Where Do Superstitious Beliefs Originate From?

I'm cursed.And a little blessed.I gotta have faith in my fully integrated good mind.God is largely absent,unless such a being is the energetic movements of matter upon which the universe turns.Atomic physics and black holes and all that kind of stuff doesn't really interest me.I just want to keep my head straight.

 

I imagine that they are learned. A group of people has something bad happen to them after they see a certain thing. Like, they see a black cat and then happen to get attacked by some wild animal. They connect the two events, and then the word is spread. Etc..

 

There were 3 packs of chicken thighs in the meat case today. Some woman was handling them. She dropped one like it was hot. I picked it up and went on my way.

I got home to cook the chicken and saw that the price sticker read $6.66.

I had a good laugh.

 

Just so you all know...i never watch any u-tube video before I put it on a thread and then watch it after it is on a thread...so i am not responsible for any content....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CFuCYNx-1g

 

hipforums labeled this post #13. couldn't they have called it 14a?

 

religious organizations, poltical motivations, and some people just liking to scare themselves and each other with scarry stories.

 

My apartment building does not have an apartment 13.

 

Apes stupid
(But I also see superstition as attempted survival on the metaphysical level.)

 

In our modern society, superstition isn't as cumbersome as it once was. We no longer have to walk around with cut off chicken heads in our pockets just to appear normal. I find superstition fun and quirky. It's fun to see black cats and avoid the 13th floor. But back in the day, when you might be eaten by a sabre toothed tiger, any failsafe to keep you from being devoured was employed. So superstition arose out of a need to control one's own destiny. And, of course, it still does to this day. However nowadays people have much more control over our fates, hence we are far less superstitious.

 

Maybe not where you live...............

 

Socialization has a huge role in shaping people's beliefs. If your entire community holds a certain superstition, you're more likely to hold it as well. When society wasn't as deeply interconnected as it is now, it was probably a lot easier for less educated communities to circulate beliefs that had no real grounding in fact.

Christianity is full of things that don't make sense, but people are more reluctant to dismiss it completely because they've been socialized to accept it as valid. It's hard to accept that a belief system that widespread could ever be completely false, which is why even PhDs in various sciences still have religious beliefs.

BF Skinner created religion in pigeons by associating certain behaviors with receiving food... the same thing applies to people. No matter how much better, smarter or more sophisticated people believe they are compared to other animals, we still depend heavily on each other for cues as to how to believe and whatever is the most commonly accepted explanation for an event is likely to be what we as individuals also believe.

It's mostly up to the scientists and politicians to shape our understanding of the world.

 

some people like to scare themselves, and then other people come along and use that to play politics.

old superstitions sometimes die. but then we are all the time inventing new ones to take their place.

every prejudice is a superstition, that plays into the hands of the politics of devide and concor.

 

Divide and conquer...i always see through that...and I am always disappointed that others don't see that is what the tactic is.....but what can I do about it? Nothing......

 

Respectfully, you are wrong You can talk about it. Discuss with people, share ideas they haven't been exposed to, or exposed to properly, or enough times. Demonstrate through actions that life without faith is not only possible, but admirable and enviable. Secular outlooks on reality are increasing rapidly, neck to neck with religious growth, and in some parts of the world overtaking it. Don't give up. Tons of secular folk will tell you that they were lost and tangled up in religion and new age spirituality before finally there was one thing that convinced them. If you are that tipping point, that breaking point, for just one person, then it will have been worth it to speak up, and show up.

 

i know how frustrating it can be when someones process of reasoning is so obviously flawed, to the degree that if there was some very simple formula that would be clearly evident that even after placing it right in front of their face they still fail to see the truthwhe. the truth is stari g them in the face! sometimes i dont know if that deep inside they really know what actually makes the most sense or if some people truly do lack development in some part of the brain essential for higher reasoning, logical and critical thinking skills.

i can understand that people below a certain age need time to fully mature, take in the world and the plethora of information and ideas in it, and process that enough to form a reasonable model of reality. i can also understand that someone growing up say before the internet, radio, television or the interstate highway system in a some tiny town or out in the backwoods of some very religious part of the country would simoly not have access to much information from the outside world, and would only be exposed to ideas from their family, and the people in their surrounding community which may be a small number of people and a homogenous culture may find no conflicts in their belief system with what they know of reality. what i cant understand is how a person of age enough to have gained some wisdom, and of reasonable intelligence can still not notice what i may refer to as "incomputable logic" in these type of beliefs ... it makes me wonder whether these people ever engage in deep thought at all or are even capable of thinking about things deeper than which fast food restaraunt to get their next meal from. these types of things stand out like a green hat with an orange bill and i struggle with understanding how some people are so blind to this.

im usually a pretty rational person, and quite analytical. i find it somewhat natural to think of things in a logical way, and believe that reality is a computable construct, and can be expressed as logical statements. if i may compare the logic of some peoples religious faith to that of the logic of a computer program, i woukd say that that type of code would definitely crash the machine because it doesnt compute. any assertions made using said logic would fail, and the program would have to halt right there or else crash and burn ... because the rules being applied to not fit the nature of the machine. reality is the same way, and some ideas make sense, and others dont. i will end this rant now and let someone else take over from here

 

Hey, he was talking to me...what is wrong with you?

and who are you throwing stones at?

 

"i will end this rant now and let someone else take over from here "



noooooooooooooooo.........

do not let anyone take over from here. It is your thread, and don't you forget it.....

 

I prefer lunch meat in my shoes. Repels evil toe suckers.

 

what is a toe sucker?

 

Not to be lazy, but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation#B_causes_A_.28reverse_causation.29

^This might account for a healthy amount of it.