doesn't exist. Because, obviously, Santa Claus exists." *cut to intro* Well played, Jonathan. Well played. I really like your videos, man; very insightful, each of them. Keep at it; keep doing God's work.

You know, I never really stopped believing in the Three Wise Men even when my mother told me that she was the one placing the gifts. I knew their spirits existed, and my mother placing the gifts was a consequence of their existence.

I recently discovered your channel thanks to a tweet from J.B.Peterson. I'm glad i found it, your videos are so interesting. Your analysis are easily understandable and brilliant. I was as an adolescent a deep nihilistic atheist and as i'm growing up, i'm more and more fascinated by the meaning of life, the symbolic of human experience. What does it mean to be part of the human being journey. As you open my understanding, i'm more and more agreable with faithful people. Faithful people who understand why they believe, who thought hard about what it means to believe. I can't find pleasure anymore to speak with a nihilistic guy who has no purpose in his life. You have my thanks from France, more people here should see your work as we are the European champions of nihilisim, materialism and post-modernism mixed chaos. Have a nice day Jonathan

My neighbor told the Christmas story to her 3 year old son at the time, then when they went to the mall and he saw Santa there he said "Look mommy! It's Jesus!"

This video is highly underrated. It actually summarizes The Symbolic World in a way anyone can understand. Btw, check out Akira the Don's music video of this too :D

I love the intro. Always gives me the chills :)

Love your work, Jonathan. This is a unique channel with an important scope of content.

You just changed my life. Merry Christmas!

Please pray for Joe everybody, he’s had a rough year

I loved this and the second part as well... you should have a ton more people following your content.

It really makes sense. I can’t get enough. I wish i have seen your site long ago. Thank you.

Really finding your ideas and studies on symbolism fascinating . Keep up the good work .

This is absolutely brilliant! Really opened my mind to a concept I hadn't thought of before. Thank you Jonathan Pageau.

I've been watching this channel for a couple days straight. I love your analysis. I feel like the more diverse your understanding of Christianity, or anything really, the more you start to see the patterns. I'm an artist as well so I can relate it to when I started to paint the figure and still life with only color. The patterns and relationships started to reveal themselves the more intensely I looked for them. And I literally mean patterns in color. Similar to pointillism, I started to separate out local color then mold the forms based on a sort of wrestling with the truth of what I was seeing. My work is now completely different and much more abstract expressionistic but I do have a very serious understand of drawing and painting realistically which helps to make sense of the chaos. I think knowing the "scales" is essential when venturing out into a more chaotic forms of image making like abstraction and expressionism. A good foundation in anything will help you when you wander off into the unknown. You'll have a sort of tool kit to make it more real, or at least bring something back from the void. I feel the same way about the search for what Christianity means in the modern world.

"Because obviously Santa Claus exists" rap_battle_black_people_react.mpg

I have been falling in love with your channel and content. Some of it is over my head in understanding, but there's a spark of curiosity and a sense of truth that seems to settle into my being. Especially during these dark times, it was your videos that i was guided to watch that helped me come out of a dark spell that i had been stuck in for a few weeks. I began knowing nothing about Orthodox faith, and now I find myself asking all sorts of questions to my inner dialogue. Thanks for sharing your light. Merry Christmas.

This is the best video (of those I've seen) by you so far. Great job!

Lovely Jonathan, just lovely. Thank you. Came back here as Christmas is coming. - I'm going to come here every year around Advent.

Oh my word... this was an actual breakthrough for me! Thank you sooo much! Btw love your work brother ☦️

I found your channel today and I find it very informative. Thank you Jonathan 🙂

Jajaja, thanks for systematize that thought, also the story with your daughter was pretty funny. Loving your videos!

This is really fascinating. It’s funny because I remember being sort of a Santa agnostic as a kid lol My parents never told me one way or another but I would sometimes leave cookies out just in case. As for the Tooth Fairy, on some level I always knew that my dad was the one putting the money under my pillow, but at the same time I knew “the tooth fairy” was the reason in an abstract sense. This is the first video to put that into words

I have never been able to explain to people what i mean when i say i believe in santa. This is brilliant.

