Since ancient times, people have passed on various beliefs and superstitions to each other. “Signs of fate” kept most of the population in fear, and they had a particularly detrimental effect on the child’s psyche. Despite the great achievements in technology and science, there are still devoted fans of omens who will not get out of bed without special talismans and amulets. But scientists are sure that superstition is a joint activity of self-hypnosis and natural phenomena. Sometimes people give ordinary coincidences a mystical power that they do not possess. Let's talk about this layer of folk culture and look at what superstition means.
Mysterious human nature
The peculiarity of people is that they want to believe in something. They look for signs that can predict good or bad. Each nation has its own beliefs that warn of dangers and adversity.
This topic remains relevant today. Even adults and quite serious people find talismans that give the owner special powers. They are sincerely confident that these are the things that help them achieve success and achieve their goals.
Human curiosity is limitless. People want to know what lies ahead for them, what obstacles they will have to overcome. Myths help us escape reality and shift our own responsibility to certain forces. Popular superstition justified many failures, although it would be much more useful for a person to gather willpower into a fist and begin to act.
Many signs are explained by the long-known laws of physics, chemistry and other exact sciences. But people are drawn to hoaxes because it is much simpler and easier to believe in fate; there is no need to do anything, it is enough to refer to “signs of fate.”
A healthy attitude towards superstitions will not bring much harm, but excessive enthusiasm for folk beliefs can result in constant stress. Self-hypnosis is a great thing, so it’s worth turning all the bad signs into good ones. Gradually, fears will begin to disappear when nothing terrible happens.
Science and religion
Science has long proven that apart from the material world, which we perceive with our senses, there is no other world, the other world (proof in the studio!).
Science and religion are to blame for everything. Science says: “It's normal. This happens because evolution requires it.” Religion says, “This is normal. This happens because God wants it." It is generally accepted that science and religion contradict each other, but in fact they give a person the same anesthesia. They make you believe that a person is not to blame for anything and cannot fix anything. Bernard Werber "The Secret of the Gods"
The supernatural world is an imaginary world, it exists only in the imagination of superstitious people, in their religious fantasy, in religious faith. Superstitious people believe in the existence of, say, goblins, goblins, hell, heaven, the afterlife, that is, in such objects and phenomena that in reality do not exist (or maybe there are?!). They believe not because all this exists, but because they imagine the existence of these objects and phenomena.
Faith is not based on knowledge. Knowledge can always be verified and controlled; its source is the material world, reflected by man in his thinking. Knowledge is based on facts and confirmed by the practical activities of people, and faith is based, if this can be considered a basis, on a person’s experiences, on his religious emotions, on a groundless belief in the existence of forces that actually do not exist.
Faith given from above
Of course, supporters of the religious-idealistic worldview strive in every possible way to prove the existence of the supernatural world and supernatural forces. They cite, for example, the so-called “historical proof”, which claims that the supernatural world and supernatural forces supposedly exist because people have always had faith in them, given “from above.” Often, supporters of a religious-idealistic worldview also refer, as a fact, to the existence of a supernatural principle, to the expediency present in some natural phenomena, as well as to “miracles” that allegedly take place in nature and society, and other similar “evidence.”
Adherents of religion and idealism claim that it is allegedly impossible to imagine that the world did not have its own original cause, its own legislator and ruler. And every phenomenon in nature has its own cause, and that a number of causes cannot be infinite, eternal. The cause, creator and legislator of the world, in their opinion, is God the Creator.
This is approximately how the Creator could appeal to a person: “I have endowed you with an inclination towards goodness. Your job is to develop it. And thus, your own happiness and unhappiness depends on yourself.” Immanuel Kant
However, all these proofs, including the last one, although it is the most widespread, like all others similar to it, do not have any serious basis and do not stand up to scientific criticism.
The First Cause of the World
Supporters of a religious-idealistic view of the world, speaking about the root cause of the world, proceed from an incorrect, anti-scientific understanding of the very essence of its existence. The world cannot have a first cause, because it never came into being, but has always existed. The world is eternal, this has been proven by many irrefutable scientific data. The world is eternal in time and infinite in space. Time and space, as forms of existence of matter, do not begin anywhere and cannot end.
“The inevitability of death is partly mitigated by the fact that we do not know when it will overtake us; in this uncertainty there is something of infinity and what we call eternity.” Jean La Bruyère
Is it possible to imagine the moment when time begins and when it can end, where space begins and where it ends? We can find the beginning and end of the units by which time and space are calculated: the hour, day, week, month, year, century or meter, kilometer, mile, etc., and time and space, as forms of existence, in of which the world abides, there is neither beginning nor end.
In fact, if space had a beginning and an end, then there should be nothing outside of it. And what is “nothing” anyway? It's hard to imagine. There is always something in any place. There is matter everywhere in the world, as well as the forms of its existence - time and space - it does not begin anywhere and does not end anywhere. After all, what is peace? The world is nothing more than matter constantly moving and developing in space and time.
