And that is hard or impossible for a lot of people to live with. So instead, we create superstitions and various other beliefs / customs to avoid anything 'bad' happening to us, individually, if we, again individually, do certain things as required by our [superstitions / beliefs / customs / religions / ad infinitum. This IS the root cause of all of our organized systematic rituals.... to keep 'the evil' at bay.
Bottom line is that in the end, it is nothing but the luck of the draw and neither the most serious disciple of any organized 'anti- evil group' or any individual personal actions (throwing salt over a shoulder, etc.) will stop it from happening.
Stuff happens. Often it happens to people (and ants, lizards, elephants, ad nauseum) but as many of us will not accept that, we make a part time job out of pretending we can avoid it or reduce the consequences. But let's face it: if lightening strikes us, we are toast and there is no way to 'ward that off'. And yes, a true lightening strike is always fatal and not pretty- those people who claim to have been struck by lightening and survived were really touched by what are called 'feeders' around the actual bolt. No mammal has ever survived nor will ever survive an actual 'lightening' (the actual bolt) strike.
But then again, I have thrown salt, prayed to the god Zeus (the god of lightening), avoided all black cats and ladders so I am covered for the foreseeable future.
Brian
Sometimes, your number is just up.