Is religion “superstition”?

March 17, 2018 • 1:00 pm

The other day somebody out for blood accused me of being disrespectful to religion because I called it “superstition”. Presumably the person was thinking of “superstition” as those secular forms of belief, like carrying a rabbit’s foot or not stepping on cracks or not walking under ladders that are completely irrational but thought to have tangible effects on one’s life.

But that’s exactly what religion is! When you pray, or daven, or wash your feet before Islamic prayers, or eat a wafer at Mass, you’re performing actions that are thought to be salubrious, but they’re just as irrational as looking for a four-leaf clover for luck.  In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary—my go-to site for definitions—has this for the “religious” connotation of superstition:

And here’s the secular rabbit’s-foot definition:

Ingersoll, as you saw in the quote I gave this morning, also equated religion with superstition. And indeed it is, harsh as that may be to the ears of believers. Religions are irrational, unfounded, based on fear and ignorance, and full of “excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural.” Further, they are all false, so far as we can tell: at the very minimum only one can be true. Ergo, religion is superstition. And believers are “superstitionists”:

The reason people bridle at equating religion with superstition is not because the latter word is inaccurate, but because they still retain an unwarranted respect for faith.

QED

137 thoughts on “Is religion “superstition”?”

  1. I’m mildly superstitious, and understand that it is wildly silly and irrational. I make fun of my own quirks. Too bad religious folks can’t do the same, but they are so hungry for legitimacy they cannot leave well enough alone.
    I wonder if there is a correlation between loudly religious folks and their need for external validation. Monastics would be the opposite of this, I think. Happy to go do their religious jam in the wilderness and never force another person to agree with their choice.

    3. I wouldn’t use the word “superstitious” to describe someone who knows their comforting little rituals don’t have any power (aside from the power to comfort).

      1. Habit may also play a part in these low-level superstitions, like saying ‘gesundheit’ if someone sneezes, or not walking under a ladder.

        I have a habit of tapping my knuckles against a wall if I’m walking alongside it, and I always do it in multiples of six times. Borderline OCD? I don’t have any belief about what might happen if I don’t, but the habit is surprisingly strong.

        cr

  2. Religion is institutionalized superstition. To imply someone’s superstition doesn’t have an institution behind it could be considered insulting.

  4. Christians are offended by it because they’ve historically used the term to refer to non-Christian beliefs.

    2. This also explains the German and Dutch translations for the term “superstition:” Aberglauben and bijgeloof, which literally mean “aberrant belief” or “aberrant faith.” This because what was viewed as knowledge was entirely controlled by the religious authorities.

  5. It certainly has elements of superstition.

    I don’t walk under ladders because of superstition, though I would not stop people not walking under ladders because of superstition.

    1. I walk under ladders frequently and have the stubbed toes, paint stained clothes and bruised shoulders to prove it.

  6. For many years with my family, I have stated that I refuse to live my life by “silly superstition and myth which includes your death cult!”
    Needless to say, I am estranged from my family. But it does not make any difference to me. They, my sisters, raise their children to believe fervently in their cult and continually speak out against science that seems to contradict their irrational claims.

      1. If you don’t, you could still tell them you do. Unless you’re superstitious about that sort of thing.

        1. Thanks for remarks Rick and ROM, I do love my sisters and I tell them when the opportunity is appropriate. Since the death of my father, I am trying to regain a relationship with my sisters and their children. We just avoid the discussion of many topics.

    2. Dear James, when you say anti-science, do you mean your family won’t go to the dentist? use a computer? wash their clothing in an automatic washer? drive a car? listen to a record or cd? read a newspaper? How sad.

      1. I am sorry that I did not explain my statement clearly. Their father indoctrinated them that evolution is not real, the bible is the literal word of g*d and should be interpreted as literal. Yet, when I have tried pointing these contradictions out to my sisters, such as going to the doctor, the use of modern technology and such, contradicts their beliefs. They just shut down and will not engage in an honest conversation or debate regarding their beliefs.

