Talk:Superstition

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This is currently very hard definition. Most of us are influenced by superstition : lucky numbers, favourite items. Superstition is deeply embedded in most cultures : just think of launching ships with bottles of wine, 'touch wood' etc.

Many of those are customs based on superstitions. The people performing the custom might not actually believe in the superstition.

Don't you think superstition is just passing the responsibility on to someone else. Let it be fate, go

While many mentaly retarded activities might have roots in superstition, some of the people who engage in these activities may not necessarily believe in the original superstition. Personally I despise various things for being superstitions, or at least I feel I do -- perhaps this feeling is superstitious.

I don't think the definition at the head of the article adequately summarised what follows: it excludes auguries (especially luck) and entities (e.g. spirits), neither of which are embraced by actions influencing future events without causal relationship.

"Mentally retarded"? Who is that supposed to insult? people who hold superstitions, or the mentally handicapped, or both? You might want to proof-read your comments before you submit them. Fuzzypeg★ 20:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

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[edit] deists?

quote: "In keeping with the Latin etymology of the word, religious believers have often seen other religions as superstition. Likewise, atheists, agnostics, deists, and skeptics regard religious belief as superstition." Why are deists lumped into the second sentence?

Atheists and skeptics would argue deists are superstitious for believing that an unknowable, untestable and currently completely hands off God originally created the universe. And it certainly fits the bill, a completely irrational and meaningless idea with no evidence for it. It's like saying a slice of pizza started the universe.

Deists would argue religious people are superstitious for believing god has any influence over events like hurricane Katrina or whether someone's open heart surgery goes well. IMO it's really a weak position to hold, usually for closet christians who've decided most of their faith is bunk but have warped it enough to the point they feel just a god belief will save them if they're wrong, so they can benefit from being able to live and think like atheists 99% of time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.47.13.244 (talk) 23:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] religion

By defining superstition as misplaced religious feeling, the article suggests that there is a rightly placed religious feeling, even going so far as to give a Christian view of superstition. However, a lot of people would regard all religion as superstition. This would seem to be confirmed by the dictionary definition, which says nothing about misplaced attitudes:

1. Unreasoning awe or fear of something unknown, mysterious, or imaginary, esp. in connexion with religion; religious betc. It was edited out, because not well formulated. The external links point to stuff like that, not really explaining the superstition in russia, asia and middle age europe. Superstition could explain christinaity from their viewpoint (at christianity article), it would get removed quickly as NPOV criticism/discussion. I do not know if it links to The Life of Brian, but that's how christian believers might see an interpretation attempt from the sight of superstition. In asia, for instance the concept of godfather is uncommon. It is just true for western people. The article needs explanation, what superstition really is, not criticism/rationalizing and denial of it.

I think the primary difference is that religious belief has a source (e.g. walking under a ladder will cause you misfortune because God hates ladders) while a superstition has no source and is merely traditional paranoid belief (e.g. walking under a ladder is inherently an inexplicably unlucky).


Most religions include supersition, principally in the form of prayers for specified outcomes. But it is possible to be fully committed to and active in a religion without being superstitious at all, especially if one's prayer consists only in praise of God or a type of meditation through repeating familiar words.
The familiar atheist and agnostic view that religion is superstition is essentially a disparagement of religion rather than a description. So I don't agree with Roy Bruback that "a religion, like any thought, is superstitious if and only if it is untrue". Definitions of religion and superstition ought not judge whether the beliefs they include are true or not; rather they should be based on description.
So I would try the following. The primary difference between supersition and religion is that superstitious belief is disorganised and religious belief is systematic. Further, any set of religious beliefs exists within a religion, which is more than mere belief and is a social institution combining belonging, history, architecture and sacred geography, scripture and revered literature, language, prayer, liturgy and shared observance, music, art, organisation and welfare, belief, authority, hierarchy and tradition. There may be fokloric equivalents for supersition but they will not have the same degree of complexity.
Superstition : Religion :: Crime : Mafia ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.225.12.210 (talk) 01:47, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Well done. Next lesson, we'll try combining some words into sentences. Fuzzypeg★ 05:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Superstition and folklore - strange example

In the "Superstition and folklore" section their is an odd sentence - can any one explain the meaning or correct the grammar?

"a pregnant female should avoid coming out of door, (i.e., avoid exposing her to the sun) during the time of an eclipse"

[edit] Lessons in common sense

If you look at most superstitious actions they have a root in disseminating information in days where education was not widespread. Mainly told too the uneducated and children to prevent them from doing things that may cause physical and finacial damage.--121.54.2.3 (talk) 07:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC) ==

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Mirrors used to be very expensive and owned by the wealthy. It would have been easier to create a sense of fear in the slaves cleaning the mirror then to explain the value and fragility of the mirror.

Ladders tend to have people working on them, usually carrying some object. The danger to both the person on the ladder and the person below requires caution. What better way to create caution in uneducated workers then superstition.

