Santa Claus and Nicolas Copernicus: self knowledge leading to destruction of personal beliefs.

Almost every child I know has at some point in there life affirmed their belief in Santa Claus and claimed he does, in fact, exist. I was no different and Santa Claus, to me, was an essential part of my growing years. Every December, I would clean my room, eat all my food, do all my work and try my level best to be ‘good.’ And all this for what? A gift from Santa Claus. Till I was the age of 5, I could not have ever imagined the possibility of there being no Santa Claus. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. It was impossible. I wasn’t particularly bright either. If I was, I would have probably noticed that whether I was ‘good’ or not, the gifts came and whether I was at home, or on vacation, Santa somehow always knew where I was and sent the gifts right there. Looking back at all this now, makes me feel stupid. But it is true, it never struck me that Santa was probably a myth.
When I was 6, my elder sister told me there was no Santa. I responded with denial. I couldn’t believe it at first. But then things began falling in place and the more closely I looked at the Santa issue, the more I realized that there indeed was no Santa. It was humanly impossible to deliver gifts to all the kids in the world, all in the same night. It was unreal to have a body double at every other departmental store, function or Christmas party. It was strange that the gift I told my parents I wanted was the one that Santa gave to me. Everything, for once, seemed true.
This destruction of belief in Santa came about due to the knowledge I obtained from my sister and it was further confirmed with me reasoning things out in my head. A very similar and monumental destruction of belief was in the early years of the 16th century, when Nicolas Copernicus discovered that the earth was not the centre of the universe. He said that the earth does rotate and by noticing the movements of two particular stars in the night sky (which were actually the planets- Mercury and Venus) he said that the earth was not at the centre of the universe. This came as a great shock to the society then and it went against the views of the church which believed that the earth was at the centre. It can be said that Nicolas Copernicus displaced the earth from the centre. He shook everybody with his opinion and explanation. It was such a strong destruction of belief (similar to mine of the existence of Santa) that it was met with a strong denial. No one accepted this fact till much later.
Thus Copernicus’ findings and discovery prove wrong the belief of the entire society that the earth was at the centre. At a much smaller level, each child’s discovery (through people around him, reasoning or whatever else) of the non-existence of a Santa Claus can be compared to Copernicus’ theory. It often is self knowledge and ability to reason rationally that enables people to move away from their often misguided beliefs. Be it something as large as what lies at the centre of the universe, or whether there is a Santa Claus.

My Santa Claus= Copernicus’s Revolving Sun?

Apart from the fact that they shared the same name i.e. Nicholas (albeit with different spellings), both Copernicus and Santa Claus seemed to evoke quite a few similar ideas. It might seem amazing to some, how two such different people would have something in common, yet a pattern can be identified relating the two men.

When I was younger, I believed in Santa Claus, a jolly old man living at the North Pole, leaving the comforts of his fantastic workshop only once a year, on Christmas, to bring all us children gifts that had been craftily made by his elves at his workshop. Every morning on the 25th of December, I would get out my bed and walk over to the Christmas tree to search for my presents. Three things confirmed my belief in Santa Claus. The first was that my parents had told me, and read me stories about him, exemplifying knowledge through authority, or people who I trusted. The second was the disappearance of the cookies and milk I always left out for Santa, believing he must be tired and hungry after his journey. Whenever I woke up, they were gone, suggesting that someone had eaten them. My belief, that Santa was too powerful for someone else to eat his food, provided the base for my reasoning, leaving no space for doubts. Finally, Santa always got me what I asked for, regardless of what it may have been. Looking back, this might have been because my demands were too modest, and easy to satisfy, maybe because my parents always ‘advised’ me on what I should ask for, Santa not liking greedy children.

The first traces of doubt appeared in my mind when one year the gifts were wrapped in paper from a local store. This was furthered when I saw my driver carrying the presents up into my parents’ room. My brother fuelled my speculation, by telling me Santa did not exist, prompting me to stage a ‘stake out’ to catch the imposter in the act. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t as shocked as one might’ve imagined when I caught my mom tiptoeing down the stairs to begin placing the gifts under the tree. One quick confrontation later, I knew the truth and all my doubts about Santa Clause (or his existence) had been dispelled. Unwilling to let go of the idea that his entire existence had been fabricated, I started to do research about him, trying to trace his roots. My findings were most interesting, as I came to know of the existence of a Saint Nicholas, who used to give money to the poor. The tradition stemmed from his existence, and I found that further reports of a Sinter Klaas (the Dutch version of Santa Claus), actually existed, a thin man who visited orphanages and children’s homes, giving each child some fruit or food. With the amalgamation of these two stories Santa Claus was born, along with the stories of Christmas candies and Christmas being a special day for children specifically, without its religious connotations.