  7. How do we draw a distinction between mere, disparate superstitions (e.g. all the examples given), and religion – which adds in many other components, like ritual (built on superstitions), …

    Or is this a strong claim that no, there are no trees for the forest – it is from height to depth and in toto superstition?

    If so, what is so special about labeling one Islam and one Christianity?

    1. This isn’t all that tough. You just describe the differences that exist between varieties of superstition. Just like we have no trouble describing the differences between various forms of “animal” without giving up the value of the term “animal”.

      1. I think there’s a discrepancy with regard to number of distinct… things….

        Superstition is only one behavioral peculiarity like rabbit’s foot.

        Religion is always more than one superstition.

        There isn’t a religion of the rabbit’s foot.

        … I think a perusal of the dictionary is in my future..

        1. Superstition is only one behavioral peculiarity like rabbit’s foot.

          Religion is always more than one superstition.

          No, it’s not. From the post:

          4. A religious system considered to be irrational, unfounded, or based on fear or ignorance; a false, pagan, or idolatrous religion.

          That’s what is usually called “superstition,” not “a superstition.”

          There isn’t a religion of the rabbit’s foot.

          … I think a perusal of the dictionary is in my future..

          It’s not always singular, it can be collective.

          Glen Davidson

          1. I find that definition surprising, in part because of the intermingling/assertion that superstition is religion. There’s the other sense of “superstition” as you point out, but you can’t collect those together, it’s just a different sense. Perhaps that is the one that is either indistinguishable or equal to “religion”.

            I’ll read this on my own soon enough..,

  8. I deliberately walk under ladders to prove that superstition is nonsense. Not suffered any mishaps yet, touch wood.

    1. LOL.

      I don’t walk under the ladder because I don’t want to spook the guy who climbed up it. He might drop his paintbrush on me!

    2. Actually, the inclined ladder is a common feature in the crucifiction scene so the ladder superstition derives from the Christian superstition.

      1. Many common superstitions derive from the grand-daddy religion superstition, such as touching wood, crossing fingers, and saying “god bless you” after someone sneezes.

  9. We should refer to religious superstition as high class superstition. That may make them feel better, less offended. What was the name of that healing place over in Europe?

  11. Of course religion is superstition. No doubt about it. What I can never get used to is how many otherwise-intelligent people lend credence to such nonsense.

    3. There is a desire on the part of many who might otherwise express skepticism to fit in with the gestalt.

  12. The primary distinction between a religion and a superstition is that the former can afford to hire lobbyists.

  13. Yep. Religion fits the superstition test. And if I am wrong may god smite me. [tosses salt over shoulder. Knocks on wood, and uncrosses fingers].

  14. Of course religion is superstition as the dictionary definition notes. It doesn’t matter how institutionalized it is or how many people accept its tenets as true. Every minute that people spend supposedly following the dictates of a deity is spending a minute practicing superstition. This assumes that the essence of religion is the belief in a supernatural being that one “communicates” with for one reason or another. When people attempt to divorce the definition of religion from the supernatural then they are actually defining some other word, not religion. One such futile attempt is to describe religion as “a path to becoming better humans.” See this delightful HuffPo post:

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mette-ivie-harrison/is-religion-just-supersti_b_12733444.html

  15. It depends on how broad a definition one uses. “Superstitions” are often considered to be beliefs outside of the accepted religious beliefs, but of course that’s a rather artificial and biased convention.

    I don’t see how any skeptic has any reason to accept the narrower definition. Of course one tailors one’s words to the situation, and with some people you might skip calling religion “superstition” just to keep from causing animosity. But if one is writing for a broader audience and wishes to emphasize the fact that religious taboos and rituals don’t differ in substance from refusing to walk under a ladder (might be best not to simply for the sake of safety, of course) because it’s “bad luck,” what offense against reason is made by calling religion superstition?

