the "disbelief is a belief" question again

[sophiaserpentia]

Does it take faith to disbelieve that breaking a mirror is bad luck? What about not believing that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck?

If not, how is this different from the same question applied to God?

If yes, what distinguishes a "valid" superstition like the ones listed above from "invalid" ones like the Flying Spaghetti Monster? What about supersititions from other cultures, like the belief that taking a picture steals your soul?

Is the difference that people in this culture were exposed since early childhood to believe in the superstitions listed above?

Comments

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

It would take "faith" to disbelieve those things in a society which overwhelmingly accepted them as common sense, unquestioned parts of everyday life (because to reject those things means others will not see the rejection as valid and will question it). Just as it takes "faith" to believe them in a society which does not accept them as clearly true and/or which questions the validity of those claims. I don't think it's necessarily just exposure at early childhood, but the extent of the pervasiveness and grounding of the belief in society.

In the modern sense of faith, conservative Christians require faith because the majority of society does not accept or questions their set of beliefs (including, getting down to particulars, other conservative Christians - they don't agree on a lot of stuff). Whether "belief in God" requires faith is a bit trickier. I think something like 90+% of people at least profess a belief in God in the US? That's probably a common-sense level. But I don't think it's a belief that is completely unquestioned. So some small bit of faith is probably required. Likewise, then, "disbelief in God" requires some bit of faith to reject its common-sensicality.

But I would question the apparent notion of faith being used here in the first place. Marcus Borg argues that "faith" as it is most commonly understood by Americans (especially conservative Christians) today bears little/only partial resemblance to the "faith" of the early or especially medieval church. When belief in God's existence and intervention in everyday life is a "common sense," _unquestioned_ part of everyday life on a society-wide level, it becomes somewhat meaningless to talk about faith as a conscious act of choosing the right beliefs, unsupported by "fact" and requiring some sort of effort of will.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

This is a great analysis of the situation, thank you. It does require a positive expenditure of energy to defend a lack of belief in something against repeated assertion of it. I'm not sure that constitutes any sort of "faith," but it is a very real expenditure.