Would you describe yourself as superstitious?

[Arch]

I like inventing new superstitions...
today's one is:
Never look at bricks on a Wednesday.

Bugger, we dismantled a chimney today.

 

[Peteaud]

Most of the wars are over superstition, some may call it religion. Still talking and praying to something no one has eve seen.

 

[laurence]

yes.


wait, sorry, thought it said superfluous

 

[classic33]

Covering you mouth when yawning isn't superstition. It is manners. The stink of yawny-breath is awful, so keeping it away from other people is just being polite.

Mike

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yawn Culture.
"Some cultures lend yawning spiritual significance. An open mouth has been associated with letting good immaterial things (such as the soul) escape or letting bad ones (evil spirits) enter, and yawning may have been thought to increase these risks. Covering the mouth when yawning may have been a way to prevent such transmission. Exorcists believe that yawning can indicate that a demon or possessive spirit is leaving its human host during the course of an exorcism. Superstitions regarding the act of yawning may have arisen from concerns over public health. Polydore Vergil (c. 1470–1555), in his De Rerum Inventoribus, writes that it was customary to make the Sign of the Cross over one's mouth, since "alike deadly plague was sometime in yawning, wherefore men used to fence themselves with the sign of the cross...which custom we retain at this day.""

 

[theclaud]

I had an Aunt who wouldn't allow a wooden elephant with the tusk hanging down anywhere near her house.

Well, you can't be too careful.

 

[swee'pea99]

Bugger, we dismantled a chimney today.

Was it hard work? I ask because I have an old chimney that needs removing and I've been wondering whether it's the kind of thing you could handle yourself with a cold chisel and a big hammer, or whether it's really hard work/takes a degree of expertise.

 

[John the Canuck]

just thinking - seems always been a ''7'' for me somewhere...

raised at #27
left school at 17
apartment in Vancouver was #702
married on 17th
our house was #735
my Jaguar was NAF 127
wife's MG-TC was NTJ 127
our MGB-GT was NEA 472
[ all random - not selected]
divorced in 1970s
bought a townhouse #6371
back to UK, lived at #7 Drummonds
parents left me #7 in Talybont, wales
moved north to #7 Hall Close
taxi plate was 1097
taxi badge was 357
retired in my 70s

... maybe should buy a lotto ticket tomorrow the 27th..?..........................

 

[MikeG]

just thinking - seems always been a ''7'' for me somewhere.........

Confirmation bias, and many other logical fallacies. "All random and not selected" is just not the case. You have sought out every possible example of a number 7 in your life that you can think of, but you don't list any of the multitude of times when significant events happened which didn't involve 7. Anybody and everybody can do this with any number you care to think of.

 

[Custom24]

Interesting question. How people reply will perhaps depend on how they look at the thing they do or believe.

I would say that touching wood, lucky numbers, horoscopes, ghosts and after life can all be lumped in with more nonsense like Christianity and basically all religion. It is all made up beliefs with no foundation with the threat/carrot of upsetting or being on the good side of some imaginary power.

So someone may tick "no" who does not believe horoscopes but does believe in God.



The only thing that gets (wrongly) classed as superstition is walking under a ladder. Surely that is a basic safety thing.

Interesting answer.

I was tempted to reply that superstition is different from religion in that the former is a weaker belief, i.e. the "believer" doesn't really believe in the superstition, but plays along with it anyway.

But I'm pretty sure there is no such distinction in reality. Religion is just organised superstition, and many/most "believers" of religion have a belief which is actually quite weak and vague.

As other examples of superstition which are also safety or common sense based;

Breaking mirrors
Opening umbrellas indoors

Although of course in reality these are just things best avoided, rather than things likely to bring bad luck.

I remember once a friend, who is a horse whisperer (which I always found quite mystical), did what turned out in the end to be a parlour trick which was pretty impressive and because I was drunk, I couldn't figure it out. At that point in my life, I was going out with a girl who was into all sorts of crystals and nonsense. For a few months, I tried to be more open minded about
these things, thinking that maybe this horse whispering friend might have some ability or gift, even though in the back of my mind I knew it wasn't true.

When eventually I discovered that it was just a parlour trick, I was a little embarrassed, and ever since then the scientific cynic in me has been in charge, thankfully.

Although his horse whispering abilities are well respected (he's actually a horse behavioural specialist), his paranormal powers were just horseshit.

 

[Over The Hill]

just thinking - seems always been a ''7'' for me somewhere...

raised at #27
left school at 17
apartment in Vancouver was #702
married on 17th
our house was #735
my Jaguar was NAF 127
wife's MG-TC was NTJ 127
our MGB-GT was NEA 472
[ all random - not selected]
divorced in 1970s
bought a townhouse #6371
back to UK, lived at #7 Drummonds
parents left me #7 in Talybont, wales
moved north to #7 Hall Close
taxi plate was 1097
taxi badge was 357
retired in my 70s

... maybe should buy a lotto ticket tomorrow the 27th..?..........................

Amazing! More than 10% of numbers have a 7 in them (more digits = more chance).

My birthday is on the 8th and once I was 8 years old on that day and had 8 candles on my cake. What are the chances of that happening!!

 

[MikeG]

Amazing! More than 10% of numbers have a 7 in them (more digits = more chance).....

19% of all 1 and 2 digit numbers, for example.

 

[Over The Hill]

Interesting answer.

I was tempted to reply that superstition is different from religion in that the former is a weaker belief, i.e. the "believer" doesn't really believe in the superstition, but plays along with it anyway.

But I'm pretty sure there is no such distinction in reality. Religion is just organised superstition, and many/most "believers" of religion have a belief which is actually quite weak and vague.

As other examples of superstition which are also safety or common sense based;

Breaking mirrors
Opening umbrellas indoors

Although of course in reality these are just things best avoided, rather than things likely to bring bad luck.

I remember once a friend, who is a horse whisperer (which I always found quite mystical), did what turned out in the end to be a parlour trick which was pretty impressive and because I was drunk, I couldn't figure it out. At that point in my life, I was going out with a girl who was into all sorts of crystals and nonsense. For a few months, I tried to be more open minded about
these things, thinking that maybe this horse whispering friend might have some ability or gift, even though in the back of my mind I knew it wasn't true.

When eventually I discovered that it was just a parlour trick, I was a little embarrassed, and ever since then the scientific cynic in me has been in charge, thankfully.

Although his horse whispering abilities are well respected (he's actually a horse behavioural specialist), his paranormal powers were just horses***.

It got lots of likes but not much dispute. I did expect a bit of flack on the point. In an odd way "lucky" or "unlucky" things may actually work in same way as a placebo. Just the belief in it may make the outcome go the way it is expected.

It is a bit odd lumping religious belief in with superstitions but the tricky thing is knowing how to split the two apart.

 

[classic33]

@John the Canuck, do you work for Boeing by any chance?

 

[Over The Hill]

19% of all 1 and 2 digit numbers, for example.

I could not work it out past one digit but knew it went up with each digit added.
I could not decide if it goes up to 19 or 20%

 

[MikeG]

I could not work it out past one digit but knew it went up with each digit added.
I could not decide if it goes up to 19 or 20%

Well, 7, 17, 27, 37 and so on up to 97 is 10 occurrences of 7.
70, 71, 72, 73 and so on up to 79 is another 10.

However, we have already counted the 77, so the total of 1 & 2 digit numbers including 7 is 10 + 10 - 1 = 19.