Superstitious notion can be expressed in the language of religion, giving rise to skeptical thinkers' opinion that all religion is superstitious notion. Greek & Rohuman pagans, world health organizatiin modeled their relations using the gods on political & social terms despised a man world health organization constantly trembled by having fear at a thought of the gods, as a slave despised a cruel & capricious master. "Such fear of the gods (deisidaimonia) was what the Romans meant by 'superstition' (Veyne 1987, p 211). For Christians just such fears might be worn proudly as a name: Desdemona.

By its definition superstition is not based on reason. Many superstitions can be prompted by misunderstandings of causality or statistics. Others spring from unenlightened fears, which may be expressed in religious beliefs or practice, or to belief in extraordinary events, supernatural interventions, apparitions or in the efficacy of charms, incantations, the meaningfulness of omens and prognostications.

Any of the above can lead to unfounded fears, or excessive scrupulosity in outward observances.

Fanaticism, some argue, arises from this same displaced religious feeling, in a state of high-wrought and self-confident excitement. Such unquestioning loyalty can apply to politics and ideologies as well as religion; indeed, it can even be focused on sports teams and celebrities. See Baseball superstition for a series of such examples.

Whatever the cause, superstition can lead to a disregard of reason under the false assumption of a divine or paranormal form of control over the universe. A gambler might credit a winning streak in poker to a "lucky rabbit's foot" or to sitting in a certain chair, rather than to skill or to the law of averages. An airline passenger might believe that it is a medal of St Christopher (traditional patron saint of travellers) that keeps him safe in the air, rather than the fact that airplanes statistically crash very rarely.

Superstition is also used to refer to folkloric belief systems, usually as juxtaposed to another religion's idea of the spiritual world, or as juxtaposed to science.

Superstition and behavioral psychology
The behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior". He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they continued to perform the same actions:

Skinner suggested that the pigeons believed that they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals" and that the experiment also shed light on human behavior:

Like the pigeons, many people associate behavior (head-turning or worship of God(s) ) with an external phenomenon (delivery of food or conquest by a foreign power) that was not necessarily connected in any way with personal behavior. Any misfortune could thus be interpreted as a sign of divine disfavor, whether or not the individuals who suffered bore direct responsibility.

Religious views on the subject of superstition
The Roman Catholic Church considers superstition to be sinful in the sense that it denotes a lack of trust in the divine providence of God and, as such, is a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states superstition "within occasionally feel is the perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110).

The Catechism even appears to turn a bit of a critical eye on Catholic doctrine whenever certain practices become frivolous or scrupulous:

Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers often see all Religious belief as a form of superstition.

See Also
Conspiracy theory Folk religion Idolatry Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science Mediation (culture) Magic (paranormal) and Magic (illusion) Obsessive-compulsive disorder Tradition, Custom, Practice, etc. Triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13) Fan death Books
Iona Opie & Moira Tatem - A Dictionary of Superstitions Sagan, Carl, 1995. The Demon-Haunted World : Science As a Candle in the Dark New York: Random House Felix E. Planer, [http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_6.html Superstition], 1988, New York: Prometheus Books

Some of this text was formerly from ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary'' (1913)