Cognitive content alone cannot explain which supernatural agents become gods

Evidence

Once I read and digested Boyer’s Naturalness of Religious Ideas, I went to see Scott Atran, who was at the time visiting the University of Michigan, where I did my doctorate. There was one thing that puzzled me about Boyer’s account: if cognitive content was sufficient to explain religious beliefs, why was it that Tom and Jerry, the two beloved cartoon characters of my childhood, were not gods? After all, they seemed to have supernatural powers, such as defying gravity, surviving gruesome death, and telepathy. Where were the droves of devotees ready to sacrifice themselves for Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse? This came to be later known in cognitive science circles as the “Mickey Mouse problem.” Here is a related one that Will Gervais and Joseph Henrich call the “Zeus problem”: why can a supernatural agent with identical content and supported by exactly the same cognitive biases in one place or time be an idol of immense devotion, while in a different time or place be merely myth or fanciful tale? And then there is the “Santa Claus problem.” As the old Santa Claus song says: … By all accounts, Santa Claus is a powerful moralizing god for children. Yet, when children become adults, Santa is transformed from god to myth, although adults continue to be able to mentally represent, remember, and transmit the mythical idea of Santa Claus, mainly back to children! — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 368

Once I read and digested Boyer’s Naturalness of Religious Ideas, I went to see Scott Atran, who was at the time visiting the University of Michigan, where I did my doctorate. There was one thing that puzzled me about Boyer’s account: if cognitive content was sufficient to explain religious beliefs, why was it that Tom and Jerry, the two beloved cartoon characters of my childhood, were not gods? After all, they seemed to have supernatural powers, such as defying gravity, surviving gruesome death, and telepathy. Where were the droves of devotees ready to sacrifice themselves for Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse? This came to be later known in cognitive science circles as the “Mickey Mouse problem.” Here is a related one that Will Gervais and Joseph Henrich call the “Zeus problem”: why can a supernatural agent with identical content and supported by exactly the same cognitive biases in one place or time be an idol of immense devotion, while in a different time or place be merely myth or fanciful tale? — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 368

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names and defines the ‘Mickey Mouse problem,’ ‘Zeus problem,’ and ‘Santa Claus problem’ as three versions of a single puzzle in the cognitive science of religion.
• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s stated purpose — the Zeus/Santa puzzle is the same question behind Father Rodrigues’s god being a devotional idol in Japan but merely a mythic figure elsewhere; the ‘social proof’ answer grounds the Big God mechanism.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 368