Superstition

"All superstitions exist at least in part to satisfy the emotional needs of the experiencing subject. The chief emotions that give rise to superstitious beliefs are fear and anxiety, and they are often reinforced by a disposition to fantasy and mental laziness."

"“Superstition” is simply a derogative term for a belief about the supernatural that you don’t share. Why should it be socially acceptable to make fun of psychics and not priests? What’s the difference between crossing yourself or hanging a mezuzah outside your door and avoiding black cats? Believing that you’ve been abducted by aliens or that Elvis is alive is, on its face, no sillier than believing that Christ rose from the dead or that God parted the Red Sea so that Moses and his followers might traverse it. People who believe that God heeds their prayers have probably waived the right to mock people who talk to trees and guardian angels or claim to channel the spirits of Native Americans."

"The three great things that govern mankind are reason, passion, and superstition. The first governs a few, the two last share the bulk of mankind, and possess them in their turns; but superstition most powerfully and produces the greatest mischief."

"One of the largest promises of science is, that the sum of human happiness will be increased, ignorance destroyed, and, with ignorance, prejudice and superstition, and that great truth taught to all, that this world and all it contains were meant for our use and service; and that where nature by her own laws has defined the limits of original unfitness, science may by extract so modify those limits as to render wholesome that which by natural wildness was hurtful, and nutritious that which by natural poverty was unnourishing. We do not yet know half that chemistry may do by way of increasing our food."

"The general root of superstition: namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other."

"It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people... Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... the future belongs to science and those who make friends with science."

"For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions."

"To seek God’s truth, wretched people do no rise above their nature, as would be fitting, but they measure His greatness according to the weakness of their senses. They do not understand Him at all as He has given Himself to be known, but imagine Him as they have made Him by their presumption. In doing this they open a deep gulf in which, once opened, no matter which way they turn they must always fall to damnation. For no matter what they try to do after that to serve God, they cannot hold Him in their debt since they do not honor Him but, in His place, they honor what they have imagined in their heart. This way the vain pretext which many are accustomed to claim to excuse their superstition is struck down. For they think that every feeling of religion—of whatever kind, even when it is all mixed up—is sufficient; but they do not reflect that the true religion ought to be conformed to what is pleasing to God according to His everlasting rule, and further, that God remains ever like Himself and is not an imaginary thing which changes according to the wishes of each person."

"τοὺς δὲ βεβήλους καὶ γραώδεις μύθους παραιτοῦ. γύμναζε δὲ σεαυτὸν πρὸς εὐσέβειαν."

"Mankind have been slow to believe that order reigns in the universe — that the world is a cosmos and a chaos. ... The divinities of heathen superstition still linger in one form or another in the faith of the ignorant, and even intelligent men shrink from the contemplation of one supreme will acting regularly, not fortuitously, through laws beautiful and simple rather than through a fitful and capricious system of intervention. ... The scientific spirit has cast out the demons, and presented us with nature clothed in her right mind and living under the reign of law. It has given us, for the sorceries of the alchemist, the beautiful laws of chemistry; for the dreams of the astrologer, the sublime truths of astronomy; for the wild visions of cosmogony, the monumental records of geology; for the anarchy of diabolism, the laws of God."

"The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing ones fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon ones luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing—or, more strictly speaking, did something else."

"Dish yer rabbit footll gin you good luck. De man wat tote it mighty apfer ter come out right en up wen deys any racket gwine on in de neighborhoods, let er be whar she will en wen she may; mo espeshually ef de man wat got it know zactly wat he got ter do."