 So Christmas, what an amazing, really amazing holiday. It took me a while, I think, when it emigrated to the United States to kind of get a handle on Christmas. It's not an easy, I think, holiday to really grasp when you're a foreigner, because it's got this obvious Christian connotation, which is, well, for me, it was off-putting, right? So it's got this whole notion of this is a Christian holiday, this is a celebration of Jesus. Jesus, I'm not a big fan of Jesus. So it took me a while to get that in America, and I think now in most the modern world, Christmas has been, in a sense, in many regards, divorced from Christianity. And Christmas is a holiday that celebrates just goodwill between people and cheerfulness and happiness and benevolence, right? This general sense, benevolence being just general sense of goodwill towards other people. The general idea in this context, that other people are valued to you or can be valued to you, and many of them are valued to you. It's a very materialistic holiday, which is kind of cool and secular and very non-Christian. It's, there's almost, I mean, here and there, you see like one of these scenes with Jesus and, I don't know, and, but it's not, that's not the focus. The focus of the holiday is tree, Christmas trees, with lots of lights, lots of lights, and the colorful stuff. And different people have different traditions around what should be on a Christmas tree. But there's Christmas trees and different public spaces and the Christmas trees in different, you know, in the mall, there's, of course, Christmas trees in people's homes, and they often put them next to the windows so you get the lights out, sharing that light and celebration with people around. And it's not just Christmas trees, there's decoration. And the decoration all have to do with lights, with fun stuff, I guess. For some of you, Christmas is cold. You know, it's been a long, long time since I had a cold Christmas. For me, Christmas is warm. It's associated with sunshine. It's, God, I'm sure I've had white Christmas, it was probably when I lived in Boston, but that's more than 40 years ago. I can't remember, maybe we went on vacation to like ski resorts on Christmas, so maybe I've had a white Christmas. But mostly it's warm, it's lights, presents, decoration, lots of food, good food. And often getting together with friends, hanging out, for many of you, I'm sure it's getting together with family. Hopefully you like your family. That is kind of a prerequisite for having a good Christmas is to get together with people you actually like. I encourage you to do that, by the way. If you're getting together with people you don't really like, then don't do it. That sounds like a sacrifice. Right. It's, in that sense, the whole idea of a tree is very much a, not a very Christian thing. Again, the tree is more of a pagan thing. It was a celebration of the evergreen of the survival of life, of the continuation of life, in spite of the horrors of, I don't know, northern European winters. And you celebrate the fact that they are still green. They're still life, in spite of the horrors outside. But Christmas, in terms of the season that it's celebrated in, in terms of many of the customs that go back hundreds of years, is very much one of these holidays that the Christians stole from the pagans, and originally from pagans in Rome, but then they picked up different habits from different pagans and different parts of Europe. And Christmas is really, I mean, Jesus wasn't necessarily born now, I think. Well, anyway, there's no proof he was born during this month. It's much more about, you know, this is, this is the beginning of the winter. And there are celebrations to our pagan, the pagan world around the beginning of winter. They are, much of how we celebrate Christmas today is a creation of 19th century capitalism in the United States. The Santa Claus, Mickey and B.D. a lot of Santa Claus, the gift giving, but including the lights and all of that, it was very much our marketing tool to sell stuff and to get people's attention and to bring them into the store. And to this day, right, there's a Santa in the mall and you take your kids to get a picture with Santa and there are lots of lights. And of course, there's sales. And the sales continue from Thanksgiving all the way to Christmas. And we all do, or most of us, do shopping during this period, not just to buy gifts, but also for ourselves. So it really is a season of celebration, of benevolence, of lights, of commercial enterprise, of buying stuff, of materialism, in that sense, of just a good time. Parties and lots of food. And on top of that, if you will, the spiritual element of Christmas is not a spiritual element of Christmas is not the element of Christmas that's Christian. It's not about sacrifice and humility and penance and all of that. Really, the spiritual element of Christmas, the spiritual dimension of Christmas has really become this appreciation of a friendship, appreciation of family that you love. It's an appreciation of other people. The spiritual side of it is the spiritual side of camaraderie, friendship, love, and being able to be together with people that you love during the season. And that, of course, is all, mostly, a spiritual pleasure. And it's, again, it's very secular. It's, in that sense, very rational. It's focused on your values. It's very egoistic in the sense that people go out there and they buy stuff for themselves. They buy stuff they like, or they buy stuff for people they like, people they love, people they care about. And so here's a holiday that's celebratory, focused on joy, and focused on other people and the value other people represent to you, the value other people represent in your life, and focused on both spiritual and material well-being. Jonathan, thank you for the support. Jonathan, who did a fantastic show with me, was it two nights ago? Two days ago? Yeah, just about pets. So if you're interested at all in the value of pets and in kind of an objective perspective on the value of pets, Jonathan recounted many stories from his book, which is available now. Make a Great Christmas Present. Maybe already a New Year's Present. I'm not sure if it'll write by Christmas, but you can get it. Although you can get it run on a Kindle, you can buy yourself a present or download