Eternity is a pendulum that, swinging in the silence of the grave, tirelessly repeats only two words: “Always, never! Never, always." And with each such terrible wave, some outcast shouts: “What time is it?” And the voice of another unfortunate person answers him: “Eternity.” Jacques Breeden
Law of energy conservation
The eternity of matter has long been proven. Even 200 years ago, the brilliant Russian scientist M.V. Lomonosov showed that matter, under any conditions, does not arise from nothing and does not disappear without a trace. If sometimes it seems that some substance has disappeared without a trace, for example, a candle after burning, then in reality there has only been a transformation, a change in the form of matter, its quality. A candle from a solid substance, say, wax, during the process of its combustion turned into only a gaseous form and tiny particles of carbon, but the combustion products were by no means destroyed without a trace. There was a qualitative change in matter, but its quantity remained unchanged.
In nature, nothing is destroyed, but only modified; matter, in the process of its development, moves from one form to another, from simple to complex, from complex to the most complex, etc.
It follows from this that if matter under no circumstances can disappear or turn into nothing, therefore, it cannot arise or be formed from nothing. Therefore, it is completely meaningless to talk about spirit, God, the spiritual principle, which supposedly lies at the basis of the material world.
“It is necessary for a person to understand that he is the creator and owner of the world, that he is responsible for all the misfortunes on earth and that he is the one who has the glory for all the good things in life.” Romain Rolland
Signs from the point of view of the church
From the point of view of church ministers, superstition is the weapon of the devil. It gives rise to fear and cripples destinies, because of them people are in constant fear, and therefore become easy prey for demons. Superstitious people serve not God, but evil forces. To avoid such a fate, you need to have knowledge and maintain the church faith. It is necessary to remember about the soul, about eternity and the commandments of God.
Superstition is the belief that certain phenomena and events have supernatural powers and predict the future. But such faith is not true, it only replaces the genuine one.
Superstition concept
Superstition is a prejudice due to which many things that happen seem to be a manifestation of supernatural forces, a sign of fate or an omen of the future. If you think about it, it’s easy to notice that the word superstition consists of two words: faith and vanity. Superstition is a belief in the vain (vain, empty, without true value).
There are many superstitions, since people, during their long lives, along with the knowledge and useful observations of natural and social phenomena that they accumulated while fighting for their existence, also created many false ideas about objects and phenomena that have nothing in common with each other .
“Superstition is the worship of emptiness in the guise of mystery.” V. Krotov
Is it possible to eat from a knife?
It is believed that eating food in this way will make a person evil. This is justified by the fact that the knife has long been used as a tool for obtaining food. In addition, it was perceived as a means of protection not only from real danger, but also from evil spirits. Such a powerful magical instrument deserves special treatment, so eating from it means angering the spirits.
But putting a knife in your mouth is also dangerous for another, more real and “earthly” reason: it is very sharp and can easily cause injury. Therefore, when eating, it is more advisable to use more familiar cutlery, such as a fork and spoon. Use the knife for its intended purpose.
Sign
A sign is a subjective reaction of the cognitive mind of a person, trying to identify the relationships between mutually embedded processes, to objective phenomena. Thus, a sign is the result of the work of the mind of a person who feels that everything in the world is interconnected. The observational ability of some people and their ability to understand this leads to the identification of stable relationships between individual processes, and, as a consequence, to the emergence of stereotypes for recognizing these relationships, which is formalized in the form of folk signs. [2]
Most often, weather and agricultural signs belong to this type. Basically, such signs are based on observations of several generations of people about nature and the identification of some patterns. Many of these signs are still used by tourists, fishermen, villagers and other people who need to quickly assess the surrounding situation without the ability to use special instruments. Examples of such signs include:
- “When the earth crumbles easily, they go out to plow.” (This means that the soil is sufficiently dry and not wet, i.e. most suitable for plowing.)
- “In winter, pillars spread across the sky from the sun - to frost.” (“Sun pillars” are a fairly well-known optical effect caused by hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the air.)
These folk signs were passed down from generation to generation, corrected, and with the spread of printing, collections of them began to be published. An example is [5].
The content of the sign, or the fact that it was noticed, may correlate with actual patterns that were too difficult to confirm scientifically at the time the sign appeared. [3]
Why are intersections dangerous?
If you ask people what superstitions they know, many will immediately think of crossroads. Road intersections are considered a mystical place where parallel worlds come into contact. Therefore, crossroads “participate” in numerous magical rituals, which do not always carry positive energy.
By lifting a thing in such an area, you can take on someone else’s failure and problems. To prevent this from happening, you should under no circumstances touch any product that lies at the crossroads, no matter how valuable it may be.
When should I take out the trash?
One of the most popular superstitions is the one that says you should not take out the trash after sunset. Our ancestors were sure that if a person takes out his dirty laundry so late, it means he has something to hide.
The second explanation relates to the belief in spirits, which can be both good and evil. So that the first ones can freely enter the house, it is necessary to remove all the rubbish from it in advance and restore order. If you do not do this in the light of day, then only evil spirits will come to spend the night.
The mystery of numbers
The superstition of numbers occupies a special place among magical mysteries. Numbers accompany people everywhere, starting from birth. Such superstitions are the most “tenacious”. Every person has a favorite number that they believe brings them good luck. Numerology goes back to ancient times, when people did not yet know how to use such mathematical symbols. But even today they are consciously or unconsciously subject to number magic.
Superstition is a voluntary matter, so each person can independently decide what to believe.
