Magic, Supersition, and Religion

Today, in our class discussion, I thought of some things that were pretty odd. First, Christians and many other religions believe that witchcraft is evil. For 100's of years, people have been persecuting so called witches because it is evil (even if it was something good or something like Wica). Yet, we come up with all these supersitions and rituals to rid ourselves of these things, even if (and more often than not) we don't believe in witches or sorcery. Alot of people don't actually believe in luck, but we'll do things like carry a rabbits foot or wear a lucky number. I don't necessarily believe in luck but I liked to wear a certain number in basketball because it was always "my number." I didn't think it helped me one way or the other. I also found it odd that people will apply luck and rituals for confidence and a good outcome to things like sports and tests (like throwing a pine cone in the mouth of the dino here on the UW campus) but we wont apply it to other things in life. When you are about to go on stage you tell someone to break a leg because you don't want to jinx them but most other times we just say good luck. Why dont we always say break a leg or always say good luck? I think we would all like to say that we're not superstitious and dont believe in bad luck but we all know that one point in our life (or with the little things) we did or still do. For example, being careful with mirrors because if you break it you'll get 7 years of bad luck, not stepping on cracks, throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill it, and not seeing the bride in her dress before the actual wedding.

Magic is a huge part of all religion and you don't have to be religious to believe in magic or supersitions. You don't have to be religious to have rituals that you believe gives you good luck.