Who is afraid of disbelief?

The title of the blog post today is a word game on the title of a very famous American play. I have chosen this title because today is the anti-superstition day. Superstitions are a universal phenomenon. Every established religion, each organised socio-cultural structure has its own version of superstitions.

If in India it was the milk drinking spree on this very day way back in 1995, it could be a certain number or a particular day in some other country. Colours change their symbolism as per the region or the creed, for instance. Multiple examples thereof can be exponentially provided.

I have always felt that instead of listing the instances, and throwing them at each other in accusation and counter-allegations, it is indeed necessary to explore the why and the how, rather than the infuriating what, of /behind superstitions. 

The obvious materialistic (in all senses of this term) explanation  is that any superstition can be, and is, beneficial to somebody. It literally can be a veritable source of income. It may be an `advantage, individual ' kind of case, too. At times, it is a form of stupid entertainment as well. Remember the childhood ghost stories? If we were to go back to pre-historic times, may be, it could be said that superstitions were born out of either fear or the need to hang together. 

If one had a more poetic, imaginative soul, one could say that the sense of wonder at nature's beneficence could be a source, too. The welcome beauty of a stupendous morning, to give an example, after the darkness of a cave-bound night might have transmogorified the diurnal event in to a godly con-text, with its own attendant rituals, may be. The same could be true of a starlit night bathed in the brilliant moonlight or the grandeur of the milky way  or the dazzle of a shooting star.

Superstitions might create a bonding within a community as well, giving it its own unique identity. The best example thereof could be the rituals dedicated to the local deities.  Such beliefs, however, become a danger when they harm another individual (as in the case of human sacrifice to get wealth or to beget a child) or a community (as in the case of `Sati', may be).

 In a way, market to marriage, each and every human institution is built on  or depends on faith. If such faith hurts, harms another, most often, very much knowingly, it becomes bad faith, even when presented in a very sophisticated way. A crazy example thereof could the need to drink `socially', whatever that is supposed to mean. Multiple such superstitions, even when they are not superficially so, can be listed, pointing actually to moribund relations, to a decadent society, right?

Even an intellectual stance, a critiqueing fashion, too, could be a superstition with its own `bhakta' or devotee following, as the shrewd always know which way their bread is buttered. In academics, for instance, a particular `ism' becomes quite a blind faith , to be followed religiously as it can get you a teaching tenure, a grant, a tour abroad, and so on, not to forget the great opportunity of bad-mouthing the other gang. 

In my opinion, hence, one should approach the theme truly warily, judiciously, unpretentiously, and in a spirit of humility. Even in the field of science, today's truth can be tomorrow's superstition. Remember how nobody really understood the triple dimensions of reality or the exact structure of an atom till Einstein happened?  The moment Einstein emerged, the Newtonian universe was reduced to a blind faith, just as till Galileo proved it to the contrary, the earth was stationary, and the sun and the stars revolved around it!

My self-reflexive response hence to any such debate is " the current paradigms consider it so". Any reactions, please?

pratima@the mind is in its place/ and makes a heaven of hell, and vice versa!