This came to me as something of a shock from a group that believes misfortune will befall us if we don't pray for/about stuff. Apparently that's either not the case or not a superstition:
"Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition." Cf. Matthew 23:16–22 (paragraph #2111 of the CCC)
Is this just a special particular Catholic definition of the word 'superstition' produced so that if someone says, "Catholics are superstitious" and means, "Catholics believe things that fall under the standard dictionary definition of 'superstition,'" then an apologist can equivocate, "We are indeed not superstitious, see the CCC paragraph #2111" and mean, "According to a special non-standard definition of 'superstition' that was developed by the Catholic Church, Catholic beliefs are not superstitious."
Or is in fact the CCC's definition of superstition reconcilable with, say, dictionary.com's: "[superstition is] a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like."
I'm heavily leaning towards the former.
"Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition." Cf. Matthew 23:16–22 (paragraph #2111 of the CCC)
Is this just a special particular Catholic definition of the word 'superstition' produced so that if someone says, "Catholics are superstitious" and means, "Catholics believe things that fall under the standard dictionary definition of 'superstition,'" then an apologist can equivocate, "We are indeed not superstitious, see the CCC paragraph #2111" and mean, "According to a special non-standard definition of 'superstition' that was developed by the Catholic Church, Catholic beliefs are not superstitious."
Or is in fact the CCC's definition of superstition reconcilable with, say, dictionary.com's: "[superstition is] a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like."
I'm heavily leaning towards the former.
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=263555&goto=newpost
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