Superstitions

[Vulcan59]

It's truly amazing how many people believe in superstitions. I heard this one last night; if someone hears an owl hoot it means that someone in the vicinity has died or going to die. Doing a search, I came across a whole plethora of these superstitions. Below are some:-

Friday the 13th is an unlucky day or the number 13.
I am not sure of this one. When I joined the airforce, I was issued with my own flying helmet and every time I had to go fly, I had to wear it. I had to go to a storeroom where each individual helmet was stored and pick it up as well as a floatation device among other things. There was a lady there that ticked off the items that we took out of that room and she usually cleaned them up and placed them back into their proper slots once we returned.

So this went on for some years and one day this lady looks at me and asked why I did not pick items that had the number 13 on them. So I simply stated that geezs, you know, why take the chance or something similar. She then told me to look inside my helmet under the lining. Yep you guess right, it was number 13!!! From then on, it didn't bother me any more.

If you walk under a ladder, you will have bad luck
Really? Has anyone tried it?

If a black cat crosses your path you will have bad luck.
Really? In the first Matrix, Neo's see this black cat not once but twice and of course that was bad luck.

To break a mirror will bring you seven years bad luck.
Geezs, I've broken mirrors a few times.

Eating fish makes you smart.
With the mercury contents in them these days, I am not sure of this one.

Crossing your fingers helps to avoid bad luck and helps a wish come true.
So that's why people cross their fingers, is it?

Beating a person with a broom will rain bad luck upon that person for years.
The person getting beaten would surely think so but perhaps not for years?

I could go on and on listing these "old wives" tales so to speak. Any thoughts? :)

 

[Mjolnir]

Talking about it, there's another ones that say:

-"Opening a parachute inside your home, will give you bad luck".
-"If you see a shooting star, ask for a wish". (In some years you'll have a lot of them. Make sure to write down those wishes! -joke-)

About the glasses and the ladder... I would be suffering almost 4903849023894023 years of bad luck.

 

[Nicholas]

Well, I like the song "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder. :)

I found in Wikipedia:

In keeping with the Latin etymology of the word, religious believers have often seen other religions as superstition. Likewise, atheists and agnostics may regard any religious belief as superstition.

Religious practices are most likely to be labeled "superstitious" by outsiders when they include belief in extraordinary events (miracles), an afterlife, supernatural interventions, apparitions or the efficacy of prayer, charms, incantations, the meaningfulness of omens, and prognostications.

Greek and Roman pagans, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. "Such fear of the gods (deisidaimonia) was what the Romans meant by 'superstition' (Veyne 1987, p 211). For Christians just such fears might be worn proudly as a name: Desdemona.

The Roman Catholic Church considers superstition to be sinful in the sense that it denotes a lack of trust in the divine providence of God and, as such, is a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110).

The Catechism clearly dispels commonly held preconceptions or misunderstandings about Catholic doctrine relating to superstitious practices:

Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23:16-22 (para. #2111)

Some superstitions originated as religious practices that continued to be observed by people who no longer adhere to the religion that gave birth to the practice. Often the practices lost their original meaning in this process. In other cases, the practices are adapted to the current religion of the practicer. As an example, during the Christianizing of Europe, pagan symbols to ward off evil were replaced with the Christian cross.

 

[Vulcan59]

Well I can understand some of the religious ones and perhaps they should be laid out to pasture so to speak. But many others are just so bizarre. Here is a website that actually lists them.

Ambulance - Seeing an ambulance is very unlucky unless you pinch your nose or hold your breath until you see a black or a brown dog.
You might be holding you breath for long time!!! :O


If you jump up and down after sex, you wont' get pregnant!
So simple. Who needs contraceptives?


Hard to imagine that people really believe in these.

 

[Mjolnir]

Hard to imagine that people really believe in these.

But it usually happens! I remember the local news. They did a special note about nightclubs, when they interviewed some girls. Those girls said that "We wouldn't get HIV if they drink a pill before that when we have sex with boys". My, at that momment, reaction cannot be described, instead, I will use this picture:

See this one:

If your nose itches you will soon be kissed by a fool.
I can say that when you get some kind of flu, you'll be condemned...