Umberellas (both for rain and sun) caused fires in the days of gas lighting. To get the message across, that opening an umberella indoors gives a high chance of starting a fire in days of no/poor fire service, requires superstition.

Bad luck to step on cracks. focuses a child into looking where it puts its feet, good idea in days before good pavements. A broken ankle could take valuble work time thus money from a family.

The Magpie rhyme. Good for the farmers children. As magpies are pests to the farmer what better way to find out how many of the pests are in his field. I wonder how many children rushed back in to tell pops about the magpies in the field.

I could go on, but you see that in days gone by where reading and writing were premium, that the best way to educate against common mistakes was to highlight them with a superstition.


"Asian" needs to be good!

[edit] Superstitions by country/region

Does anyone want to see examples or lists of superstitions around the world, either as a new article or in this article? These should ideally be cited.

[edit] Compilation of superstitions

I do not see this compilation pointless. The article looks very abstract, and contains a few superstitions at best. The explanation is scientific, but IMO wrong. The linked research pages are abstract, and not getting the point. I tried to write about it, but it was edited out. It was not very well written, though.
It is possible to copy my tables (it is PD information). I do not know any good site, which include a compilation of superstition in modern language. Some are good, but very long, and they contain weird superstitions.
The pages now get hits by search engines, i am collecting the terms (which were searched) into a file. There are people searching "european superstition", and around 30 other terms.
The link removal has caused a decline in visitors, around 50 people came from here. Some vandalized my guestbook, but i can not verify where they came from. The same questions arise for Aztec_Calendar. I know the policy on external links.

"The reason for superstition in asian countries: People abide a few abstract rules,
and in the cause of it, they also refrain from other undesireable action
(because this causes bad luck)"


"Among African Americans it is considered unlucky to sweep someone with a broom while cleaning house." Can someone please tell me what this means?

It means that if you are sitting in a chair or standing on the floor, and someone near you is sweeping the floor with a broomcorn broom and they sweep across your feet, it is considered very bad luck. To undo this, the person who has inadvertently swept you might touch, hug, or even kiss you. It's quite a common belief and custom. It is mentioned in the song "The Blues What Am" by Jazz GIllum.



Is it really correct to say that a gambler's luck is due to the law of averages? Every textbook on Statistics I've read says that the law of averages itself grows out of a misunderstanding of the law of large numbers -- that is, thinking that since the proportion of outcomes converges to a stable state in infinite time, the proportions must "balance each other out" in finite time. It seems more appropriate to make some sort of argument for the gambler's "hot streak" from binomial probability, saying that his success rate in a given session has a certain chance of happening during any given session, and increasing the number of sessions played increases the chances of *some session* displaying such a high rate of success. 69.140.109.143 13:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] recent edit

I have not added new POV. I have not removed existing POV. The passage was a little repetetive, long and difficult to read. I have read it again a few times. I have not introduced spellings using unusual grammar. I hope there are not any typography mistakes this time. The phrase "Better safe than sorry" was taken from the internet, i have seen it somewhere else. One reference to urban legend was moved to "See also". It reads interesting, and related to superstition.
Erroneous Individual - this is a justification, and does not belong here. However it is possible to refer to a person, a research or a media giving such statements. This is already included (church statements).

Could you please explain what you mean by "Urban legends, which are not scientifically prooved (justification) are put into correlation(s) which do no exist in physical, visible reality." as I can't figure out what you mean by it. Regards, MartinRe 12:40, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fairly extensive revision for NPOV purposes

After months of kicking this article around and watching the debates, i took it upon myself to rewrite it for coherence of flow. I worked hard to not remove things that had been written, but i did delete redundancies that seem to have arisen from "many cooks" syndrome. Also, i broke the article apart into sections and made the rather radical choice <insert smiley here> to describe superstition and give examples of it is at the top of the article, and to move all of the debunkining and skeptical viewpoints which formerly had been at the head of the article down to the bottom. The debunking posture was so thoroughly embedded in the article that on a second pass-through, i realized that every one of the six external links was to a skeptical or debunking web site. There were NO links to sites where people could actually go to study about superstitions, only links to places where people could go read about how stupid, dumb, bad, or unscientific they are. This biased writing shocked me a lot. I used google to find six sites on superstitions that have a folkloric and educational viewpoint; i could have found three dozen more. And i maY DO SO.


That cat sure looks gray to me. Couldn't you have at least moved the ugly junk in the background before taking it?


This entry is in English. Therefore it should be written from an English speaker's point of view--anything else violates the NPOV principle.

What if you were Chinese, living in China and you wanted to practice your English and learn about English-speaking culture? This article would be a disaster.

What if you were an American child doing a school project or paper on superstition and began your research here? Again, disaster. You'd fail because you would fail to address superstition withing the context of your assignment--your own culture.

