DangerousTalk

Be careful today everyone. In case you haven’t looked at a calendar, today is Friday the 13th! It is a cursed day in which bad luck runs abundant. Sure, we can laugh at this ridiculous superstition now, but there was a time when the vast majority of people took this cure extremely seriously.

Triskaidekaphobia, or the fear of the number thirteen was once a very common thing. If you have ever lived in a large city, you might take notice that many older buildings don’t have a thirteenth floor. They go to twelve, skip thirteen, and then proceed to fourteen as if changing the label on the floor would somehow erase the actual fact that the fourteenth floor is really the thirteenth floor.

Also, if you are an Astrologer, you are no doubt aware of the twelve zodiac signs, but if you are an Astronomer, you know that there are actually thirteen. No one wants to be born during a cursed zodiac sign.

Again, we laugh at this stuff today. Not just atheists either. You can go to your favorite fundamentalist Christian and ask them if they fear the number thirteen or consider Friday the 13th to be a cursed day. My guess is that most will laugh at the thought and it should be noted that fundamentalist Christians tend to be the most superstitious people and even they think it is a joke.

Did God release a new book in the Bible letting Christians know that they ought not to fear Friday the 13th? Of course not, so why is it that just a few generations ago large majorities of people (mainly religious) feared this cursed day and today we laugh at it?

Part of it I guess may be the ridiculously funny horror series of the same name. But honestly, I knew about the Friday the 13th movies before I even heard of the superstition around the day. I think what has accounted for our dismissal of this curse has been societies greater emphasis on reason. I know it doesn’t seem like much of an emphasis, but believe it or not people (even religious believers) consider reason a virtue. Sometimes they just don’t realize it.

So the more we can get people to reason and to value reason the less we have to deal with ridiculous curses like Friday the 13th. In fact, the more we can get people to reason and to value reason, the less we have to deal with religious superstitions and religion itself. Today’s silly superstitions were once yesterday’s divine realities. Which means that today’s divine realities are tomorrow’s silly superstitions.

Related articles

• Friday the Thirteenth (growingyoungereachday.wordpress.com)
• Superstitions on Friday The 13th (paulocoelhoblog.com)
• Why Friday (the13th)? (1fridayatatime.wordpress.com)
• Friday The 13th: A Brief Look At The Superstitiously Unlucky Day (huffingtonpost.com)
• It’s Friday 13th! (And there are THREE this year, which is bad news for the superstitious) (dailymail.co.uk)

Filed under: Belief, Friday the 13th