Superstition （迷信) has always been part of human nature and has existed in every society.

Superstition is a biased word. Look up almost any dictionary definition and you will see that it implies that every religion not based on reason or knowledge is called a superstition. Even the word knowledge is a two-faced word. Presumably, it is used as a synonym for reason. What it all comes down to is that people designate as superstitious what they do not think reasonable in someone else's religion.

It is true that a person's religion must be based on some kind of knowledge. But what kind of knowledge is meant? Scientific, experimental, rational? Such knowledge is natural and maybe ethical and then it is natural religious knowledge. A person may quite easily conclude from observing the universe that only God could have produced it. That knowledge is not religion, not even if I see myself bound to recognize a Creator of the universe. It is natural knowledge such as Confucious, Socrates or Zoroaster possessed.

Natural religious knowledge, as is evident in the history of the human race, although it helps to make a man good, hardly suffices to keep him good, especially in times of crisis. Will such natural knowledge, for instance, sustain a man when he has suddenly lost all his money and even his wife and children? Will it offer the hope of ever seeing them again? Will it influence him gladly to sacrifice his life for his family, his country, his religion? Only a strong sense of supernatural religion, a reliance upon God, will provide the necessary courage for right action.

All the great religions of the world-Christianity, Hinduism, Chinese Buddhism and

Islam-have shown men the way to such courage and its resulting peace of mind and heart and peace with all men. They point to a better sort of life, mostly a life somewhere else, or, at least, an end to the troubles of this life.

Christianity and Islam direct men to look up, hope for and strive after an eternal life of happiness in the possession of God. Hinduism, although it believes in reincarnations, also encourages its adherents to achieve successively higher incarnations until they achieve unity, become one with Brahman-God. Chinese Buddhism tells its followers that if they perform good deeds and have faith in Omitofoo by frequently calling upon this God of Infinite Compassion they will be rewarded by eternal life in the Western Paradise.

The agnostic or the atheist thinks of all of those creeds as religious superstition. Are the agnostic and the atheist free of superstition? Hardly. Every thinking man has a natural bent for religion, for ideals above and beyond earthly ones. If he crushes his natural inclination, which is God-inspired, he most likely will substitute a series of self-inspired ideals or some fad like astrology, which will become a religion for him.

There is a line between religion and superstition which everyone must learn to identify, or forfeit a true direction in his life.

29.People define superstition as______.

A.someone else's religion

B.religious knowledge not based on reason

C.natural knowledge of a religion

D.anything that seems unreasonable in another person's religion

30.Natural religious knowledge may not keep a person good because______.

A.he may lose confidence in God

B.he may suffer crises in his career

C.he does not rely upon God

D.he may have to die for right action

31.According to the writer, all the great religions of the world______.

A.bring peace of mind and peace with other human beings

B.give courage to their adherents to live and to die

C.bring a better life now and hereafter

D.promise eternal life in the Western Paradise

32.From the passage we are told that the atheists______.

A.have little or no religious knowledge

B.are not free of superstition

C.have ideals that are beyond earthly ones

D.have too many materialistic ideals in life