My Roman example was intended as satire; playing with how "superstition" is applied only to the beliefs of the enemies of the faith. In the same way, you can find as many accounts as you care for of Catholic missionaries talking about the "superstitious" animism of native peoples and almost none talking about the superstition inherent in the idea of transubstantiation. It's pure self-serving hypocrisy.
My view of superstition is simply this; if you believe something flatly contradicted by the evidence of both scientific inquiry elementary logic and your own eyes, that belief is superstitious in character. If you throw a finger-pinch of salt over your shoulder to hit the devil in the eye, that is a superstition. If you throw vast numbers of unqualified blacks at a university system to "fight racism," that is just as superstitious and much more resource intensive. Even when salt was worth more than gold people only threw away a few dozen grains at a time.
My view of superstition is simply this; if you believe something flatly contradicted by the evidence of both scientific inquiry elementary logic and your own eyes, that belief is superstitious in character.
You might want to replace "superstitious" with "obviously wrong", then, to prevent confusion.
People want to tell everything instead of telling the best 15 words. They want to learn everything instead of the best 15 words. In this thread, instead post the best 15-words from a book you've read recently (or anything else). It has to stand on its own. It's not a summary, the whole value needs to be contained in those words.
I'll start in the comments below.
(Voted by the Schelling study group as the best exercise of the meeting.)