    I’ve run across the same issue with calling creationism “magic.” Creationists often whine about it, but the best they can do is point out that religion is more than “just magic.” Of course it is, but that doesn’t change the fact that creationism and much other religious belief that relies on what can only properly be called “magic.” The religion is just supposed to make it more sophisticated, but how could it really do that?

    Glen Davdison

    1. Try calling ‘praying for a miracle’ ‘summoning a magical cure’. It won’t end well.

  17. Yes. Religions are a subset of superstitions, with more organization, institutions and traditions. Usually religions are constellations of related superstitions.

  18. Every time someone asks me if I am religious I always say that I am not superstitious at all.

    They always look frightened after I say that, I don’t know why….

    3. Dear Dorag, perhaps the expressions are simply shock…ya know, when people make high-sounding remarks, and the listener is rendered speechless (as in, ‘what the heck just happened here).

  20. Religion is one part delusion one part superstition and one part insecurity.

    How is it religion remains powerful…people don’t want to lose their loved ones.

  21. I was brought up Roman Catlick and was terribly superstitious until around my 13th birthday when I rejected it all. Got to the point where it was interfering with everyday life.

  22. The OED definitions quoted imply that there exist religious beliefs and practices that are NOT “irrational, unfounded, or based on fear or …”

        1. You think sports aren’t riddled with superstition? They are most certainly riddled with BS.

          cr

  23. Compared to avoiding walking under ladders and stepping on cracks, religion is a superduperstition.

  24. I ran across this history:

    As the [Roman] empire expanded, the term superstitio was applied to exotic foreign religions of which the Romans disapproved, such as the Egyptian cult of Isis and later the Jewish sect of Christianity. Its meaning became more collective, referring to the “religion of others” in pejorative terms rather than to an individual Roman’s inappropriate or exaggerated religious attitudes.

    The early Christians adopted this collective meaning, turning the category of superstition back on the Romans. In the period after the second century, pagans and Christians reciprocally condemned each other’s religious beliefs and ceremonial practices as the superstitious cult of false deities. But the militant monotheism of Christianity intensified the negative meanings of these charges.

    Source that credits the Encyclopedia of Religion

    Just a matter of who’s saying it…

    Glen Davidson

    1. I thought I’d add some history (same source as in above comment) on skeptical usage of the term “superstition”:

      Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary (1764) asserts that “superstition was born in paganism, adopted by Judaism and infested the Christian church from the beginning.” In place of the fanaticism and intolerance associated with organized religion, the philosophes proposed a “natural religion” that would acknowledge a supreme being but regard his creation as sufficient revelation. The scientific study of nature was thus proposed as a new cultural orthodoxy, and the concept of superstition was redefined to fit this frame of reference. From “bad religion” it came to mean “bad science,” assuming its modern sense of misplaced assumptions about causality stemming from a faulty understanding of nature.

      We might call their “natural religion” superstition as well, though, if with less conviction.

      Glen Davidson

  25. Google results :

    Superstition
    noun
    noun: superstition
    excessively credulous belief in and reverence for supernatural beings.
    “he dismissed the ghost stories as mere superstition”
    synonyms: unfounded belief, credulity, fallacy, delusion, illusion; More
    magic, sorcery;
    informalhumbug, hooey
    “medicine was riddled with superstition”
    a widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such a belief.
    plural noun: superstitions
    “she touched her locket for luck, a superstition she had had since childhood”
    synonyms: myth, belief, old wives’ tale; More
    legend, story
    “the old superstitions held by sailors”
    Origin

    Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin superstitio(n-), from super- ‘over’ + stare ‘to stand’ (perhaps from the notion of “standing over” something in awe).

