Superstitions Belief System

Irp 2 Belief System

Research Question

What are superstitions and does it influence people?

1)Context :

Belief systems are just stories that we tell ourselves in order to define our personal sense of "reality". Every person in the world has a belief system that they utilize, and it is through this mechanism that we individually, "make sense" of the world around us.

Superstition is a belief—that one event causes another without any natural process linking the two events—such as astrology, religion, omens, witchcraft, prophecies, etc., that contradicts natural science.

I have heard that various people of different parts of the world follow different kinds of beliefs. This made me very curious as this was quite new to me. So I decided

They are irrational beliefs that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome. These beliefs and superstitions are highly prevalent in the local areas of Tamil Nadu.

There are many beliefs and superstitions which are highly prevalent in Tamil Nadu.

· A bird’s nest in the house, where pregnant woman lives is not to be removed.

· It is said that if a girl child is born as the fifth child in the family,then it is said to be lucky.

· In order to bring good luck to people and to keep them away from evil eyes, camphor is burnt and shown around the person.

These are few beliefs which are followed often even in this modern world in Tamil nadu.

There are unlimited beliefs and superstitions governing every aspect of life from birth to death. Learned people disregarded some of these beliefs and superstitions of the folk, but still it continues to prevail. These beliefs have a influenced people a lot.

National

Most of the beliefs(superstitions)in India have a historical background. Most of the old people in India trust in superstitions. They think it really affects their life, so they follow it very carefully.They think that their whole life revolves around superstitions. Not all old people believe in superstitions but many of them do.

There are many different kinds of religion in India and each of them have certain beliefs which may or may not be similar to another religion.

According to a data provided by ‘The Hindu’ 68% of the people who are aged 60 and above believe in superstitions(sensus 2012) . In older times nearly 93% believed in them(1900’s).Comparatively youth do not have much belief in superstitions(37%) .

Let me list few superstitions which are followed in India:-

Indians think that haircutting on Fridays may bring bad luck to the person.

We Indians think that it is wrong to cut your hair on Fridays for some illogical reason.I am pretty sure people who cut their hair on Fridays would not have faced any problems.

Few people in India consider it to be inauspicious to clean the floor during the night time.

Curse of