Here we are inside the Brown University Sciences Library, a building so resolutely dedicated to rational thinking that it has a thirteenth floor . . . no room for silly superstition here. The thirteenth floor houses the stacks and there have been no reports of mysterious deaths or hauntings since the Sci-Li was erected in 1971.
Enough with all this nonsense! Enough with the astrologers, the psychics, the ghosts and the devils, the Tarot cards and Ouiji boards, the reiki massages, seances, the energy crystals, all the snakehandlers speaking in tongues, the channeling of past lives (it’s Cleopatra, it’s always Cleopatra), and all the world religions . . . all of it! Why are so many people still relying on the myths and superstitions of our Iron Age ancestors for making their most important life decisions? It’s the 21st-century . . . we know what causes thunder now.
Science is so much more interesting. You want awe? Check out the images from the Hubble telescope.
Ask yourself: Who would you rather sit next to at a dinner party? Someone who spent their career working on the Mars Rovers or someone who just found Jesus?
So, if you suffer from the debilitating effects of moderate-to-severe triskaidekaphobia, or worse, paraskevidekatriaphobia, there’s help. Start using your senses, your intellect, and your reason, and start making better decisions.
And Taylor Swift has famously declared thirteen to be her “lucky” number. It is of course abundantly clear to the world that she has been making her own luck since the age of ten.
I end with a quote often attributed to Enlightenment philosopher, Voltaire: “Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” And if he didn’t say it, I’m saying it now.
(Recommended viewing: “Religulous.”)
AMEN!