Superstition is HUGE part of daily life in the English-speaking world. Many many many things we do, from which side of the raod we drive on, which hand we hold a fork in to the rules of ettiquette and polite interaction with everyone you come into contact with. What do YOU say when someone sneezes? Why? Superstition. And on and on.

This article and its current presentation violates the NPOV principle: It is an attack on English and American culture. It is not even subtle.

This article should be changed as soon as possible to eliminate this bias.

[edit] Psychological discussion?

Superstition is actually a rather interesting area of study in psychology and sociology with some important names who have investigated it (e.g. Skinner). This article avoids discussing any of the serious aspects of it instead providing a very brief definition and then citing lots of random examples and comparisons. Might I suggest refocusing the article toward the formal studies of the subject and have the existing content support that discussion?.

[edit] An impossible article

I have no intention of getting involved in this article; I simply wanted to state my opinion (after stumbling across it) that it is one of the worst Wikipedia articles I have read. It opens with random listings of "superstitions," and only after several pages gets to a semi-substantive yet entirely unsourced discussion of the topic. Whatever happened to the old definition: superstition is the other guy's religion? Out of curiosity I looked up the Encyclopedia Britannica article on the topic, which in this case is infinitely better than what Wikipedia has so far produced. It opens with the very sensible observation about "superstition": "An ambiguous word, it probably cannot be used except subjectively." In other words, the entire effort to write a NPOV article about "superstition" is doomed to failure, unless you begin from the principle that using the word "superstition" is in and of itself an attack (a slur) on someone else's closely held beliefs. What else needs to be said? Just my own POV... my sincere apologies if I have offended anyone who has spent time on the article... But I suspect that few of you are regular 'wikipedians,' given that almost none have bothered to sign your comments.... --Potosino 03:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree about the lack of organization, and have moved the listings on the bottom. As for the information and the style of writing, I haven't read the bulk of this stuff, so feel free to copyedit and re-write if need be. As they tell you on this site - be bold.--Gilabrand 06:37, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Potosino. The article starts with a faulty definition (are people who expect their prayers to be fulfilled superstitious?). Lists of superstitions do not really help. Only the Skinner paragraph is fine. But what about anthropology, what about the fact that there's a system? (Fishermen, hunters, sportspeople are superstitious, while farmers are not.) Anyway: I marked the article with a cleanup tag. GregorB 21:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Potosino, this is such a big undertaking. This article for starters at least should have the language cleaned up even if you don't add facts or change information. Right now the tone is so casual it really fails to be considered quality for an encyclopedic entry. Maybe if someone takes this small step it will help others be able to lend a further support. Right now though, I'm off to bed. 71.187.190.88 03:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)Forcefieldmaker87

I'm not convinced that it's impossible. C. S. Lewis talks about magic and superstition as "failed science"; a belief that rubbing a toad on a wart will remove it is "magic" because it doesn't work. "Superstition" is slightly more subtle since it involves "luck" which is much more subjective; if you believe that breaking a mirror causes bad luck, this may be a self-fulfulling prophecy. Although folk religion has its share of superstitions, religious texts themselves mostly work at a different level and don't tend to contain these kind of "if you do X, Y will happen" statements that characterise superstitious beliefs. Unfortunately "superstition" is often thrown around so loosely that these distinctions are lost. That's not a reason for not trying though. Pdch (talk) 20:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Bullcrap

Superstitions are as bad as believing in Horoscopes or eight-armed gods. Enough said. If you need further explanation to understand the reasoning behind my statement, then you better get your head checked to see if there is a brain in there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.165.32.105 (talk) 18:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Now rephrase that so it's NPOV, and provide a secondary source. Leushenko (talk) 04:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Superstitions Reasonable

I think some superstitions can be based on reason. If you believe bad spirits cause disease, and also believe bad spirits are afraid of garlic, then putting garlic on a sick person is reasonable. Today we know germs cause disease, and are killed by mold. Some superstitions start when someone incorrectly observes a cause and effect. For example, I win when wearing my "lucky" shoes. Maybe it is a superstition to believe, certain shoes will make you play better, not because of luck, but "science." anyway, it seems to me, that most people use the word to describe a practice they don't believe in, although some call practices they believe in superstitions, so a definition could be beliefs about luck, though that is not the only definition. Rds865 (talk) 03:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

There are two potential debates here:
  1. Are certain beliefs and practises "superstition", or are they (to the contrary) reasonable/sensible?
  2. Can superstitions be reasonable? (i.e. based on reason?)
There's an important difference: the first uses the traditional meaning and connotations of "superstition"; the second talks about redefining the word;. The term "superstition" has had strong pejorative connotations since its early usage, and if people are now trying to use the word to describe behaviour they regard as reasonable and rational, then they're effectively reclaiming the word, much as lesbians have reclaimed the previously pejorative term "dyke". Taking a negative term and reinterpreting it in a positive light.
I can see there is a certain element of this happening with the word "superstition"; perhaps you'd like to draft some explanation of this in the article? Fuzzypeg★ 22:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)