Theses 78: Religion and Superstition

78) Religion and Superstition

Observe all of the people you know who believe in religion and all of the people who don’t. Then look at other beliefs they might have. For example, is Aunt Jemimah afraid of walking under ladders? Does Grandma feel the need to touch wood after saying something just so she doesn’t tempt the fates? When playing games, do they persist in holding the dice just so in order to achieve the cosmic gift of luck for the roll?

These are all silly things, but the point is that typically superstitious people are more likely to believe in things that there is no evidence for. They are more likely to believe in the efficacy of throwing salt over their shoulder, knocking on wood, avoiding black cats and Friday the 13th. There is a correlation there.

Another example: As a member of the LDS church, do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe that ghosts can haunt buildings? Do you believe in ghost sightings? This is a slightly different example, because unlike other superstitions (which are completely ignored doctrinally, such as breaking a mirror and walking under a ladder), a belief in a ghost has certain doctrinal implications related to the plan of salvation. So a person might believe in ghosts, but might have to draw the line somewhere as they hear ghost stories.

Other beliefs to ponder:

UFOs

“If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. The same happens in the absence of prayers.”

-Steve Allen

 

“Could a being create the fifty billion galaxies, each with two hundred billion stars, then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh?”

-Ron Patterson

 

“To date, despite the efforts of millions of true believers to support this myth, there is no more evidence for the Judeo-Christian god than any of the gods on Mount Olympus.”

-Joseph Daleiden

 

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

~ Gene Roddenberry

 

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own; a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms…

~ Albert Einstein

 

John H., left Mormonism July 2003:

My brother challenged me to find the difference between praying to a rock and God.

Over the months I watched a few blessings of the sick. When they got better it was seen as a miracle but it was always something that had a chance of happening all by itself. When they got worse I remember the excuses being – “not enough faith”, or “unworthy” or that “God was testing them”. No matter the outcome God was not allowed to fail. Every outcome was a success. But couldn’t the same be said of a rock?

It dawned on me that there was no difference. This was the first of many mind tricks I realized I was using to fool myself.

Later I remember a general authority giving a talk about truth. He said in essence that you first must have faith. And if you continue your faith will increase. I changed the words in my mind to see if the logic held.

My version: “You first must have faith (which is gullibility). And if you continue being gullible your gullibility will increase!”

Another: “If you tell yourself it’s true, you’ll come to believe it.”

Could these statements be said by Muslims or other religions – YES. What if the thing they had faith in was obviously false? Then their faith would not increase. What if your faith did not increase about something told to you by the Mormon church. Then you have the problem. This is the same kind of thinking as “praying to a rock”.

I had found another stupid mind trick all by myself. Over the next few years all my superstitious beliefs were being replaced with real logic – the kind you find in Science and critical thinking textbooks. But I found that the Mormon church hates knowledge. You can ask all the questions you want until the questions become good questions. Then the church freaks out because they know they don’t have good answers. Wow – what a journey.

I finally got the courage to leave the church. I have lost friendships and closeness to my Mormon family, but it is much better than being stupid when I know better.

 

 

No Atheists in Foxholes:

(From http://apostateatarms.blogspot.com/2009/06/anecdote.html)

“Three years into my military career, I switched from the US Air Force to the US Army. One of the inprocessing actions was to meet with the unit Chaplain.

So, I did. We had a perfectly congenial conversation.

On my way out the door, his assistant asked me if I was religious. I replied that I was not.

He told me “You will be, the first time you get IED’d”

He was wrong. I never sought deliverance from a higher power, even in the most dire of circumstances, IED-born or otherwise.

Getting mortared is a strange experience. Modern technology being what it is, we usually have advance warning that a mortar is incoming.

This leaves you with 30 seconds to basically run for a bunker or shelter in-place in your trailer. It seems cliche, but 30 seconds can seem like an incredibly long time.

Hunkered down in my trailer under my bunk and body armor, it never even occurred to me to pray.

Atheists DO exist in foxholes. And usually we’re just angry about the religious idiocy that leads to wars in the first place.”

–Forrest Brown