Superstition Stuff - Why Do They Keep Believing In It ?

[DRONGOH]

Blessing their motorbikes by monks against accidents?

Must be done by ladyboys wearing saffron robes!

[somtampet]

In America more than half of the people believe that the earth was created a few thousand years ago by an entity they call god.

Now thats realy silly lol lol.

This has got to be the best thread for complete lunacy.Many countries in the world have all kinds of superstition so thais are no different.

My mum uses birthdays for lottery and bingo balls for some numbers,now dont tell me my mum is uneducated or a fool,as i will not be a happy bunny.

[metisdead]

Off topic conspiracy nonsense post removed.

[CaptHaddock]

People resort to superstition when they face events beyond their control. Not just uneducated peasants. For instance, in baseball consider batters and fielders. Fielding is a skill that, once mastered, enables the player to catch nearly all the batted balls that come in his direction. Batting is completely different. Even the best batters miss at least 70% percent of the time. So, fielding is amenable to skills, while batting is not entirely. So, it's not surprising to see that batters are the ones known for their numberous superstitious behaviors as the approach the batter's box. We never hear of any such behavior with fielders.

Poor people in developing countries have very little power to control or influence events. So, it's not so surprising to see that they are much more superstitious than wealthier people in rick countries.

Edited May 20, 2013 by CaptHaddock

[rubberduck]

Many interesting replies here !

Edited May 20, 2013 by rubberduck

[muythai2013]

These superstitions were once the religious practices of the culture when animism was practiced.

They have hade only slight western influence, The only real influence from outside has been Buddhism and they have somewhat mixed Animism and Buddhism together because beliefs die hard when taught since birth from the old village woman.

It's not long ago Europeans were very similar, Modern German and Irish great grandmothers were preaching similar things to their children.

[Berkshire]

Many interesting replies here !

You think so? Westerners have just as many irrational, superstitious beliefs as the Thais. So why just pick on the Thais?

[Kayahammer]

Who says it is/they are wrong? It is difficult to believe when you com e from a different way of thinking, but it is possible.

Too many self appointed experts on everything Thai. Maybe they can see ghosts and we can't because they are of a different psyche than us Westies.

Not saying I believe in it, but I respect that they do.

[wwest5829]

In America more than half of the people believe that the earth was created a few thousand years ago by an entity they call god.

You greatly increase the number of fundamentalist believers in America. As it stands, I believe your statement is untrue.

[wwest5829]

Why do Thais keep believing? Indeed, why do the majority of the world's population pray to a litany of supreme beings for intervention? The western world is not immune to superstitions. I do enjoy the quote from Thailand's Past King who welcomed western medicine and technology. But on religion he said, we Thais have our own superstitions. Well said.

[notmyself]

In America more than half of the people believe that the earth was created a few thousand years ago by an entity they call god.

You greatly increase the number of fundamentalist believers in America. As it stands, I believe your statement is untrue.

I agree. The actual figure of YECs is close to 40%

[indyuk]

A lot of people in the West, including some members of my family actually believe that around 2000 years ago a woman became pregnant after having some bizarre liaison with a ghost, the little tyke turned out to be none other than the son of the guy apparently responsible for constructing the universe and reality itself....He was able to turn water into wine and all kinds of cool stuff and then, when the guy was about 35 he died and came back to life again......

That's one hell of a superstition in my opinion.

A lot of people in the West, including some members of my family actually believe that around 2000 years ago a woman became pregnant after having some bizarre liaison with a ghost, the little tyke turned out to be none other than the son of the guy apparently responsible for constructing the universe and reality itself....He was able to turn water into wine and all kinds of cool stuff and then, when the guy was about 35 he died and came back to life again......

That's one hell of a superstition in my opinion.

The stories of the profets are not superstition they are the hear say of their sucessors that has been embellished by us according to the convenience of our theologists and rulers.

[ricklev]

In America more than half of the people believe that the earth was created a few thousand years ago by an entity they call god.

You greatly increase the number of fundamentalist believers in America. As it stands, I believe your statement is untrue.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html

[notmyself]

In America more than half of the people believe that the earth was created a few thousand years ago by an entity they call god.

You greatly increase the number of fundamentalist believers in America. As it stands, I believe your statement is untrue.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html

Big change from 2011 to 2012, I wonder why.

[jinners]

So,......I just have to share this.