    ——————————-
    Religion

    religion×
    re·li·gion
    rəˈlijən/Submit
    noun
    noun: religion
    the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
    “ideas about the relationship between science and religion”
    synonyms: faith, belief, worship, creed; More
    sect, church, cult, denomination
    “the freedom to practice their own religion”
    a particular system of faith and worship.
    plural noun: religions
    “the world’s great religions”
    a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
    “consumerism is the new religion”
    Origin

    Middle English (originally in the sense ‘life under monastic vows’): from Old French, or from Latin religio(n-) ‘obligation, bond, reverence,’ perhaps based on Latin religare ‘to bind.’

    —————————-\—————

    1. I’m doing this with a bunch of people talking at once so I apologize:

      The OED definitions shown do not, to my eye, refer to etymology of the words. I wonder how the dictionary authors came up with the definition. I wrote above that the definition of one uses the definition of the other and I found that surprising- I am thus disputing the definition, as outrageous as that sounds.

      I understand OED should be too-notch, but my go-to dictionary Google seems to give a more precise definition. I admit I take BITH at face value, but here, I think I need to understand the definitions’ origins.

      1. The OED documents the current usage of words, not their etymology. What “superstition” meant 500 years ago – or whenever – is of no relevance to its modern meaning.

        1. I don’t know how they write definitions, but I think the origin of a word has everything to do with understanding a word. Origin is not equivalent to what it meant in antiquity. The OED defs, in my view, appear inaccurate.

          1. Sometimes words change their meaning completely over the years. The origin of a word can tell you a lot about the evolution of language but the only thing that can tell you what a word means now is how it is used now.

          2. Would you agree the OED definitions above for “superstition” and “religion” appear less precise than the definitions output from Google?

            And if what you say is true, then:

            -how do we know which dictionary is the best one? I don’t see definitions as being the product of a survey, but maybe they are.

            -can you give an example of a word pair that has blended their meanings over time so as to be synonyms?

            …. I’m not convinced that “religion” is a synonym for “superstition”.

            Another argument came to mind yesterday, of truth claims : Jesus rising bodily into Heaven is a truth claim, while “stroking my rabbit’s foot brings good luck” is not exactly a truth claim, as “good luck” is so nebulous a notion. Religions are truth claims – superstitions are tautological explanations for behavior – but it’s clear, isolating the two is, in my view, not easy..

            Thanks for the interesting discussion!

          3. “Stroking a rabbit’s foot brings me good luck” is certainly a truth claim, assuming the speaker isn’t lying. The speaker gets to decide what they consider “good luck”. There’s no reason to believe that it the term is nebulous to the speaker.

          4. I see

            I haven’t thought of things like that as truth claims. Originally, I thought “a ha! Everything is a truth claim!”

            But let’s see:

            “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” is a truth claim… true or false?

            “It is slander to call waterboarding torture” : truth claim?

            “There is no purpose to life.” Truth claim

            Hmmmm

            Are some truth claims better formulated than others?

          5. I see a difference between whether a statement is a “truth claim” and whether what it claims is “true”. As I see it, most statements are truth claims simply because it states something the speaker believes is true. At the same time, what they are claiming to be true may not in fact be true.

          6. “… most statements are truth claims simply because it states something the speaker believes is true.“

            Isn’t that a given?… what does “most” mean here?

            And isn’t truth independent of the speaker, and I ndependent of belief?… I’m not a professional philosopher….

          9. Alright ….

            I’m looking at the definitions from Google and earl is English, count is equivalent to earl, but is generally European….

            So you’re saying one of them is the latest greatest word to mean both things?… which one…?

          10. Generally … but the wife of an earl is a countess, and and earl’s deputy a viscount, so I think you have to consider them synonymous in English.

            /@

          13. That proves nothing here

            I know a dashboard is the structure that keeps passengers from getting muddy when the horses dash at a high speed in a carriage from the 18th century, and it is a sort of honorary title of the structure in modern cars. It’s fun to call it a dashboard still.

            So what? In fact, it helps the case for word origins if anything.

          15. You’re saying we all right now know what “dashboard” means, even though we don’t usually know the origin, or what it was used for…

            therefore the origin is irrelevant to how we use the word….