the audio. Although I recommend the hard copy because it's got lots of fantastic, lots of fantastic photos of Ein Rand with her cats, of Linda Peacock with his dogs, particularly Kiki, the dog that passed away. I think it's not a couple of years ago. And some essays by Linda Peacock and some quotations from Ein Rand. So a fantastic book, fantastic gift, and you should all go back and listen to the episode I did with Jonathan where we discussed this. And what you get is also Jonathan's excitement and passion for his own dog that he has now and dogs that he had in his past, all the way back to his childhood. So that was a fun, benevolent show. All right, so let's see. John says, there was no sun god, there was no sun god, 1225 holidays until the Phoenician calendar of 354. This was after the Christians started celebrating 1225 as Jesus' birth. I have no comment, but 1225 by all historical accounts is not when Jesus was born. But there are lots of other pagans, and it's not that the particular date is what matters, it's a particular season, just like Easter happens to be in the same season that you have, you know, Christmas happens to be in the exact same season as the Jews of Hanukkah, and Easter happens to be in the same season as the Jews and the pagans celebrate the beginning of the spring. And, you know, it's not a coincidence. These are holidays that mankind, these are periods of time, the beginning of winter, the beginning of the spring. These are holidays that mankind is always celebrated and the Christians, they're piggybacked off of it, and that's not a slam on Christianity. They probably had no clue when Jesus was born. They had to pick a date. They picked a date when other people were in about the same area where other people are celebrating as well. You know, where they were used to celebrating, after all, the first Christians were Jews. And as a consequence, it was easy to pick a date that also coincided with holidays that they had been, that were celebrated in Judaism. So, I don't know what particular pagans they tooks us from. I'm sure the historians, I'm sure the historians can debate this and figure this out, but I have no idea. But there's no question, things like Santa Claus are not Christian. The things like a Christmas tree is not Christian. The things like putting lights up and decorations were not Christian. Indeed, Christian tradition, in terms of celebrating Christians, is much more solemn and much more reflective and much more, you know, much more focused than Jesus. And Christians, for the most part, the more Christian Christians have objected to the kind of commercialization and what do you call it, a conversion of Christianity into something that is celebratory, celebratory not just of Jesus, but of life and something that is form or, again, commercial and secular. The Christians are offended by that and they still are to this day. I mean, regularly what you get is all Christmas, it needs to be less commercial. We need to focus more on. We need to go to church. We need to do this. It doesn't work because Americans still love the holiday for what it is. Too much for that to actually happen. All right, Jonathan, thank you. As I said, Willa, thank you. Willa's done two. Jonathan did two. Willa did two. Stickers and Apollo. Sticker, thank you, John, for the super chat. Jason, that's not on topic. We'll get to that later. That's way off, way, way off topic. So, yeah, and I think you see some of the best of Americans since of life to your Christmas. I think people are just more joyful. Christmas movies tend to be very joyous movies. They tend to emphasize again the positive and the benevolence. And again, the kind of friendliness towards other people, which I think is generally prevalent in American society anywhere, American society is a pretty benevolent society. And I think it comes from being free, from being a free society and a kind of a tradition, a freedom that kind of got embedded into the sense of life. But then in Christmas, everybody makes an added effort for the sake of Christmas. Andrew says, benevolence can be tough for objectivists who feel against the world and the realm of ideas. Yet in reason, there are many opportunities for social benevolence. How can objectivists avoid feeling opposed to others? Well, I mean, I don't feel opposed to others. It's like, I know that objectivists do, but I don't. Because I don't, I mean, too much of people's lives are focused on other people's politics and how they, you know, and we all know the consequence of those politics are terrible. But I prefer to focus on something which I think is more fundamental to my relationship with people and to the fact that there's very little I can do about their politics. And also, I also know where the politics come from. That is, the politics are not the beginning. And they're not the beginning of somebody's intellectual path. They're not the decision they make, oh, I want to be a luda. You know, they come from ideas. And I realize that to change ideas is going to take a long time. In the meantime, people's politics are going to be pretty crummy. And yes, they vote for horrible candidates that then I have to live with. And that pisses me off. So I could walk around being pissed off at humanity all day long. But I'd rather focus on the fact that most of the people out there are productive. Most of people out there are doing productive things. And that productive activity actually benefits me directly and indirectly, directly the people who I buy stuff from, who I engage with in a commercial value for value transactions, but who benefit my life directly. And isn't it interesting in America? And I don't think this exists elsewhere, quite to the same extent. That even when you buy something and buying is you're giving up something, you're getting something, but you know that the party is better off, right? They made a profit. You made a profit. You still say thank you, which is an expression of the fact that I'm better off, and I appreciate that. And yeah, I know you're a better off too, but thank you. Thank you for making me better off. I appreciate that. And they, of course, say thank you actually because it is a win-win trading relationship. And the more win-win, and you should view the human beings around you in the context of there is an ongoing trade