I was never a fan of the superstitions and ghost stories. The only exception to this rule has been the ghost that lives by the trees on the 16th green at Bangkok Golf Club (I once hit a 100 yard slice that disappeared into the jungle towards the 17th tee, and the ball was on the green as we approached. It was the ghost who brought the ball back to the green, according to the caddies. I never play that hole without bringing an offering). To put it simple, I laughed at peoples ghost stories.

A couple of years ago I had this weird thing when I ran in to the same series of numbers over and over again during two weeks. Phone numbers, addresses, visa applications, license plates; the same numbers kept appearing everywhere. Accidentally, I told my wife who told me "you must play the lottery". I have never played the lottery or gambled in my entire life. Next weekend we made a huge move to our new house and were forced to eat out for practical reasons. As we are about to finish our meal, a lottery sales guy passes by without catching my initial attention. As he walks away I glance at his lottery tickets and THERE'S THE FREAKING NUMBER AGAIN! It was a bunch of 10 tickets. I bought the bunch.

A week later my wife asked me if I checked the numbers. I looked it up on the Internet and felt chills down my back as I looked at the results. THERE WAS THE FREAKING NUMBER! I won 10X40.000THB (400.000)

I have never played the lottery again. And I dare not play the 16th at Bangkok without bringing a proper offering.

PS.

Every Thai person I know harassed me for 6 months in an attempt to get some numbers from me. They went through my phonebook, check book, cook book. And my license plates on my vehicles was the most sought after numbers within a radius of 3 miles. My weight, length, age, birthday - you name it. No one ever won.

DS.

I had a similar experience. I kept on seeing the number 7 everywhere, Opened up the paper around 7 in the morning at page 7 there was the race page with the 7th race meeting of the day and it was with 7 runners and a horse was in there called, yes, lucky number 7!! I went to the bank, withdrew 700 quid, thought this is too much, there's something going on here. Put it all on the horse and YES..................it came 7th!!!

[willyumiii]

In America more than half of the people believe that the earth was created a few thousand years ago by an entity they call god.

...and the other half believe it was created billions of years ago by a strange entity called 'Nature'...

...which would obviously raise the question of who created 'Nature' itself...

...and who created the creator of Nature.....and so on..

Suddenly, the 'God' theory doesn't look so ludicrous..

yes it does look ludicrous if you are locical and not superstitious! go pray!

[PalMan]

No people from any 'group' are stupid though they can suffer from very poor education which may or may not be due to divisiveness.

-

No matter how good the education system is, cultural programming held as true by that society will still be uncritically passed along to the next generation.

Personally I think most mainstream education systems no matter how "excellent" (by what standard?) are designed to crank out obedient citizens and employees, not free thinkers that question authority.

What you consider an excellent education would be considered a tool of the devil by a creationist. I'm sure Prince Charles and the Dalai Lama got sent to top schools - would you say they are both free of "superstitions"?

I bet many students at our societies' top schools believe in superstitions like "Muslims are scary" or "My country is a democracy and is on the side of fairness, equality and freedom", and in fact may be explicitly taught those beliefs within the school system.

I'm not actually trying to push for superstitions to be eliminated here, I think that's not possible, just for people to be more accepting and tolerant of them realizing they're inevitable and just because "they" have a different set than "we" do doesn't make us superior.

So every culture would then be equal....

Excision in Africa so very equal.

Throwing acid at a girl's face because she refused a man

Killing your own daughter because she adopted another equal culture

Raping a 13 year old girl because she was not wearing her hijab

Hiding women behing a burka

Not taking responsibility of a child because it would cost money

Bombing because...

Oh well, I will stop now...

-

Morden already answered this perfectly

-

It's not the stories that are dangerous. It's the way that people use them that's dangerous.

-

I am perfectly happy with criticism of actions that are harmful to others, and if the actions are a direct result of cultural beliefs then I guess it's time to work on correcting the beliefs.

For example, my government has been waging war, killing civilians, illegally assassinating people with video-game drones including its own citizens, torturing and imprisoning people for life without trial, spying on all our communications, setting up a police state that looks increasingly fascistic, ruining the economy and putting how many future generations into debt, eliminating all the freedoms and principles that made our civilization great in the past, all because of a belief that the problem of terrorism can be fought by going to war against terrorists.

That one superstition alone has caused at least as much evil in the world as everything you mentioned, yet it is still widely held by much of the western world, perhaps even by many here.

I try not to criticize people or cultures for their irrational beliefs (their beliefs that my indoctrinated value system leads me to believe are "irrational"), since I know I have many myself that I don't even know how stupid they are.

