Of atheists and superstitions

I was wondering, if atheists have any right to be superstitious. This thought has been running in my head for quite some while.

I remember seeing in a quiz somewhere, a trivia about eastman's statue at M.I.T. To get good grades many students would rub his nose. Similarly outside C.B.T, Anna University is the infamous arrear stone. No self respecting 9 pointer except Suhas (who should not be counted anyway, as he is not self respecting) would sit on that. I am not trying to say that universities have only athiests. They do have a higher number of people who claim to be, but that still boils down to an extremely low percentage. Universities thought should definitely have a higher percentage of rational thinkers. These two legends, actually put this thought in my head. Ok, so universities have superstitious people. Lets see what can be worse. Atheists.

Then I began thinking. I consider myself an atheist. Not the confused agnostic. Atheist. God doesn't give a damn to the nitty gritties of my life. I don't give a damn to his. But in a lot of matters I am extremely superstitious. Whenever I start something I cross my fingers. When I was in class 2 there was this teacher who said if a train was going on a bridge above you and you crossed your finger and made a wish it will come true. I still follow that religiously :) . Not many have come true, but I still make a wish none the less. Now, do not come to the conclusion I am irrational. In most cases I am not. Except probably these two idiosyncrasies.

Well before i digressed to give you my story, I was thinking. And this thought led me to my theory and I came to the conclusion that atheists not only have a right to be superstitious, they are also more likely to be. Sounds counter intuitive. This is my argument.

Whether you are a believer or an atheist or confused, probability still sticks to the same rules. You win some you lose some. Some days you are the bug, some days you are the wind shield. So faced with a situation where chances of success and failure are the same, everyone wants to do something that will improve their chances of success. I mean, over and above all the possible effort that can be put into the particular thing you are working on.

So a Ganesh Bhakt will go and break a coconut. This is an expression of faith. In case it doesn't work he will just complain. Ganesha, you cheated me even after taking the coconut. Its alright next time I'll break 2 coconuts. Bribery made. Probabily of failure two times in a row anyway lesser. Chance of success higher, and ganesha gets credit.

Confronted with the same situation what does an atheist do. He cannot run to ganesha. He knows knocking on that door is pointless, at least for him. Yet, something has to be done to calm down the heart. Additional stone has to be turned to make lady luck smile. So before beginning/ submitting his job, he crosses his fingers. If it still screws up, next time he will have two pairs of fingers crossed. Same story repeat. Chance of success higher. And the crossed fingers worked.

Confronted with a series of defeats ganesh bakht has two choices. Go deeper and deeper into his faith. Believe its a challenge set by God to not lose hope on him and persevere. Or become athiest and start crossing fingers.

The atheist confronted with series of defeats again has two options. He will start thinking of what use were the crossed fingers. Now stop behaving stupid. Persevere and success is around the corner. Or become a ganesh bakht and start breaking coconuts :)

If the atheist did persevere and achieved the success and things became normal once more, there is a high probability he will get back to his superstitions. No harm pushing one's case, and everyone is not Hari Seldon. Even he could not predict individual cases.