            This seems to be an exception, no?

            When formulating plurals, for “octopus”, we just say “octopuses” even though the proper plural is “octopodes”…

            I don’t know – I’m still puzzled.

            Then fine! Superstition is a synonym of religion! I don’t have a real problem with that per se….

          16. I don’t think this is particularly exceptional. Many words and phrases have taken circuitous paths and preserved dead metaphors.

            For example, knowing that “deer” meant any kind of animal (cf. German “tier” & Shakepeare’s “mice and rats and such small deer”) doesn’t give any indication of which particular kind of animal is denoted in modern usage. Another; knowing that “wife” meant woman doesn’t give any indication that she must be married in modern usage.

            Anyway, it doesn’t have to be common to prove your general assertion wrong.

            This is quite a different thing from knowing how to decline a noun. In any case, we’re speaking English and the proper plural /is/ “octopuses”.

            /@

  26. Religion deserves no respect. Being disrespectful is rational and perfectly normal.

    1. An equivalent of “There is no such thing as an honest car dealer. Just ask any other car dealer”.

      cr

  28. Sociologists certainly consider them to be somewhat different based on cultural context, but even so you could argue that religion includes superstition as a significant component!! (Catholic devotion to statues of saints is obviously superstitious. So is the belief that at an exact moment of time when certain words are spoken something is “transubstantiated” into Jesus’ body.)

    But a primary function of religion is community building via shared values.

    In my post on this website of January 27, 2016 I wrote that anthropologist Malinowski considers superstitition to be entirely utilitarian and targetting an external purpose, but he regards religion as to some extent having a internal purpose, an aim or goal in itself.

    An obvious difference is that even if someone is on entirely secular grounds mending one’s way of life, one often as a slang phrase
    “(S)he got religion” for say, going cold turkey in drinking. This is occasionally said even if no real religious conversion is involved. One would never say that a person trying to reform their drinking habits “got superstition”.

    1. Sociologists only make that distinction because of numbers. In the 1500s belief in witches would’ve been accepted as legitimate. Today we understand that not only is it currently superstitious to believe in witches, but it always was, no matter what sociologists in the 1500s might’ve said.

  29. In answer the religious could demonstrate that their belief system not superstition. How they would do this is yet to be demonstrated.

    rz

  30. Of course it is (organized) superstition – unfounded belief.

    But it is also magic – moving your hands and/or thinking “just so” is believed able to lead to eventual reward. And it is pseudoknowledge – one or many presumed knowledge systems that is not so.

    That anyone can equate facts with disrespect still surprises me. Disrespecting religion comes from the nature of the known facts, that does not reflect well on religion.

  31. Yes, of course.

    However, religion adds a power structure. Religion is what you get when you combine superstition with the desire for money and control.

  32. As Stevland Hardaway Judkins (aka Stevie Wonder) said, “When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer”:

    1. I’ve enjoyed listening to that song for years but never really understood the words and meaning. Thanks for popping this up. Very appropriate.

  34. For the record, I wasn’t out for blood and my objection had nothing to do with whether or not religion is a superstition. The “blind spot” I was referring to had to do with how you or Pinker (or anyone) could call religion a superstition and in the same breath deny that you had contempt or disrespect for it.

    This has nothing to do with the accuracy of the characterization. You might call Trump an idiot and I would consider this accurate, but I don’t see how you could call him an idiot and still claim that you didn’t have contempt or disrespect for him.

    If you can honestly say that you don’t disrespect or have contempt for religion, then I stand corrected.

    1. “how … anyone … could call religion a superstition and in the same breath deny that you had contempt or disrespect for it.”

      I’ll try.

      Your point seems to be that the description ‘superstition’ inherently implies contempt.
      Some aspects of religion (or of some religions) certainly deserve contempt; other aspects maybe don’t. Most of the human race is superstitious about one thing or another, in the sense of believing things without having had scientific proof demonstrated to them. That doesn’t mean we have to be contemptuous of everybody all the time.