Edited May 20, 2013 by PalMan

[lemoncake]

Education is the key , just as ignorance is a bliss.

Do some light reading , google is your friend

Very true.

I just found out that the moon landings were faked and 9/11 was a CIA job.

It is a known fact that Cat eyes do in fact have more bandwidth compared to Human eyes. The reason for this is that the Cat iris is naturally designed and tuned to operate at a wider spectrum and is optimized to work better at night. They have the equivalent of night vision goggles with built-in thermal imaging. So Cats do in fact sometimes see things that you cannot see.

[PalMan]

In America more than half of the people believe that the earth was created a few thousand years ago by an entity they call god.

You greatly increase the number of fundamentalist believers in America. As it stands, I believe your statement is untrue.

-

The truth is even weirder - only 15% believe God had nothing to do with creation, even most of those that "believe in evolution" think God lent a helping hand.

[muythai2013]

I see spirits as part of nature, Dogs, cats, people, spirits.

Mountains, oceans, canyons, Heaven.

All places in Nature.

Why separate them.

[jocko]

So,......I just have to share this.

I was never a fan of the superstitions and ghost stories. The only exception to this rule has been the ghost that lives by the trees on the 16th green at Bangkok Golf Club (I once hit a 100 yard slice that disappeared into the jungle towards the 17th tee, and the ball was on the green as we approached. It was the ghost who brought the ball back to the green, according to the caddies. I never play that hole without bringing an offering). To put it simple, I laughed at peoples ghost stories.

A couple of years ago I had this weird thing when I ran in to the same series of numbers over and over again during two weeks. Phone numbers, addresses, visa applications, license plates; the same numbers kept appearing everywhere. Accidentally, I told my wife who told me "you must play the lottery". I have never played the lottery or gambled in my entire life. Next weekend we made a huge move to our new house and were forced to eat out for practical reasons. As we are about to finish our meal, a lottery sales guy passes by without catching my initial attention. As he walks away I glance at his lottery tickets and THERE'S THE FREAKING NUMBER AGAIN! It was a bunch of 10 tickets. I bought the bunch.

A week later my wife asked me if I checked the numbers. I looked it up on the Internet and felt chills down my back as I looked at the results. THERE WAS THE FREAKING NUMBER! I won 10X40.000THB (400.000)

I have never played the lottery again. And I dare not play the 16th at Bangkok without bringing a proper offering.

PS.

Every Thai person I know harassed me for 6 months in an attempt to get some numbers from me. They went through my phonebook, check book, cook book. And my license plates on my vehicles was the most sought after numbers within a radius of 3 miles. My weight, length, age, birthday - you name it. No one ever won.

DS.

I could say you where Lucky but thats a superstition in its self.

[jocko]

So,......I just have to share this.

I was never a fan of the superstitions and ghost stories. The only exception to this rule has been the ghost that lives by the trees on the 16th green at Bangkok Golf Club (I once hit a 100 yard slice that disappeared into the jungle towards the 17th tee, and the ball was on the green as we approached. It was the ghost who brought the ball back to the green, according to the caddies. I never play that hole without bringing an offering). To put it simple, I laughed at peoples ghost stories.

A couple of years ago I had this weird thing when I ran in to the same series of numbers over and over again during two weeks. Phone numbers, addresses, visa applications, license plates; the same numbers kept appearing everywhere. Accidentally, I told my wife who told me "you must play the lottery". I have never played the lottery or gambled in my entire life. Next weekend we made a huge move to our new house and were forced to eat out for practical reasons. As we are about to finish our meal, a lottery sales guy passes by without catching my initial attention. As he walks away I glance at his lottery tickets and THERE'S THE FREAKING NUMBER AGAIN! It was a bunch of 10 tickets. I bought the bunch.

A week later my wife asked me if I checked the numbers. I looked it up on the Internet and felt chills down my back as I looked at the results. THERE WAS THE FREAKING NUMBER! I won 10X40.000THB (400.000)

I have never played the lottery again. And I dare not play the 16th at Bangkok without bringing a proper offering.

PS.

Every Thai person I know harassed me for 6 months in an attempt to get some numbers from me. They went through my phonebook, check book, cook book. And my license plates on my vehicles was the most sought after numbers within a radius of 3 miles. My weight, length, age, birthday - you name it. No one ever won.

DS.

