High profile superstitions

[Tiassa]

For many, there is a clear distinction between superstition and religion; just don't ask them to explain it. Often, the answer you will get reduces to a fundamental argument that is as old as human association itself: what is mine is legitimate, what is theirs is not. In other words, "our" superstitions are religion, while "their" superstitions are mere superstitions.

The underlying theme, of course, is that one's own faith is knowledge, and another's faith is ignorance.

The BBC reports on the town of Reeves, Louisiana:

Christian residents of Reeves have been complaining since the early 1960s about being given the prefix, 666 - known in the Bible as the "number of the beast".

For the next three months, households will be able to change the first three digits of their phone numbers to 749.

Mayor Scott Walker said CenturyTel's decision was "divine intervention".

However, he admitted it helped that Louisiana's two senators had also lobbied for the change with the phone company and the state Public Service Commission.

"It's been a black eye for our town, a stigma," he said.

"I don't think it's anything bad on us, just an image," he added. "We're good Christian people."

(BBC News)

While I agree with Mayor Walker that the telephone prefix doesn't say anything bad about folks in Reeves, I think the superstition does. And let's be clear, when it gets to the point that you're afraid of your telephone, it qualifies as a superstition. This reminds me of a Seinfeld episode, except reality is even more stupid.

And it is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if the rapture has already occurred, and the Christians we live among just don't realize they've been left behind.

 

[Dinosaur]

The following are the differences I notice when comparing religious beliefs to superstitions.

• Most superstions do not involve belief in a diety.
  
  
• Most superstions (walk under a ladder, a black cat crosses your path, 7 years of bad luck for breaking a mirror, et cetera) imply some immediate or soon to happen bad events. Most Religions promise the bad events after you die.
  
  
• Most superstitions promise something bad; Few promise something good. Religion promises Heaven as well as Hell.

I suppose there are other differences, but the above are the ones I notice most.

Compared to science & mathematics, relgious beliefs and superstition are quite simiilar. Neither religious beliefs nor superstitious beliefs pay much attention to logical consistency. While neither science nor mathematics provide absolute proofs, both do a good job of establishing very self consistent belief systems, which seem to be supported by objective observation of the world of our senses and the world shown by various measurment technoliogies.

Religion & superstition are willy-nilly belief systems ignoring logic, self consistency, and supporting evidence from objective analysis of the world we live in.