knowledge at work - 7

Recently there have been many articles in the newspaper about the major eclipse. i came across this one particular article in the mid day which stated the do's and dont's during an eclipse. It stated the various superstitions believed by many people. one of which was that pregnant women are advised not to go out and lie very still. this statement completely lacks reason. it does not make any difference wether you move or lie still during an eclipse. it is mainly blind belief. originally a superstition, the more the people begin to think its true, the more it turns into a belief. slowly, gradually but inevitably it does tranform into a wide spread belief. generalisation also causes it to become a belief and probably even the 'apparent' truth. however, reason says that lieing still or being forced to stay under house arrestmwould hardly make a diffedrence to the baby's growth and development or even the pregnant mother. thus it is a clash between reason and belief. many people believe that during an eclipse, the earth is plunged into darkness, which is a negative force. as a result, one must pray for the duration of the eclipse, and take a bath there after. this is where religion comes into play. people are so passionate towards religion that their emotions would not let them reason out what they themselves are following. even though it seems more logical and practical to not be affected by such baseless claims, their emotions are so strong that they over rule their reasoning power. thus in this clash between emotion and reason, emotion takes over even though it should be the other way round. thus we come to a conclusion that letting irrelevent things to block your reasoning power is not something you should allow.