400k. That is a life changing amount. Wouldn't it have been better to use your magic numbers to win a foreign lottery where you can win real money?

Come on, man...Thai superstition doesn't work outside Thailand, everybody knows that. Who do you think I am, a nutter...?

Not only that the numbers he saw where in Thai so no good anywhere else.

[Paangjang]

One hundred years ago it was the same in Europe.

The government and the church had an unwritten agreement. If one could keep them stupid then the other would keep them poor.

Is that whay they will never let them learn english unlike Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Philippines etc Keep 'em dumb and they will never fight the corruption

[kannot]

Education is the key , just as ignorance is a bliss.

Do some light reading , google is your friend

Very true.

I just found out that the moon landings were faked and 9/11 was a CIA job.

It is a known fact that Cat eyes do in fact have more bandwidth compared to Human eyes. The reason for this is that the Cat iris is naturally designed and tuned to operate at a wider spectrum and is optimized to work better at night. They have the equivalent of night vision goggles with built-in thermal imaging. So Cats do in fact sometimes see things that you cannot see.

Is that a different dimension??

[lemoncake]

Education is the key , just as ignorance is a bliss.

Do some light reading , google is your friend

Very true.

I just found out that the moon landings were faked and 9/11 was a CIA job.

It is a known fact that Cat eyes do in fact have more bandwidth compared to Human eyes. The reason for this is that the Cat iris is naturally designed and tuned to operate at a wider spectrum and is optimized to work better at night. They have the equivalent of night vision goggles with built-in thermal imaging. So Cats do in fact sometimes see things that you cannot see.

Is that a different dimension??

is it not?

[Berkshire]

In America more than half of the people believe that the earth was created a few thousand years ago by an entity they call god.

You greatly increase the number of fundamentalist believers in America. As it stands, I believe your statement is untrue.

-

The truth is even weirder - only 15% believe God had nothing to do with creation, even most of those that "believe in evolution" think God lent a helping hand.

I find that many Americans will say they believe in God even when they don't...."just to be on the safe side." There are so many bizarre contradictions when it comes to religion, I don't even know where to begin. For example, Christians make fun of Islam and their 72 virgins after martyrdom. But what is Christian heaven supposed to be like? Short answer is whatever you want it to be.

And farangs make fun of Thai superstitions?

[papa al]

In the West, we are taught not to believe in superstition,However in smaller cities it is rather common.

For example bringing a cat into a new house before moving in. Cats see in different dimensions to what we see. IF cat starts to go crazy-leave the house.

In this part of the world black magic is very much still alive and practiced on daily basis.

True or not, one needs to experience something "crazy" and one might start to believe.

From personal experience years ago:

I was going to buy a small house in Sydney, found a 200 year old heritage terrace which i really wanted, price was reasonable as well.

ON second inspection, brought my puppy with me, pup was fine all over the house, BUT when going into master bedroom, she cried and was very uncomfortable.

At first i did not pay any attention to it, but it seemed to repeat each time i entered the master bedroom.

It was somewhat interesting/puzzling, so i asked the agent what happened in that room and why the house was for sale?

The house was for sale, because the owner has died, scary enough, the owner was found dead in the master bedroom days after he passed.

So i guess there must be something out there, whatever it was my puppy sensed it.

I'd love to hear the story of how cats see in different dimensions?? please post your evidence on that.

Education is the key , just as ignorance is a bliss.

Do some light reading , google is your friend

Very true.

I just found out that the moon landings were faked and 9/11 was a CIA job.

No silly. 9/11 was Masad.

[FritsSikkink]

I have seen no proof that a creator does not exist and I try and keep up with science and technology.

Here is proof http://godisimaginary.com/

[lomatopo]

There are a lot of superstitions/folk wisdom in Asian cultures. In China these have been around for thousands of years. Japan has, arguably, a decent educational system, but still has many superstitions, so I'm not sure it's fair to lay blame on poor education here?

Here, traditionally, on Wednesdays it was bad luck to get a haircut, or to wear new clothes for the first time.

Edited May 20, 2013 by lomatopo

[klubex99]

Have you ever given thought to the superstitions of Catholics in the Western world ?

Or are they not relevant and are acceptable because they are farangs ??

Eh ???

Superstition has nothing to do with being educated or not.

Don't confuse religious belief with superstitions, it is not even related.

Religion is high intensity brain washing from multiple sources of which most are state controlled. as a conditioning program. the other are just silly superstitions handed around by friends and family.