The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

WARNING: Religious content. Viewer discretion is advised.

Difster discusses a religious incident that made me ponder human reactions to superstitions.

He discusses a message posted, not by him, that said, "School is cancelled", but when it's clicked on, there is a pic of Jesus on a cross and says, "While Jesus was dying on the cross, He was thinking of you. If you don't repost this message, you are denying Him." I rather like Difster's reaction to it.

I'm not going to get into the Christian beliefs part of it or the misuse of logic part, but I am going to ask about the superstitious part.

In my studies of anthropology, superstition is considered a religion of its own because it can be understood within the definition of religion:

"Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe."

That is to say that superstitions are supernatural powers that govern an outcome whether good or bad.

My query is why chain mail and the like gets under people's skin so darn much. Is the religious part of it why people get so offended by chain mail, or is there more to it?

I have plenty of friends who just love sending me that email chain mail cr*p. "If you don't send this to 10 people, such and such will happen to you" or "Send this to 10 people and such and such will happen to you".

Whatever.

Or, before computers were a way of life, there was snail mail chain letters where you actually had to write out the whole chain letter to 10 people or something bad would happen. And, the letters would have to list all of the bad things that happened to people in the past as a result of not sending the chain letter to others. Remember that? I haven't seen a single one of those since the Internet hit mainstream. Although I quite like that they are no longer in existance, I don't quite like the email chain letters. ANNOYING!

Perhaps the reason I'm living such a content and happy life is because I threw out those threatening letters rather than passed on the misery to others.

Anyhow, to the topic at hand, what drives us to get so irate, disgusted, and downright flabberghasted by these emails?

To quote a comment made by one of Difster's readers, " I LOATHE those good luck/bad luck e-mails. Delete, delete, delete! And I'm still here!"

What causes these superstitious letters to drive us to the brink of insanity. They are most foul to us and yet, I am at a loss for words on why they are so bothersome.