Copernicus found himself in a similar situation, well before I existed. While the rest of the world proclaimed that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that all the celestial bodies revolved around the sun, Copernicus used his naked eye and observed the orbital of the other planets. Like the Santa Claus theory, people had observed the sun rising and setting on two different sides of the earth prompting them to believe that the sun revolved around the earth. Like me believing my parents when they told me about the existence of Santa Claus, people believed the Pope and the Church when they said that it is in fact the sun that revolves around the earth. Despite the Church’s obvious dismissal of his ideas, Copernicus persevered to prove his theory, and continued countering Aristotle’s.

Years later, when Galileo used his telescope to prove the same, the Church once again rejected the proposal, misleading the masses. Despite several threats from the Church, Galileo continued to further this research, until he finally succeeded against all odds, having the support of enough empirical evidence, as well as reason and logic, thus making Copernicus’s theory hard to disprove, until the Church, again like my parents, finally had to declare that they had, in fact, been wrong and succeeded in misleading so many people. We can therefore see between the two situations, a common thread on the basis of which a belief was first formed, and then shattered by the truth tests, namely coherence and correspondence. Knowing what I knew about the wrapping paper, and the existence of the local department store I was able to judge the red herring in the situation. Similarly, knowing what Copernicus knew about the planets’ movement, and by his careful observation, he was able to recognize the Church’s error, and find a way of rectifying it. The two parallels drawn between these situations indicate the necessity of one to be a thinking and logical individual, whether we set out to prove the existence of Santa Claus, or shake the fundamentals of astronomy.

Comparison of the beliefs of Copernicus and my belief in Santa

Comparison of the beliefs of Nicolas Copernicus and my belief in Santa Claus.

In my childhood, I had a firm belief that Santa Claus existed. Every year on Christmas Eve, I would hang a sock in the living room (even though there was no Christmas tree) and go to sleep convinced that the next day I would wake up to find Santa’s gifts. And indeed the gifts would be there the next day, waiting to be opened by me. For all I cared, Santa Claus was very much alive and walking this earth. And why not? Throughout the day I would see Santa in shops, and this reaffirmed my belief.
Since we continuously shifted from city to city, one strange fact I started noticing since I was around 7 years old was that Santa Claus’ appearance changed from city to city. I could clearly make out the difference by looking at past photos. In fact, even in the same city there would be a distinctly different Santa from shop to shop. Doubts began to creep into my mind. At the age of eight I was in two minds, and by the time I was 9 years old I felt certain that Santa Claus was in fact a myth (I was also supported by a large number of my friends in this claim). That was the time when I told my parents with complete commitment that Santa Claus didn’t exist, and they congratulated me on having made this ‘path-breaking’ discovery.
In short, I used the following ways of knowing to arrive at this conclusion: reason and language.
Moving on to the great astronomer Nicolas Copernicus. Born at a time (15th century) when it was widely believed that the earth was the centre of the universe (Aristotle’s theory), Copernicus proved through careful observation that the truth lay elsewhere. He noticed that all the heavenly bodies that could be seen with the naked eye followed a circular path….. except Mercury and Venus. These two planets followed a zig-zag path. On further analysis he found that this could be possible only if they moved around the Sun. This conclusion was in stark contrast to the idea propogated by the Church. He further expanded the theory to state that the now obvious fact that the earth also revolved around the Sun, and the Earth was not the centre of the universe.
Copernicus’ allegation was deemed preposterous by the Church. Galileo later invented the telescope and was able to study this theory in greater depth. His findings also led him to the same conclusion. However, when he tried to bring this to the attention of the Church he was forced to retract his statement by the church. Galileo is very famously supposed to have said to the Pope that he was in fact mistaken. His quick thinking saved his life. However, in the years to come this theory was again proved to be correct. It is now hailed as one of the greatest astronomical discoveries.
Thus, Copernicus gathered empirical evidence and proved Aristotle’s theory wrong. Similarly, in my small way, I proved that the story of Santa Claus was in fact a legend. Copernicus’ task was magnified by the firm stand of the Church. He worked against popular public opinion which was prevalent then, and also did not have the luxury of a telescope. Comparatively, for children, finding the truth behind Santa is an infinitesimal task, yet it proves that there is a little bit of Copernicus in all of us.

5 things i am certain about

Things i am certain about
1. The world isnt flat its round
2. The presence of gravity keeps on the ground
3. There are 7 days in a week, 365 days in a year, which is the time it takes the earth to go around the sun once
4. Every person has a different fingerprint
5. There are infinite numbers, there is no limit to what a number can be