So basically he’s a social construct

If this is the case for the way in which God exists, it seems that God's existence depends on our belief. In this line of thinking wouldn't God have not existed before humans?

Jonathan, I think your argument is pretty solid, but it left me wondering about consciousness. Surely we cannot deny the existence of a BELIEF in the spirit of a culturally-dependent entity called Santa Claus, nor the fact that people who adhere to that culture act out his existence, in Petersonian terms. What I don't understand - and I'm not saying you've implied that this is possible in the video at all - is how one could make a leap from a phenomenological existence of a belief in Santa Claus, and the fact that he does have objective properties, to the conclusion that this entity possesses consciousness or, if you will, a soul. I ask this, of course, because this leap would be necessary in order to formulate a phenomenological claim of the existence of God, which, again, I don't think you're explicitly trying to prove here. Do you think that leap is possible or is consciousness not encompassed in this ontology? Thank you for the video. Great stuff.

Absolutely love this video!! This form of love is one that exists within me....lol Great video Jonathan. Thank you so much for what you give here. You add so much to my journey.

My goodness this is so freaking helpful

Once a man who roamed and gave Who rung his bells through night and day A spirit absorbed and played each year Removing winters touch of fear Out from the hearth and into the hand We spread this love across the land The gift of giving has no bounds The cycle goes around and round To feed the deer to feed the hounds Never forget the man that sounds

Jonathan, love the story about your daughter and the tooth fairy!

There are massive differences between believing in God and Santa; Santa only exists as a role/character because humans invented him, God is more than a role or a character and exists regardless of humans. The reason an Atheist said to me that he rejected Christianity was because his parents, like you, treat it with the same level of realness as Santa (and so he never had the motivation or divine experience to make his faith personal). Unless I remember incorrectly: Jesus is a separate entity from the church (also called the Body of Christ). Yes people can characterize Christ, fulfill his roles, be his tools, but they're still physically parts of the Church. The Church is joined/married with Christ, but that doesn't mean the members of the Church have become Christ.

Jonathan, that was an awesome explanation. Something not easy to explain, by the way. I learned something. Thanks!

Very enlightening. Thank you, Jonathan.

I admire you very much for articulating belief so that even a modern person like me can grasp it. It's really cool that you laugh so much, too, because it shows you know how counterintuitive it is for us to consider this seriously, but we gotta get over ourselves to get to the good stuff!

This is one of the most interesting motions I've heard in a long time. It opens the world, by several degrees, for me. Thank you.

Brilliant video. Simple explanation for lots of metaphyisical misconceptions.

This ties in so much to what I've wanted to say to people but always fumbled; magic exists, but it's not how you think it is.

I love the slightly maniacal cackle that Jonathon gives when he talks about the 'voice of the United states' near the end of the video ... where he realizes that he is communicating a form of realisation that is both essentially true and yet can be taken as literally false. Really think this video hits it out of the park. For the material realist/neuroscience/new atheists a way of understanding this may be we, as a species, seem to be able to orient our attention to different levels of neuroprocessing (E.g I can see Santa Claus, the Joe who is dressed as Santa Claus, the Santa Claus as a representation of category called mall workers or mall Santa clauses or mall members of public or out of mall member of public or member of human race or member of life or member of the universe of material things. To do each of those requires a variance in brain processing which can be seen by different patterning on mri, as an example. This different patterning also facilitates and inhibits over areas of brain function which has a top down sequential change on other cellular function (tissue/organ etc) and thus they process differently and achieve different states of being. Consciously while we can cognitively differentiate or highlight or attend to aspects of experience (what I see or hear or even within the realms of sight such as colour or movement) this is always contingent upon synthesis or synasthesia (some brain parts get direct connection from multiple sensory organs). If we were to synthesize a person in a community in a world of beings in a world of animals in a world of material in a world of forces in a world of flux/interactions and encapsulated that process we could envision a unity. Some people envision this as a form of being (gods etc) and some folks don't (atheistic ultimate causation).

