Superstition

Are you superstitious?

Does Friday the 13^th give you pause?  Do you walk under ladders?  Does an itchy palm mean there is money coming?  What do you do when you break a mirror?  Which way should a horseshoe point?  Do you ever open an umbrella inside?  Do you toss salt over your shoulder or knock on wood twice?  What do you do if a black cat crosses your path?  What do you say when someone sneezes?

Tis’ the season of spooks and goblins and all the things that go bump in the night. The things we hear and cannot explain can make up suspicious. If an answer to the cause may settle our nerves and become folklore and passed down through generations.

When was the last time you walked through a graveyard at midnight in a full moon? Are you looking for zombies? Do you step softly on the graves?

Superstition is a pejorative term for any belief or practice that is considered irrational or if it arises from ignorance, a misunderstanding of science or causality, a positive belief in fate or magic, or fear of that which is unknown. “Superstition” also refers to actions arising from irrationality.

Then why do we gamble? The magic of slight of hand looks believable? Do you carry a rabbit foot for good luck? It wasn’t so lucky for the rabbit.

The word superstition is often used to refer to a religion not practiced by the majority of a given society regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains alleged superstitions. It is also commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, prophecy, and certain spiritual beings, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific unrelated prior events.

Why do we read the Farmer’s Almanac?  Is it based on science or folklore?  How about your horoscope?  Do you step on a crack?

Opposition to superstition was first recorded in ancient Greece, where philosophers such as Protagoras and the Epicureans exhibited agnosticism or aversion to religion and myths, and Plato – especially his Allegory of the Cave – and Aristotle both present their work as parts of a search for truth.

In the classical era, the existence of gods was actively debated both among philosophers and theologians, and opposition to superstition arose consequently. The poem De Rerum Natura, written by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius further developed the opposition to superstition. Cicero’s work De Natura Deorum also had a great influence on the development of the modern concept of superstition as well as the word itself. Where Cicero distinguished superstitio and religio, Lucretius used only the term religio. Cicero, for whom superstitio meant “excessive fear of the gods” wrote that “superstitio, non religio, tollenda est ”, which means that only superstition, and not religion, should be abolished. The Roman Empire also made laws condemning those who excited excessive religious fear in others.

 Repeat after me: laws condemning those who excited excessive religious fear in others. Let that sink in.

During the middle ages, the idea of God’s influence on the world’s events went mostly undisputed.

Trials by ordeal were quite frequent, even though Frederick II (1194 – 1250 AD) was the first king who explicitly outlawed trials by ordeal, as they were considered “irrational”.

Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. The test was one of life or death, and the proof of innocence was survival. In some cases, the accused was considered innocent if they escaped injury or if their injuries healed.

There was nothing like a good dunking or burning at the stake to see if you had God’s favor or not.

In medieval Europe, trial by ordeal was considered a “judgment of God” (Latin: judicium Dei): a procedure based on the premise that God would help the innocent by performing a miracle on his behalf. The practice has much earlier roots, attested to as far back as the Code of Hammurabi and the Code of Ur-Nammu.

During the Renaissance the rediscovery of lost classical works and scientific advancement led to a steadily increasing disbelief in superstition. A new, more rationalistic lens was beginning to see use in exegesis. Opposition to superstition was central to the Age of Enlightenment.

Superstition is unfounded belief, credulity, fallacy, delusion, illusion, magic, and sorcery.