> > Superstitious people, as I see it, are those that respond to this inner calling by not responding at all. Rather than seek out the truth of the world around them, pre-fabricated ideas are substituted for "knowledge." Refusing a call to learn is much easier if one deludes oneself into believing that the call has already been fulfilled.
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> Um. Just to stir the pot a little: Isn't believing in what's written in the Bible -- indeed, calling it "the truth" -- subscribing to a pre-fabricated idea?

"Pre-fabricated" was probably a poor word choice here, because all it essentially means is that the idea wasn't originally one's own. (And how many ideas truly are?) I was trying to convey the idea of accepting some kind of tenet, whether verifiably false or not, without any rational reason to do so.

I don't consider a belief in the Bible necessarily falls into this category, although certainly people can believe in that or *anything* without sound reasons, whether sound reasons are out there to be had or no. While much of the Bible is not of the scientifically verifiable nature, it does say many things that are verifiable -- historically or archeologically or what not -- and, most relevant to this thread, presents a consistent depiction of what's "out there" and more importantly what we should do about it -- in contrast to superstitions, which are by nature not even consistent with themselves.

Some argue the Bible's internal consistency, but I don't want to belabor the biblical angle. For this thread, it is enough that the Bible exists at all. Because it exists and is unchanging, it can be evaluated (whether in terms of factual accuracy, moral correctness, effective spiritual guidance, or whatever). But how does one evaluate that a black cat crossing one's path is bad luck? Does one evaluate its accuracy by ascribing the next occurrence of bad luck to it? That's a fallible evaluation right there, but at least accuracy is a category that applies at all: history, science, moral correctness, etc, don't even apply. The very nature of the superstition is "something is the case; there's nothing we can do about it; there's nothing further we can know about it." It's shaky ground to base one's life on. Of course there is more to superstition than black cats, and many kinds of superstition that don't involve them at all. But I don't believe that astrology lends itself any better to evaluation; if anything, it's less verifiable, because at least "black cat = bad luck" is an unchanging statement; astrology, on the other hand, has few if any unchanging ground rules.