Where do superstitions come from?

[Oerets]

Fear of the unknown or the inability to understand the happenings in front of them. Causes the imagination to conjure up an explanation. Understandable considering that we are always looking for answers to the unexplainable.

But then there are superstitions based on facts. Like the one about three on a match being bad luck. But one if not worried about a sniper and not in a trench then no worries.

Barney

[noonereal]

Originally Posted by Combwork

Where do superstitions come from?

The Caribbean.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by ebacon

Illiteracy was a big part of it. Roman Catholic churches that were built in the 1500s had facades full of sculptures. They were put there to communicate with the illiterate. At least that's what my tour guide told me in Regensburg.

When people are left to their own devices they can come up with all kinds of models to represent the "truth". A friend and I were talking about relationships once and she came up with a spring model to describe ebbs and flows of struggles in life. If she lived a few thousand years ago and a rock carver wanted to get into her pants bad enough, she might have been the author of the Ten Commandments of the Church of Springs.

You and he are both right. Not only the statues on the exterior but the scenes depicted in stained glass, the "Stations of the Cross and the statuary inside were designed to tell the stories of of the lives of the saints and of Jesus in a way that the illiterate could understand and with a power that would cause them to remember.

John

[piece-itpete]

I read that after the Germans kicked out the Catholic church and they switched to German for mass instead of Latin, the common folks were shocked with communion

Pete

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

I read that after the Germans kicked out the Catholic church and they switched to German for mass instead of Latin, the common folks were shocked with communion

Pete

I read that too. Here. But nowhere else.

When did the Germans "kick out" the Catholic Church?

John

[piece-itpete]

Hey if I have to post links to scanned books every time I say something, you do too

See Martin Luther. I read that in a biography, don't remember which one.

Pete

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Hey if I have to post links to scanned books every time I say something, you do too

See Martin Luther. I read that in a biography, don't remember which one.

Pete

Luther never kicked anybody anywhere.

[piece-itpete]

I thought he kicked the papists in the man fruit.



Dang nab it you know what I mean!

Pete

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

I thought he kicked the papists in the man fruit.



Dang nab it you know what I mean!

Pete

No, I don't, or didn't. When you say that the Germans kicked the Catholics out of the country I tend to think you mean that the Germans kicked the Catholics out of the country.

Silly, I know, but that's the way my feeble mind works. I'm not really smart enough to know what you mean is that Martin Luther started a schismatic religious sect in Germany which eventually grew into an official Protestant denomination. This is especially hard for me to understand since Catholicism is still the largest single denomination in Germany.

John

[piece-itpete]

By 'the Catholics' I mean the church establishment of said sect.

Here's a bit on majorities in 1610:

http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/germany_1610.htm

Pete