https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CFuCYNx-1g&feature=em-share_video_user
The history of human beings is filled with superstition. We regularly create and maintain wrong beliefs partly because we don't know, and also because we want to believe the falsehood. Our ignorance causes us to attribute improper causes to the effects we see. Every generation thinks it has knowledge, but in reality, it is mostly superstition, with very few exceptions.
Superstition comes about because of a lack of knowledge. People believe "step on a crack, break your mother's back" because they don't know why back pain happens. People believe that if they go out without a coat they will catch a cold because they don't know why colds happen. People believe life happened randomly because they don't know how it appeared. Ignorance causes or allows all superstition, and all superstition causes pain and suffering.
Today's superstitions are not unlike yesterday's. We believe the Earth, the Universe, and life was created ex nihilo as a random process of events, that we are a happy accident. We call this "science," which means "knowledge," but it is really the same ignorant superstition taught over two thousand years ago that God created everything out of nothing.
Let's look at some more superstitions we have created:
Colds happen in the winter because someone coughs on us, or the temperature drops.
We gain weight because we don't exercise.
Organic evolution is how we by chance appeared in the world.
Space is empty.
Drugs cure illness.
If we are sick, we need more of something.
A shot will prevent the flu.
Health is given by doctors.
We should eat five small meals every day.
Sex is love.
Governments create prosperity.
Declining health is inevitable.
Talent is random.
Back surgery fixes pain.
Life is automatic.
Living is retirement, and rest.
Happiness is chemical.
Poking a person with needles brings health.
Love is like the wind.
A laugh track is entertaining.
Satisfaction comes from more.
The list could go on in every area of our society. We teach these superstitions in schools, in our universities, in business and in books, movies, and radio. The information disseminated has a purpose to bind people down to ignorance.
Some are not ignorant themselves, but they try to keep everyone else ignorant so they can dispel their superstitions and maintain power. The problem with superstition is that we believe we know something and we act on that belief. Rather than bring us knowledge, wisdom, health, and vitality, and growth, it brings only loss and poverty. Those who want to keep power prefer to be ignorant.
Since I'm in the health-care field, I will use an example from my own experience. As noted above, I have already stated a few superstitions that persist in health care in spite of evidence to the contrary. People act on these to their own eventual demise. Drugs do not bring health, but rather decline and death. We know this. We have lots of evidence for this, but the superstition that we can take a pill and get healthy is too tempting. So, instead of being healthy we lose everything, gradually declining in physical and mental function until we end up like a baby, being spoon-fed, and butt-wiped.
This happens because those who are selling drugs want everyone to believe that patent medicines are good, "safe and effective," and bring health and wellness. They advertise to the world such superstitions. They make deals with doctors and pharmacies to pay lots of money to support them. They put ads on television and in every newspaper and magazine. We see them over and over. Though we don't believe them in our heart, we believe in our head, and act on them. We fear we might have a stroke if our blood pressure is high. We fear a heart attack if our cholesterol is high. We spend billions of dollars on the superstitions that drugs will prevent these horrors.
Superstitions persist because it takes a generation to dispel the old myths, and there are powerful forces that want to maintain the superstition so they can hold on to their power. At the same time, new superstitions are created, and it will take a generation to overcome those. It makes one wonder, can we ever live in a free society where there is no superstition? Can we ever know the truth?
We don't have to live in superstition. Today, knowledge fills the Earth. Everywhere we look there is new knowledge on every subject. The problem now is that every single superstition that has ever existed shares the same stage with truth. How do we know what is true and what is false?
The ultimate source of knowledge, and therefore happiness, is God. Seeking His knowledge dispels all of the superstitions. In spite of all the knowledge available, or rather because of it, we need, now more than ever, to seek God, and ask Him to guide us to find true knowledge and wisdom.