win-win relationship that is ongoing. Now, it's subverted in politics. And we always have to keep that in mind. But at the end of the day, most people out there are traders, still. And as such, I benefit from them. And I'm particularly thankful to the people who I trade with during this time of year. I don't know. I leave bigger tips. I emphasize the thank yous a little bit more, and so on. During Christmas, but I think if you're benevolent, you do that all your own. So I think that's where a lot of people make an error is that the head is stuck in politics, but it's broader than that. So let me try to broaden that a little bit. It's not just that it's political. People's head is stuck in all the negatives that are happening, right? Right now, there's a sense in which today it's difficult for me to talk about Christmas and benevolence and being happy and charitable and appreciating other human beings and all of that. While, at the same time, there are soldiers fighting in Gaza right now and getting killed and dying. And while the dictators and the horrible people in the world are gaining the upper hand in various sections of the world. And while our world is filled of people who are super weak in defending the values of Christmas, the values that they should, Jason reminds us it's a day of mourning in the Czech Republic right now, because God, just the insanity of what happened there the other day, and we know that's happened in the US, on occasion, the sheer existence of people like that sick, crazy nihilist who shot up those people in the Czech Republic, it's easier to focus on all those things. And you've got to focus on them periodically, and you've got to focus on them sometimes, and you've got to acknowledge them, figure them out, and at the same time, deal with them. You've got to figure it out. You've got to deal with them. You've got to handle them both in your own mind and to the extent that you can act in the world out there to change them. You've got to go out there and make changes, and you've got to deal with them. And a lot of what we do in the Iran book show and a lot of what we do as human beings during the year is deal with those things. Deal with the horrors. So it's easy to continue and to spend one more day on that. And it's also good to spend some time, generally, in life all year, but then maybe focus a little bit more during this part of the year and during this season on a benevolent interpretation or the benevolent part or the good part of what's going on in the world. It is still true that particularly if you live in America and particularly if you live in parts of Western Europe, even in the Czech Republic, because horrible is what happened the other day there is, it is still true that we live in, if not materially, the best time ever in all of human history to be alive, and in many other ways, one of the best, if not the best time to be alive. It's still an amazing time. It's still true that with 8 billion people on the planet Earth, the amount of good things that happen every day far exceeds the number of horrors that are happening. The fact is that, again, most people out there are, what do you call it, productive, producing, creating, building, making stuff, making stuff. So yeah, it is a good time of year to stop, to get away from the news, to get away from politics, to get away from that malevolence that might have crept into your mind, to get away from the BS that's happening, and to get away from your problems and your concerns and your angsts, and focus a little bit on the good in your life. Focus a little bit on how wonderful it is to be alive and how wonderful it is that the world is the good parts of it, all the way they are, and how amazing it is. And yes, we'd like to be freer, but we're freer than people of almost freer. It's one of the freest period in all of human history, particularly if you're a woman, let's say, particularly if you're a member of certain minorities, it's the freest you've ever been, and you have more opportunities than you ever have. Yes, the constraints, the restrictions when we're moving in the wrong direction, the bad people out there, they're gaining in up at hand. You've got the rest of the year to think about that. Don't think about it now. Spend some time and maybe get into the habit, the mental habit of not focusing in on how bad things are constantly and get into that mental habit, into a habit of focusing on what's good in the life around you and what's positive. And focus on the people who do good things, right? Good things to you, the people who create and build and make and create the world as we know it and have made your life better. Focus on those. Focus on your friends, focus on your loved ones, and focus on the productive out there in the world, right? John wants to pick a fight. He's not going to let this go. Name a single recent historian who thinks Christians settled on 1225 Jesus' birth because of Saturnalia or Sol Invictus. And he names three historians. I have none. Why is a recent historian better than a less recent historian? I mean, one of the phenomenons of recent history is that all the Christian apologists out there trying to tell us that the dark ages were good times. They weren't dark at all. So I'm a little suspicious of modern historians, particularly ones who specialize in Christianity. I just read Dominion. It does not engender me with a lot of confidence in people's ability to evaluate the history of Christianity well. But no, I don't know. I'd have to go and do some research. But everything I know about Christianity is it's got some real innovation. And much of else, it's second-handed. It's a religion that picked up a lot of different things from the culture around it, which is not surprising. I'm not condemning it for that. And I'm very skeptical that any historian can actually figure out the day that Jesus was born. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Dominion was not written by a Christian, but they have a hard time with Christianity. They want and struggle to defend it. Anyway, I'll have to do my history research to figure out when Christmas was. But Christianity throughout its history has taken from other cultures. I'll have to find the historical book that talked about this that I read. But yeah, I mean, it makes complete sense that it would.