      Suppose I (as an atheist) could identify a religion which was fundamentally devoted to doing good works, and managed to avoid the usual authoritarian pitfalls. I would still say that particular religion was superstitious in its beliefs, by definition; but I would respect it for its other attributes.

      None of this hinges on the specific case of whether Pinker or PCC is actually contemptuous of religion.

      cr

      1. The word, superstition, carries contempt as part of its meaning. It is applied to those supernatural beliefs that have not been institutionalized by the speaker’s culture.

        1. Show me the definition where-in that is true. Because what I find has no element of contempt in it.

          su·per·sti·tion
          ˌso͞opərˈstiSH(ə)
          noun
          excessively credulous belief in and reverence for supernatural beings.

          “he dismissed the ghost stories as mere superstition”

          synonyms: unfounded belief, credulity, fallacy, delusion, illusion;

          a widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or a practice based on such a belief.
          plural noun: superstitions

          “she touched her locket for luck, a superstition she had had since childhood”
          synonyms: myth, belief, old wives’ tale

    2. One can recognize something as false or mistaken without holding it in contempt. Contempt is a specific form of judgement that might or might not be applicable to false notions. Do you find childhood belief in Santa Claus contemptible? I’m guessing not.

      Superstition is magical thinking. There’s no requirement that one hold it in contempt while pointing this out.

      1. “One can recognize something as false or mistaken without holding it in contempt.”

        From a strictly logical pov, you’re absolutely right. Theoretically (and I notice that the religion you might have respect for is hypothetical), one could consider religion superstition and still respect it. By the same token, one could consider atheism a delusion and still respect it. But no religious person would call religion a superstition and no atheist would call atheism a delusion. And in both instances, I would argue, the appellations “superstition” and “delusion” imply a degree of disrespect, if not contempt.

        1. But you are just setting yourself up for a counter example. Many atheists (myself included) hold religion in contempt but don’t manifest the same attitude to people who avoid a stroll under a ladder.

          1. Exactly

            Just as the superstitious are victims of superstition, the religious are victims of religion.

          2. “But you are just setting yourself up for a counter example.”

            But religion was the example in question that started all this. If Jerry had, like you, simply admitted that he has contempt for religion and not tried to defend Pinker against Sullivan’s characterization, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

          3. My reaction was to Paul Topping’s statement upstream: “The word, superstition, carries contempt as part of its meaning.”

            I do not think his statement is true.

          4. “I do not think his statement is true.”

            Agreed. I have many superstitions to which I’m quite attached, religion not being one of them. As Michael Scott of “The Office” put it, “I’m stitious but not superstitious.”

  35. I have been criticized for calling religion “myth.” The pure definition of “myth” proves me correct in equating it with religion. I have yet to find a theist who can argue the point after I post the definition.

    1. allow me to indulge in my hobby:

      myth
      miTH/
      noun
      noun: myth; plural noun: myths

      1.
      a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
      synonyms: folk tale, folk story, legend, tale, story, fable, saga, mythos, lore, folklore, mythology
      “ancient Greek myths”
      traditional stories or legends collectively.
      “the heroes of Greek myth”
      2.
      a widely held but false belief or idea.
      “he wants to dispel the myth that sea kayaking is too risky or too strenuous”
      a misrepresentation of the truth.
      “attacking the party’s irresponsible myths about privatization”
      a fictitious or imaginary person or thing.
      an exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing.
      “the book is a scholarly study of the Churchill myth”
      synonyms: misconception, fallacy, false notion, old wives’ tale, fairy tale/story, fiction; More
      informaltall tale, cock-and-bull story, urban myth/legend
      “the myths surrounding childbirth”

      Origin
      mid 19th century: from modern Latin mythus, via late Latin from Greek muthos .

      ……………………………..

      but what is it about religion that makes it seem bigger than merely myth? Perhaps we’d LIKE religion to just wither into myth, but there’s something about it.

