"It's Not as Simple as You Think." A review of a quirky book in LA Weekly addresses this pressing issue, Does Santa Exist?.The book purports to examine the notion of whether Santa exists, based on a wide ranging survey of religions and religious studies ideas.
I did not read the book and I am probably not going to. The review begins as follows:
Fans of The Big Bang Theory know the character of Sheldon Cooper as a nerdy, Klingon-speaking manbot who, according to his friends, is one lab experiment away from turning into a comic book villain. He’s a theoretical physicist who has no use for human contact, feelings or sentimentality, especially around the holidays; he calls Christmas “a bunch of bologna created by the tinsel industry.” Naturally, he doesn’t believe in Santa.
So it’s no surprise that Eric Kaplan, one of the show’s writers and a co-executive producer, has written a book called Does Santa Exist?: A Philosophical Journey. The question does not have an easy answer — most kids believe, most adults don’t. And unlike his TV character, Kaplan isn’t interested in disproving the being of world’s biggest holiday symbol. Instead, he writes that like all of life’s ponderables — God, love, the self — Santa is a self-contradicting paradox that involves rationality, belief and faith. It’s complicated...
I'll just add here my agreement that it's clear - they have way more complicated stories than we do. We have a holiday based on one jar of oil that lasted longer than it should have - one time more than 2000 years ago.
They have a magical guy who comes in a flying sled with presents - every year for every child - from a workshop at the North Pole.
We may want to work on our stories.
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