Weitzel
12-30-99, 04:40 PM
Hi all. I don't visit this site often, and only started to recently, so I'm unsure as to whether this topic has been discussed already. Regardless, I feel it's a very important issue. And so, let's talk about superstition.
In a few short days it will be the new millenium. (Or one year from now, if you're counting the years more succinctly.) We've come a long way. In the last few hundred years, especially, we've seen our manner of thinking evolve greatly, due to the role of science and technology. Science is something new to humans. It has seen us gain a better grasp of who we are and where we come from, and advanced the living conditions of people everywhere.
Science, along with mathematics in general, is unique in that it is the first and only type of argument to exist where its sentiments--the thoughts or ideas trying to be conveyed--can be *proven*. Because of this grand fact, science has been the key to dismissing many things that were once thought to be true. Superstitious things.
Take, for instance, the fact that 12th century sailors were forbidden to eat onions while sailing, in fear that their breath would alter their compass readings.
Or the habit of covering your mouth when you sneeze...? That habit's been around since before we knew about germs. It was done to limit or stop the expulsion of good spirits. You see, sneezing was not seen as an instinctive reflex of the body. No, like so many other things before the advent of science, it was attributed to the supernatural, or the gods. (Thus, the habit that has since become mere good manners of saying "bless you" when someone sneezes, to keep the evil spirits from entering the body during the absence of the good spirits.)
Now, you'd think that with science as it is, there would be a lot less superstition today than existed in earlier times. There is. You don't see people labelled as witches in the supermarket and dragged to the center of town to burn. (At least, not in the civilized world.) This isn't due to fear of punishment for such an act, either. It's because people have a greater sense of rationality for the world.
But there is still SO MUCH SUPERSTITION that it's embarrassing! And quite sad. It's one thing to demand proof for every little thing or not take it to be true; that's going too far. But it's quite another to believe in things like witches and goblins and ghosts and the devil.
And here is where superstition and religion become one and the same.
I'm not going to go into my personal beliefs because it does not pertain to my argument. Suffice it to say, I believe faith to be very important, and religion to have contributed to many good deeds over the millenia. Just this morning, I read an article in the paper about how a couple are feeding 1700 homeless people steak dinners this New Years Eve. They explained, when asked about their actions, "Feeding the hungry is a very Christian thing to do."
But when the superstitious beliefs of religion come at odds with scientific fact, it's time to give up the fantasy and see the light!
I said I wouldn't talk about my personal beliefs. I'm also not going to get into specific examples--I'm not going to tell you that people can't come back from the dead, or that Man has been on this Earth for far more than a few thousand years, that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. I won't go ANYWHERE near the discrepencies in many religious books, such as the Bible, the Koran, or any other, or how they were written by biased, fallible human beings, and a lot of different ones. There are many other strings open in this forum for discussing discrepencies and so forth.
What I would like to remark on are two central causes of this attitude we seem unable to give up.
One is humankind's desire to be a part of a grander, larger something. This is what faith and religion stem from, ultimately. No one likes to believe that when they die, it'll be over. No one likes the idea (I know I don't) that there is *no* grander being watching over us, that our lives are just that--our own, short and insignificant on the broader scale.
The other reason for our continued unscientific thinking is our stubborn tendency to cling to the notion that we're at the middle of things. That humankind is something more important than any of the other types of life that exist. Here I think I'll use some examples to make my point clearer. Example: God made man, and the animals were made *for* him, to do as he please. Example: the Earth, too, was made for man. (Believed by many cultures if not said outright in the Christian Bible.) Example: we thought ourselves the center of the universe prior to the Copernican revolution. Example: many still think we're the only source of intelligent life that exists, when there are so many billions of other worlds out there and the potential is so large. Example: the neverending debate of creationism versus evolutionism.
These *are* important and valid things to discuss. Prior to the advent of science, it would have seemed that any of these ideas could be true. Yet after science points to the truth, how can people still cling to their ignorant viewpoints and dismiss the evidence? To be frank, I find it disappointing. It undermines our intelligence, and centuries from now, we're probably going to look back and wonder what we were thinking, like we do now at our ancestors who lived in "the Dark Ages".
Well, these are my views. I urge everyone to think rationally about what you think is common sense, and to question a few of those taken-for-granted points that I've brought up above. It's a shame that, even with the existence of science, pseudoscience and superstition largely live on.
