Poll: Are you superstitious?

[Wutaiflea]

Yeah, I'm a little superstitious. I think its less to do with traditional superstition, so much as those silly little rituals and routines that become your own superstitions.

For example, if I open a letter, I have to check the empty envelope before I throw it away. I also won't buy a handbag/purse without opening and closing all the pockets first.

 

[badgersprite]

I don't seriously believe that doing things are inherently bad luck, or that a behaviour will bring me good luck...but I will admit that I do have a few...sort of OCD things that I do for no logical reason, other than that some part of me subconsciously thinks I can exert control over things I can't, or that it might increase my chances of success ever so slightly.

I guess you can say I have, like, gaming superstitions and gambling superstitions. I know rationally that they don't affect the outcome of what I'm doing, but I still end up practicing them anyway.

And I do have a lucky number because it was the number of a ticket with which I won a raffle. It's never brought luck for me again, but I've considered it lucky ever since.

 

[lewism247]

While superstition can be a pain, it also tends to add something more to an otherwise mundane day.

So... I suppose I am, just not entirely. There are some things that are just obviously a coincidence and other things that just kind of crawl up and down your spine while whispering a dark song that will forever haunt your waking nightmares.

That's pretty much what I was gonna say, apart from the haunting of the nightmares part...

Anyway, now I have an excuse to use the image I made a few minutes ago

 

[GodofCider]

A premonition that foretells someones death. Or at least that's the definition where I'm from, I'm pretty sure it has other definitions.

I've never once heard 'forerunner' used in such a manner.

Still comical though.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Nope. My mind, as in me, is not weak enough to need such a safety blanket to create artificial order and control in a chaotic world.

Mind you, this is not a flame towards superstitious people, it's just a thing that makes humans humans. It looks like we're basically too clever for ourselves, being able to explore, investigate and, to a certain degree, understand the universe around us. Sadly we don't seem to be able to handle all that emotionally, so we have certain defence mechanisms to shelter ourselves against all that we can see. Mechanisms to insulate ourselves against the chaos and uncertainties that 'plague' our lives; superstition, religious believes, that sort of thing.

Again, not saying that people who do have that are stupid, it seems mostly to be a subconscious thing. They say it's genetic, maybe I just lack the gene for it because I don't even remotely feel the need for such magical explanations. Sure I have no freakin' idea why I'm stricken by bad luck so damned often, but I just shrug and move on. Who says there's even a real answer to that question?

A little unrelated, it does always amuse me when superstitious/religious people describe themselves as 'logical minds' despite their beliefs, even though their believes prove otherwise. Hell you don't even need believes to not be a logical mind, humans just aren't logical creatures. We're not Vulcans you know.

Well I do believe in God if that counts... otherwise no.

I never really knew the difference between the 2. I know religious people who dismiss superstition as something silly, but is their religious belief that different from that? I'm not seeing why it would be. Same goes for Scientology, it's all so wildly dismissed as absolutely ridiculous, but is it that more weird than a virgin giving birth to a human incarnation of a deity?

Nope, i only trust my instinct.

That's exactly what makes some people superstitious.

 

[Korolev]

No. I'm not superstitious. Most superstitions make absolutely no sense, and don't have any connection to reality. My Horoscope is almost never correct. I've broken a mirror, yet I am considered by most to be quite lucky. I've walked under a few ladders, and nothing bad happened to me. I like the number 13, and it has done me no harm.

Superstitions are just silly old things that people made up hundreds of years ago because they had nothing better to do back then, as well as the fact that they were incredibly ignorant and easy to scare. Come on, they believed in witches back then. They even burned them. How stupid is that?

Gamblers are usually a very superstitious lot. They have their lucky charms, good days and "bad days", superstitious routines and they do a lot of other really hokey stuff. And it doesn't work - the house still wins. The only people who ever manage to beat the house are those who use mathematics and logic to exploit flaws in the casino games (but they're quickly shut down once the casino wises up to them).

If superstitions can't even help people win gambling games, what use are they in real life?

 

[Cowabungaa]

If superstitions can't even help people win gambling games, what use are they in real life?

Reminds me of this xkcd comic:

Same counts for all those superstitious things.

But then again, humans are not logical beings, so don't expect us to get all that. I wouldn't put it so violently as you did, it's not that people didn't have anything better to do or were just stupid and didn't know anything, they were just being human.

 

[Harlemura]

Kinda. I don't care much for the walking under ladders and the black cat thing, but I do feel I have lucky and unlucky socks.
I have some socks with Jack Skellington on them. They have a hole, but I wore them the day I got to know a load of people at college. Then I have some Dangermouse socks I wore on the day of a Biology test and the day I got the results of said test. 5/24. Worst mark of the year, I think.
And I'm currently wearing the cursed Dangermouse socks, and as such staying inside all day ni case of falling anvils.

Going back to the black cat thing though, is it good or bad luck? I never actually got either confirmed.

 

[CouchCommando]

not in the least, I broke numerous mirrors, owned a black cat, always walk under ladders, open umbrellas in doors and even ate a chunk of asbestos.....wait that last one had nothing to do with superstition more making a stupid point.

 

[Amphoteric]

34.5% of the Escapist dissapoint me...

 

[Fraught]

no,i'm just paranoid.

Well, superstitious people are pretty paranoid.