This is so profound to me. Wonderful video

Santa Claus dropping the gavel. Judges Angels and praying to the spirit of the United States... Thoroughly enjoy your work

Having pictures of Santa Claus, having songs about Santa Claus, and having people dress up as Santa Claus; all those things do not in the slightest, let alone "obviously," prove the existence of Santa Claus. The fact that many people imagine a being does not prove the existence of that being. Were that to be the case, then the fact that a single person imagined a being, no matter how exotic or improbable, would then constitute proof that that being "exists". The point is, the imagination can indeed conceive of beings that do not exist. You seem to reify the imagination.

Really interesting video. This was really great.

This is exactly why i convinced my wife to NOT promote Santa in our home. And if my Kids asks i will tell: Well, santa is as real as Mickey Mouse. But not real like mom and dad, or Jesus.

"Man some people are going to freak out at this!" No shit Sherlock, I think you blew a few valves.

You have justified my naive childhood in the best way.

"The Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett is a very interesting fantasy novel that approaches this argument *from* the absurd. There's even a SkyTV made-for-TV movie that wasn't too bad. An excerpt from the book to entice: “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little-" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. "They're not the same at all!" YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET-Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point-" MY POINT EXACTLY.”

Thank you for all the hard work!!

Does Tim Allen exist?

That's the best 1 min introduction yet hahaha love it

Great video! Your work is new to me. Begs the question, how wise is it to let our kids put on the persona of characters or even caricatures of evil entities at Halloween, including so called fairies, or Disney (supposedly good in some cases, but...)?

Wonderful discussion. I have a lot to think on.

It seems everything exists.

Did you just assume Santa's gender?

While I appreciate how you've laid this out, (I dig the concept of non-corporeal memes/archetypes/myths having actual physical impact here on earth) I worry about how unconstrained this explanation seems to be, and how it can essentially be applied to anything thereby effectively able to be redefined in whichever way one deems it. How might one avoid this problem?

This was quite impassioned and hit the spot. Dramatis personae et vitae!

This is brilliant. Very unique way of seeing things.

Dude... I'm so pushing you on Quantum of Conscience and Owen's Bears!

Do you have any short story, essay, poem or even quotation that explains this in short?

Not to mention Saint Nicolas was a real person

This was great, it helped my daughter understand part of a much larger concept. Thanks.

Merci 🙏 C’est beau ce que tu dis!

This reminds me of CS Lewis essay on Transposition. I guess how higher abstract medium transpositions into the lower physical medium. Something like that, lol

How is Joe doing 3 years later? Just curious? Is he still playing Santa? Did his girlfriend come back? Love your work, Johnathan. Thank you, for what you are doing.

How real, or in what form, is Jesus compared to Santa and the Tooth Fairy?

Does this explanation not have a negating effect on the Christian worldview if you are relating the way in which Santa and the tooth fairy exist to the way that God or christ exists? In this sense anything we can imagine would technically exist. Any God or character in literature or film would technically exist if we embody their characteristics. This suggests that Santa exists in the psyche, but not the physical world. Are you saying that God exists in the psyche but not the physical world? This makes the existence of God contingent on our existence.

Very interesting. A few years ago I thought the same thing you said when some "modern" parents said that the festivity of the three wise men (who in Spain play a role similar to Santa Claus) is an evil deception towards children by adults. For me it was the best holiday of the year, and this continues even after discovering the truth about the way of existing of these beings. But with the three wise men or Santa Claus is difficult (Not impossible) to turn them into something harmful. Even being a skeptical agnostic, I can see how this works and the role it plays in our lives. But I have a question: Where is the limit? What happens when we give free rein to these identities? A nation, a race, a gender, science, God or the very idea of ​​Reason have also shown their negative faces throughout history, and all can be considered entities of that type. It's easy to explain to a child that Santa Claus's way of existing is not the literality of a single bearded old man who visits every house in the world in a single night flying on a sled ... but how would you explain to an adult the inherent dangers of believing in some entities in the wrong way?

I’m now in a head spin of what constructs are and different scenarios in which they play out.

Mr. Pageau, would you say that if all human beings ceased to exist, then it would no longer be true that "God exists"?

So cool! Thank you!

Hey Jonathan. The offer still stands if you want to meet with any of the Wizards here in New Zealand. We can do this over skype or some such, to make it easier.