      Perhaps what distinguishes religion from a myth or superstition that is vigorously defended by adherents, it is “alive”, in a way. yes there are “dead” religions, but ….

      2. I think superstitions and misconceptions are vigorously defended by their adherents as well. It is simply a numbers game. If many people believe the same myth, this seems to “legitimize it” in the eyes of society. If an individual claims to see a vision of Bart Simpson in the sky, he’s a nutcase. But the story of an apparition of the Virgin Mary is a sign of devout belief.

  36. All religions are superstitions, but not all superstitions are by definition religious. Both are by-products of cognitive mechanisms adapted for other purposes.

    Let’s examine the “walking under a ladder” analogy. While one might casually describe it as a superstitious act, it could just as easily be a casual Bayesian calculation of probability. One might call it a superstition, but that’s a misnomer.

    By confining your passage through a narrowed space you are increasing the possibility of something or someone dropping on your head.

    That’s very different from the Rabbit’s Foot analogy. Carrying a Rabbit’s foot goes back to one of the first teleological ideas of hominids – even to Neanderthalian and early shamanistic beliefs that “Like Produces Like”.

    If you are foraging for the Amanita muscaria mushroom in the forest it helped if you dressed like one. (Hence, the early Siberian origins of Santa Claus).

    If you need to evoke a god or summon a buffalo herd, ritual demanded that you fashion a mask resembling that particular god, or dress in the hides and horns of your prey.

    If you’re hunting rabbit, it made sense to carry around a talisman to ensure success.

    If you’re looking for the connection between the harvest, women’s menstrual cycles and the ocean tide it was only natural to observe the monthly transformation of the Full Moon’s “face” to bovine horns to discover a celestial deity that interacted with natural events. Our words for man, woman, moon, month and menstrual all derive from the original Sanskrit term).

    The brain is hard-wired with a hyperactive agency detector (HAAD) that projects dangers and attributes all manner of agency to either real or imagined threats or possible benefits.

    We see faces where they are not (pareidolia). We attribute events to iron age belief systems, invisible, imagined or unlikely actors: My cat stole my wallet. Did you take my car keys? Jesus took the wheel.

    We talk to ourselves incessantly about feared or desired outcomes (Prayers, Mantras, affirmations, and we develop pseudo epistemologies, theology, dogmas, rituals and revisionist historical accounts to justify and explain very primitive instinctual inclinations for the supernatural, the unknown, and the unexplainable.

    The path for humans is to learn to mitigate or channel our more primitive instincts with intelligence through science, logic, philosophy, empirical evidence, sound information, and the ability to imagine everything, but believe nothing.

  38. I don’t agree that all religion is superstition. They are intersecting sets, but I don’t think one is a subset of the other. Some religions are reasonably considered superstition. Other religions are not. Some religious people are well aware that the effects of ritual (or prayer) is only upon the practitioner and not the larger universe. Nevertheless, they find the practice worthwhile for the change it induces within them.

  39. Religions include a superstitious component, or collections of superstitions. But are not *only* such- they include other doctrines. For example, Christians hold that humans are “made in the image of God”. This claim is false, but it isn’t a superstition per se – doesn’t involve any actions or behavior linked beliefs per se.

  40. Religion is superstition which has a large number of believers who are passionate about it, unlike non-religous superstitions which even believers tend to treat as a bit of a joke.

  41. Oh oh oh – I just thought if a good analogy :

    If religion is superstition

    Then you could say

    Music is entertainment

    I’d agree

    But consider the reaction if you say Mozart’s music is entertainment

    It IS,… BUT….

    1. I don’t agree. You have muzak or Mahler, or Bruckner. But you have religion or religion …

  42. Absolutely, there are 4200 religions (manufacturers) of a single product(universe) claiming that their religion is true. It is a fact that only one is saying the truth and if 4199 are lying then there is a huge possibility that actually all are lying.

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