Today on Speak Life we’re talking about superstitions and the difference between religion and superstitions
Throwing salt over your shoulder, avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, knocking on wood. There are many things that we as people do that are irrational, yet supposed to keep us safe from bad things happening to us. These are called superstitions.
A superstition is defined as an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear. So what makes religion different from a superstition? Where superstition is a belief based in fear and ignorance, religion is based on the premis that we as humans are incapable of being in complete control of every aspect of our lives, therefore we believe in a higher authority that is fully able take care of us.
Superstitions:
Salt over the shoulder: if someone spilt some salt they would throw some over their left shoulder. The belief was that salt was a perservative and decay is an agent of the devil. So, if you spill salt it was bad luck because the perservative was wasted. You would throw it over you left shoulder because your left side was believed to be your evil side.
Friday the 13th: this culminated from two seperate sueprstitions. 1. Fridays are inherently bad. Jesus died on Friday and most people are executed on Fridays. 2. the number 13 was bad because Judas was the 13th guest at the last supper. So the two together is considered to be especially unlucky.
Opening an Umbrella inside: When umbrellas were first made they were very unreliable. They were larger than average umbrellas and the springing mechanism was normally much tighter and prone to open more violently. So people would not open umbrellas indoors because of the potential to injure someone in close quarters.
Walking under a ladder: When a ladder is open or leaned against a house it forms a triangle. The belief was that the triangle forms the three points of the trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore to walk uner a ladder was to interupt or break the trinity.
Remember, we worship God because we believe in him and have faith that he is working for our best interest at all times.