Thanks Martha! :)

Your idols that can neither hear, nor see, nor walk... No, Santa Clause is an idol that people make believe is seeing, hearing and walking. You can't philosophize him into being by saying the guy in the suit IS Santa Clause simply because he acts the part. Santa only exists as a construct of human imagination. He exists in people's minds and they act that out. That is the difference between God and Santa. God DOES exist and it can be proven when you experience Him personally as, for example, a response to prayer or the moving of His Spirit. Santa's "spirit" is moved by men and resides in the heart of men, manifesting from the human heart as an image (yet Santa is not an actual spirit like demons, for instance, who are disembodied souls). Don't confuse the "spirit" of an idea with an actual spirit. In contrast to Santa's spirit being moved by men, God is moved by no one. He manifested His heart in His Son, His Eikon, His Logos, who is very real and descends, extends and exists apart from God the Father. Man imposes himself on the idea, or "spirit" of Santa. God exposes Himself to man through His Son and His Spirit. Big difference. So when God says in Scripture that the Israelites were bowing to idols that can neither hear, nor see, nor walk, He is acknowledging they exist only in the minds of men. They are illusions just as Santa is, even delusions. Here is the heart of idolatry. It begins in the human heart and serves only a humanist purpose, especially if we try to impose that idea on God (golden calf - feast day unto Yahweh...). That is why anything that arises out the human heart is filthy rags to God. Only thoughts and actions which are led by His Spirit are just, worthy and good.

Brilliant video! This reminds of my favorite comic book writer Grant Morrison’s perspective on comic superheroes as well. Of course, the difference with God is He doesn’t just exist not on that level, but above it. He’s more real than we are.

So as a practical question, are you saying santa is a "spiritual" existence with a will or a purpose or more like a sort of existence that exists due to chance? Do these higher or deeper levels have a unified existence in the real world or are they what make up our social relationships in a purely non "logical" way?

To summarize - there is a world of objects and matter (phenomenon, concrete things as they present to us) and a world of ideas and meaning (noumenon - abstract things in themseves) and they both form what we call reality. The respective schools of thought are materialism and idealism and the argument is which takes precedence in forming reality. Atheists and the "modern man" is concerned with materialism and is contented with the answers science provides, regarding it as the bringer of "objective truth" or even the only truth there is. He treats science as religion while failing to acknowledge the irony and is blind to the one-sidedness and impotence of science when dealing with problems within the world of ideas and meaning.

But is there an important distinction between metaphorical entities and personhood?

Santa deniers be like "it was your mom and dad that punched Arius at the council of Nicea"

Great explanation.😀

A kid getting hyped to give her friend money on behalf of the tooth fairy is hilarious and cute

So there is a degree of existence that goes beyond the material, and influences our actions by allowing us to embody their being. So are you a Christian mainly because you believe the best embodiment for humanity is in the narrative of the story of Jesus? Would you say there is a problem with the religious people that are more concern with the material existence of Jesus and his return rather than trying to embody Jesus? I think those are the people the new atheist types are criticizing. I think this video made things a bit more clear for me. Thanks Jonathan.

I just love this brilliant video so much 💯😁

Jonathan, this whole video is brilliant and 100% matches my own views on this topic that I had come to independently before watching it. I was super distraught when I got to that certain age and other kids started saying Santa Claus didn't exist, because he so obviously does. Similarly, the worst mistake atheists make is saying “It's not literally, materially real, so it's NOT REAL!”. That's the intellectual level of a 10-year-old.

Jonathan (though you probably will not read this), I think I understand the argument, but I don't feel it does justice to the idea which the atheists, or the most convincing ones at least, are trying to get at. More precisely, I don't think you give the idea of God any kind of objective existence by this argument, which is what I feel they are arguing. In short (because arguing in YT comments is not the point in this instance), it seems to me like they argue Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy do not objectively hold power in any real sense, which you have not addressed. The idea of God or these characters, they are not the same as the-glue-of the-universe-which-would-still-exist-if-no-one-believed-in-it, which seems to be the way many if not most believers understand the divine. Am I getting you wrong? Or them?

Does anybody know the name of the music played in the beginning of the video?

So Santa is like agent Smith from the Matrix