This morning, Archdeacon Rachel Mann shared her Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4.
Good morning.
‘May God have mercy on our souls.’ The headline says it all, as outlets around the world reported the sighting of a Doomsday fish. This strange, elongated and rarely seen fish can grow up to thirty-six feet and its appearance has, for many cultures across the centuries, presaged natural disaster. Kayakers found the dead twelve-foot-long fish in Californian waters last week. As reporters gleefully noted, Los Angeles was struck by a four-point-four magnitude earthquake two days later.
The headline writers would have struggled to grab our attention if they’d had to use its real name: the oar fish. Of course, no one really thinks it was either an omen or a cause of the earthquake. It’s surely a classic example of the ‘post hoc’ fallacy: just because something happens after an event doesn’t mean it was caused by it. The story of the Doomsday fish is simply superstition.
Like many religious people, I’ve been told by well-meaning folk that my faith is pure superstition; that I cling on to Bronze Age beliefs in a ‘sky-fairy’ who has no valuable place in a modern, scientifically-informed society.
I get this. At the same time, few of us are as rational as we think. Indeed, psychologists have identified something called ‘superstitious learning’ as a common behaviour. This is where we instinctively connect events and try to find causation. It can lead us to look at the daily habits of another person, a Bill Gates say, and think that by copying them we will become successful ourselves.
The Bible is resistant to superstitious practices. In Deuteronomy, the Israelites are warned against soothsaying or interpreting omens because such behaviour gets in the way of trusting God. Throughout scripture, God’s prophets are less focussed on predicting the future than calling people back to God’s ways of justice, mercy and peace. Their work is discerning wise action, guided by the principles of God’s law.
Yet, the resilience of superstitious practices in the modern age, whether that relates to anxieties about Doomsday fish or magical thinking about what might bring success, is striking. The sixteenth-century theologian Richard Hooker suggests that the good life rests on three pillars: scripture, tradition, and reason. He says that by combining the wisdom embedded in the Bible or history with the best of modern thinking, we live better lives. His insight assures me that being a human is never simply about being purely rational. By embracing the rich varieties of learning – scientific, instinctive, spiritual – we can foster a broader understanding of being human … and yes, that includes celebrating the rare and unusual, like the Doomsday fish.