Why is 13, 666, and Friday the 13th unlucky?

Question

I don't belive 13, 666, and Friday the 13th are unlucky.

Answer 1

Here is the superstition regarding 13 and Friday the 13th:

The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, and their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.

Just how many Americans at the turn of the millennium still suffer from this condition? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of phobias (and coiner of the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia"), the figure may be as high as 21 million. If he's right, eight percent of Americans are still in the grips of a very old superstition.

Exactly how old is difficult to say, because determining the origins of superstitions is an imprecise science, at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork.

13: The Devil's Dozen
It is said: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names). There are 13 witches in a coven.
Though no one can say for sure when and why human beings first associated the number 13 with misfortune, the belief is assumed to be quite old and there exist any number of theories purporting to trace its origins to antiquity and beyond.

It has been proposed, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as ancient as the act of counting.



Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units, according to this explanation, so he could count no higher than 12. What lay beyond that — 13 — was an impenetrable mystery to our prehistoric forebears, hence an object of superstition.
Which has an edifying ring to it, but one is left wondering — did primitive man not have toes?

Despite whatever terrors the numerical unknown held for their hunter-gatherer ancestors, ancient civilizations weren't unanimous in their dread of 13. The Chinese regarded the number as lucky, some commentators note, as did the Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs.

To the ancient Egyptians, these sources tell us, life was a quest for spiritual ascension which unfolded in stages — 12 in this life and a 13th beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 therefore symbolized death — not in terms of dust and decay, but as a glorious and desirable transformation. Though Egyptian civilization perished, the death symbolism they conferred on the number 13 survived, only to be corrupted by later cultures who came to associate it with a fear of death instead of a reverence for the afterlife.



666 is not unlucky. It is evil. You can read about that in the bible.

Answer 2

the 666 is supposed to be the sign of the devil and
The origin of the Friday the 13th superstition has been linked to the belief that there were 13 people at The Last Supper of Jesus, who was crucified on Good Friday, but no evidence has been found that Friday 13th was considered especially unlucky until the 19th century. The number 13, however, has a long history of association with ill-luck. It has been linked to the fact that a lunisolar calendar must have 13 months in some years, while the solar Gregorian calendar and lunar Islamic calendar always have 12 months in a year.

Another suggestion is that the belief originated in a Norse myth about twelve gods having a feast in the hall of the sea-god Aegir. The mischievous Loki gate-crashed the party as an uninvited 13th guest and arranged for Hod, the blind god of darkness, to throw a branch of mistletoe at Balder, the god of joy and gladness. Balder was killed instantly and the Earth was plunged into darkness and mourning as a result. This, however, is untenable. The original Old Norse text, the poem Lokasenna in the Edda, mentions 17 gods by name at the feast. Loki is indeed a gatecrasher, but he is not the thirteenth person present. Nor is there any link between this episode and the killing of Balder.

The first explanation, however, seems more relevant to the superstition linked to having 13 people at the same table during a meal. This, recorded at the end of the eighteenth century, is the earliest known instance of the ill-luck of 13 in Britain. The belief was that the first person to rise from the table would be the first to die.

There is also another theory that Friday the 13th of October 1307 was the day that Philip IV of France arrested and subsequenty tortured and killed hundreds of the French Knights Templar to get their money for the French treasury. This theory appears in the factcomic Uncle Scrooge and The Crown Of The Crusader Kings[1] by Don Rosa. One other note which predates all of the aforementioned is that the first Passover seems to have occurred on Friday the 13th. The death of the firstborns of Egypt occurred on a Shabbat on the 14th of Nisan in the evening. But the Jewish calendar counts days from sunset to sunset so this would have been Friday the 13th in terms of the gentile reckoning of the days. (Exodus 12:6) Feminists have argued that because of the lunar year and Friday being named after a goddess in most European pagan calendars, the fear of Friday the 13th is a patriarchal invention, associating femininity with bad luck.

Answer 3

13 cause when they were making a building once when they got to the 13th floor it collapsed killing everyone 666 is the number of the beast and Friday the 13th Friday is considered an unlucky day Adam and eve were kicked out of the garden of Eden on a Friday Noah's great flood started on a Friday and Christ was crucified on a Friday couple this with the fact that 12 witches plus the devil totalling 13 is necessary for a satanic meeting and the combination of that with Friday 13th is a deadly one

Answer 4

Friday the 13 was the day that the Knights Templar were slaughtered at the orders of the French King.


666 is unlucky because of biblical references.

Answer 5

its generally thort that 13 is unlucky because of the number of people at the lats supper.

666 - number of the beast, sign of the devil!

Friday 13th - this is the date on which the majority of the Knights Templars were murdered - some say by the Catholic Church - because they had become too powerful in Europe in the 13th Century. This is part of the "Davinci Code" story.

Answer 6

I've heard that it was on a Friday the 13th that the Knights Templar were hunted down and slaughtered by the Catholic Church--thus starting the superstition about the day.

Answer 7

666 is supposed to be the birthmark of satan, friday the 13th because some friek in a goalie mask will slit your throat, and 13? who know the point is that they are all superstitions not based in any fact at all.

Answer 8

666 is the mark of the beast therefore the bible says to keep away from that number
friday the 13th is just a superstition

Answer 9

Hey, if you're going to copy my answers, at least credit me as your source.

2nd, if you add a line to the answer that you copied from me, at least learn to spell correctly.


And to answer your question, I think the superstition only applies to Friday the 13th, not necessarily to the number 13 or 666.

Answer 10

I was born on Friday the 13th, and I am a very happy person with the luck of the Irish!