Do you believe in "luck" and, if you do, what happens when your luck runs out?

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by jwkilgore

Personally, no, I do not believe in 'luck' as defined by a supernatural ability to affect random chance. I.e., someone with 'good luck' won't cause a random card draw to magically go his way. In my experience people with 'good luck' are those who are good at recognizing signs around them and changing their actions to fit the situation for the better.

For Christians, the believe would be that someone is 'blessed' or 'cursed', but even that is an oversimplification.

Some scientists believe that atheists do not exists, or at least are much more rare than people tend to believe. Even the most vocal of self-proclaimed atheists will consciously or subconsciously believe in luck, karma, ghosts, dark matter, mother earth, or some other form of scientifically unproven and/or supernatural phenomenon. If you believe in anything other than pure random chance then by definition you are not an atheist: Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that's not a joke

That was a really interesting read, but I do take issue with the idea that believing in something other than pure random chance disqualifies one from being an atheist. An atheist is simply someone who doesn't hold a belief in god. While I think most spiritualist nonsense is BS, I don't think it all qualifies as theism. Ghosts are not gods. Karma is not god. I don't think those beliefs have any merit, but they aren't contradictory to atheism.

I do not know why you lumped dark matter into that group, though. Dark matter is a legitimate scientific concept that is accepted by many scientists. It is really nothing more than a post-hoc explanation needed to make measurements and observations jive, but it is absolutely nothing like ghosts or karma.

Here's one possibly interesting conclusion that might come from this: A lot of intelligence experts believe that intelligence allows us to do things that we were not optimally designed for via evolution. Living in a cold climate is one example, and it is true that people groups in cold climates tend to have higher average IQs. If holding religious beliefs was an adaptive evolutionary advantage, and that would seem to be true if this article is correct and we are wired for religious belief, then atheism is a trait that is contrary to our evolutionary design. This could possibly explain why atheists have higher average intelligence than theists.

[MLSFan]

i believe in luck and it is a renewable resource to me...

namely, i do what i can to get the future i want, then i let myself "bump" into opportunities and i just have to be aware enough to see them.

using driving as an example, am i lucky that i can get places without being in a wreck? or do i keep eyes open and do what i can to ensure my safety... i can always have some freak accident or get hit by someone, but it helps to not be drunk/tired/distracted too.

that is luck to me, if i can respond quick enough to the things/people i meet and be able to use them to get to where i want in life

[An Einnseanair]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

That was a really interesting read, but I do take issue with the idea that believing in something other than pure random chance disqualifies one from being an atheist. An atheist is simply someone who doesn't hold a belief in god. While I think most spiritualist nonsense is BS, I don't think it all qualifies as theism. Ghosts are not gods. Karma is not god. I don't think those beliefs have any merit, but they aren't contradictory to atheism.

You are right in that "theism" is defined as the belief in a god or gods, so "atheism" would be the opposite. Using that definition it wouldn't be contradictory for an atheist to believe in karma (or luck, to stay on topic). However, while karma or luck are not a self-aware "gods", they are believed to be a supernatural forces that affects actions in the real world. This is in direct contradiction to the self-described belief of most atheists. That is the point of the article, not the dictionary definition of atheism.

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

I do not know why you lumped dark matter into that group, though. Dark matter is a legitimate scientific concept that is accepted by many scientists. It is really nothing more than a post-hoc explanation needed to make measurements and observations jive, but it is absolutely nothing like ghosts or karma.

That was a joke ... sortof.
One valid definition of dark matter is, "a theorized substance and/or energy source that cannot be detected using current scientific methods but its presence explains otherwise unexplainable observations." I.e., it can't be seen, touched, interacted with, or directly proven. But other objects in the universe aren't acting like how we think they should act, so we came up with some mysterious "thing" to explain the unexplainable. If you think about it, that same definition pretty much fits belief in a deity or other supernatural force like luck. Belief in a deity or luck is a "concept that is accepted by many" people. If you consider all the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Bahá'í, and any number of countless branches and offshoots), there are billions of people around the world who believe in the same God. They just worship Him in different ways.

[emathias]

I don't believe in "luck" as some force or entity that influences statistical odds. I've never believed in luck in that sense.

I do talk about "luck" or being "lucky" or "unlucky," but only as a figure of speech when talking about something "statistically improbable" happening. Or even just when talking about something good (or bad) happening, regardless of statistical probability.

In fact, it wasn't until I was an adult that I even realized some people "believe" in luck as though it was a supernatural force and not just a figure of speech. And when I realized that I was kind of flabbergasted because the entire idea of believing in luck seems totally absurd to me.

In some cases things that seem "lucky" or "statistically improbable" aren't even actually statistically improbable if you do a full analysis, they just intuitively "feel" unlikely because of the way our brains evaluate risk.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by jwkilgore

That was a joke ... sortof.
One valid definition of dark matter is, "a theorized substance and/or energy source that cannot be detected using current scientific methods but its presence explains otherwise unexplainable observations." I.e., it can't be seen, touched, interacted with, or directly proven. But other objects in the universe aren't acting like how we think they should act, so we came up with some mysterious "thing" to explain the unexplainable. If you think about it, that same definition pretty much fits belief in a deity or other supernatural force like luck. Belief in a deity or luck is a "concept that is accepted by many" people. If you consider all the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Bahá'í, and any number of countless branches and offshoots), there are billions of people around the world who believe in the same God. They just worship Him in different ways.

I don't agree in the slightest. The existence of dark matter is suggested by scientific observation. The Higgs-Boson particle had a similar status prior to its actual discovery a few years ago. Science has a long history of suspecting the existence of natural phenomena that it can't currently observe. That is part of the beauty of science -- if I know one input is two, and the output is four, I can surmise that the other input is two. That is in no way akin to belief in a deity. The number of people who hold a belief is not relevant. What is relevant is the justification for the belief.

[ukrkoz]

Everything that happens to a human is based on its destiny. Destiny is created by that human by its thinking (for clarification, a True Self in human body is neither he or she, hence "it" is proper address).
Any "accidents" that occur to that human are nothing more than exteriorization of thoughts, that created its destiny. They may be exteriorized in emotions, physical acts, or any other physical occurrences, that human encounters in its physical existence.
In general, this happens for educational purposes, so that human can learn from experiences and resolve its destiny.
Nothing may happen to a human if its not within its destiny. As wisdom has it, born to drown will not die from a bullet. Instances of such "against odds" situations are considered luck.
In case of say monetary rewards, "luck" may be supported by an ancient spirit of money, that is favoring a particular human due to its allegiance to that spirit through many existences.
What humans do not see, is continuous chain of events, of cause and effect, following a particular Self through many existences. We only observe "now" occurrences and as such, they appear to us as miraculous or otherwise unusual. Only one that can see the destiny and see its manifestations through eons, will know that there is nothing unusual or special "happening".