Weitzel
In a few short days it will be the new millenium. (Or one year from now, if you're counting the years more succinctly.) We've come a long way. In the last few hundred years, especially, we've seen our manner of thinking evolve greatly, due to the role of science and technology. Science is something new to humans. It has seen us gain a better grasp of who we are and where we come from, and advanced the living conditions of people everywhere.
Science, along with mathematics in general, is unique in that it is the first and only type of argument to exist where its sentiments--the thoughts or ideas trying to be conveyed--can be *proven*. Because of this grand fact, science has been the key to dismissing many things that were once thought to be true. Superstitious things.
Take, for instance, the fact that 12th century sailors were forbidden to eat onions while sailing, in fear that their breath would alter their compass readings.
Or the habit of covering your mouth when you sneeze...? That habit's been around since before we knew about germs. It was done to limit or stop the expulsion of good spirits. You see, sneezing was not seen as an instinctive reflex of the body. No, like so many other things before the advent of science, it was attributed to the supernatural, or the gods. (Thus, the habit that has since become mere good manners of saying "bless you" when someone sneezes, to keep the evil spirits from entering the body during the absence of the good spirits.)
Now, you'd think that with science as it is, there would be a lot less superstition today than existed in earlier times. There is. You don't see people labelled as witches in the supermarket and dragged to the center of town to burn. (At least, not in the civilized world.) This isn't due to fear of punishment for such an act, either. It's because people have a greater sense of rationality for the world.
But there is still SO MUCH SUPERSTITION that it's embarrassing! And quite sad. It's one thing to demand proof for every little thing or not take it to be true; that's going too far. But it's quite another to believe in things like witches and goblins and ghosts and the devil.
And here is where superstition and religion become one and the same.
I'm not going to go into my personal beliefs because it does not pertain to my argument. Suffice it to say, I believe faith to be very important, and religion to have contributed to many good deeds over the millenia. Just this morning, I read an article in the paper about how a couple are feeding 1700 homeless people steak dinners this New Years Eve. They explained, when asked about their actions, "Feeding the hungry is a very Christian thing to do."
But when the superstitious beliefs of religion come at odds with scientific fact, it's time to give up the fantasy and see the light!
I said I wouldn't talk about my personal beliefs. I'm also not going to get into specific examples--I'm not going to tell you that people can't come back from the dead, or that Man has been on this Earth for far more than a few thousand years, that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. I won't go ANYWHERE near the discrepencies in many religious books, such as the Bible, the Koran, or any other, or how they were written by biased, fallible human beings, and a lot of different ones. There are many other strings open in this forum for discussing discrepencies and so forth.
What I would like to remark on are two central causes of this attitude we seem unable to give up.
One is humankind's desire to be a part of a grander, larger something. This is what faith and religion stem from, ultimately. No one likes to believe that when they die, it'll be over. No one likes the idea (I know I don't) that there is *no* grander being watching over us, that our lives are just that--our own, short and insignificant on the broader scale.
The other reason for our continued unscientific thinking is our stubborn tendency to cling to the notion that we're at the middle of things. That humankind is something more important than any of the other types of life that exist. Here I think I'll use some examples to make my point clearer. Example: God made man, and the animals were made *for* him, to do as he please. Example: the Earth, too, was made for man. (Believed by many cultures if not said outright in the Christian Bible.) Example: we thought ourselves the center of the universe prior to the Copernican revolution. Example: many still think we're the only source of intelligent life that exists, when there are so many billions of other worlds out there and the potential is so large. Example: the neverending debate of creationism versus evolutionism.
These *are* important and valid things to discuss. Prior to the advent of science, it would have seemed that any of these ideas could be true. Yet after science points to the truth, how can people still cling to their ignorant viewpoints and dismiss the evidence? To be frank, I find it disappointing. It undermines our intelligence, and centuries from now, we're probably going to look back and wonder what we were thinking, like we do now at our ancestors who lived in "the Dark Ages".
Well, these are my views. I urge everyone to think rationally about what you think is common sense, and to question a few of those taken-for-granted points that I've brought up above. It's a shame that, even with the existence of science, pseudoscience and superstition largely live on.
Weitzel