We humans are a weird bunch. Some of us are shooting a spacecraft at an asteroid to demonstrate that it's a viable technique to protect the planet but others still insist that swallowed gum will stay in our stomachs for 7 years.
Interested in hearing the most prevalent misconceptions, Reddit user FM596 made a post on the platform, asking everyone to share myths that are passed from generation to generation, and that people still believe in. Turns out, there's no shortage of those! Continue scrolling and check out some of the most-upvoted entries.
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That certain animal 'parts' have healing/magical properties. Like tiger whiskers protect the wearer or rhino horn cures impotence and hangovers.
We managed to get in touch with FM596 and they agreed to tell us more about what inspired their post. "One of the reasons I decided to ask this question was to see how many people will mention the thousand-years-old-myth of supposedly living in a democracy (in any country)," they told Bored Panda.
"Democracy was real and has existed only once. After it was violently destroyed, leaders used the word democracy to mislead us into thinking that what we have is the best we can get."
"Out of the 12,000 comments, only 12 people mentioned that myth, just 1 out of 12,000, or 0.008%. That says a lot about the level of political edification we get from the state."
Boys playing with dolls (or other traditional feminine toys) will turn them gay. Or that anything will turn people gay or lesbian.
Trickle down economics.
If rich people were putting their money back into the economy, there wouldn't be any billionaires.
However, after going through the replies, FM596 thinks not all of them are valid. "First, not everything posted as a myth is, indeed, a myth. Many [of the entries] are half-truths, others are imprecisely expressed or misunderstood, and others are definitely non-myths."
The Redditor believes that, "we are ignorant on many critical subjects, because: "a) we get a really bad education from the state, and b) we are being bombarded daily with misleading information that aims to serve the best interests of the powerful few -not the people, and that's a fact, not a myth, that's the world we live in."
That being out in cold weather will make you catch a Cold. The cold is a virus you catch from others and nothing to do with the outside temperature.
There is basis of truth in this one. People stay inside more during cold weather. Spending more time with other people in an enclosed space makes you more likely to be exposed to any viruses that might be around. Also, studies have found that airborne viruses are carried farther by the more denser cold air. Therefore, there is a greater chance of airborne viruses touching a person rather than ending up on the ground.
That you have to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person report.
Ironically, as much as we like to think that we value truth, we have also designed the world in a way that makes it really hard for it to travel between us.
There's a well-known MIT study from 2018 that analyzed the spread of news stories on Twitter. Using data drawn from 3 million platform users from 2006 to 2017, the researchers, led by Soroush Vosoughi, a computer scientist who is now at Dartmouth, found that fact-checked news stories moved differently through social networks depending on whether they were true or false.
"Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth," they wrote in their paper.
That the hymen is a freshness seal like a snapple cap, has any bearing on virginity, and your first time should hurt and cause bleeding
Religion, easily.
I get that people believe in religion but they have zero proof that any of it is true.
While I agree with some of the guidelines for general behavior encouraged in religious texts——and duplicated in just about all of them, btw—-I just cannot buy the whole package. I agree we should all treat other people the way we would like to be treated, it’s an excellent rule of thumb for peacefully coexisting with other people, but I cannot abide how most religions then turn around and treat other people like s**t, just because they don’t go to the same church/synagogue/mosque/etc. It’s like, once you add people to a religion, it’s tainted, because humans have the annoying tendency to ruin every good idea and turn it to s**t.
I understand that people need faith to get through difficult times. I do believe there is far more out there than what we humans are aware of, but I'm not willing to invest my life into something based on books written by men hundreds or thousands of years after events take place. Not to mention that I am not going to commit myself to some god that allows children to be abused and starved, among other awful things.
no one is asking you too, but be respectful to those who do believe. and the reverse goes to. stop forcing religion on people, ya psychoes!
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I often read "be respectful to those who believe". And I agree. But also to those who believe: Be respectful to people who don't. Stop telling gay people they are going to hell for example. Or women who had an abortion and so on. And don't excuse everything with your religion. I know this is just a minority of believer. But they are annoying enough already.
im a christian and 100% this as someone whos bi :)
Load More Replies... It’s all about men controlling you and people needing something to have faith in. Religion is a crock of shite
Right? I mean, believing in some god is acceptable, but if you told someone you believed the Tooth Fairy was real, that's not. It makes about as much sense.
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I will say that from a strictly psychological standpoint, praying does help ease the mind a bit, even if it turns out no one's there. Can't fault someone for trying to destress however they know how. Forcing others to do so, that's a totally different thing, but I'm just talking about an individual basis.
Or you could just meditate, which is proven to lower stress levels
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I'm a bit worried about getting downvoted, but I would like to say that my religion, Buddhism, has many practices which, later, have been proven by science to be scientifically correct.
Quite a few Buddhists aren't theists, its a philosophy not a religion.
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Burden of proof is on the person making the claim. You can't disprove Santa either... That's not how it works
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Uh... agnostic here, but I think saying things like that is just asking for trouble!
Fun fact: There are a lot of professors and great Atheists that tried to find proof of the opposite, that there is no god and they didn't succeed either.
You know, I don't have a problem with religion. I have a problem when people use it as an excuse for what they do.
I understand the need for powerful beings in control of the world before we were able to understand the science behind nature, where the sun went, why storms happen, what diseases are and why they kill people - early humans wanted ways to explain this, wanted answers just like we do today, wanted to understand why things worked the way they do - but with understanding more and more the mechanisms behind these things it removes the need (in my opinion) to have some powerful god making it happen. These days I find religion mostly unnecessary and honestly quite problematic- some of the worst people I have ever known were very religious yet they believed they were superior because of some belief that they chant about in a group weekly. Being religious doesn't make you a good person, if you're a d**k to people you're still a d**k, just a religious one. I'm of the don't be a d**k faith, its fairly straightforward - just don't be a d**k to people, simple.
People need explanations, and they need parents. The lack of the first engenders the supernatural version of the second. I've no objection to people finding comfort in the privacy of their own heads. Just don't turn it into a system of government
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friendly reminder that you shouldn’t disrespect others religions just because you don’t believe in them (this includes atheism/agnosticism)
Just because a belief is religious does not mean that it is worthy of respect. Some of the worst beliefs people have are rooted in religion (and, yes, some of the best).
Load More Replies... The evidence to look for is not whether or not God literally exists, but whether or not practicing religion makes people feel better and mentally healthier. There's plenty of evidence for that. The stories don't need to be true to be useful.
But the stories have caused way more harm than have been useful.
Load More Replies... What a silly list... I'm not into it but I understand it. It's not about proof, it's faith and feeling.
I think that if you don't think religion exists that you should believe no religion exists. You can't pick and choose whcih one. I don't like how people don't believe in christianity but think that islam is a thing and so on. It isn't right.
But you are literally describing how different people choose to believe in different religions, which is their right. I've never heard of a Muslim saying they don't believe Christianity exists, they just don't believe as Christians do.
Load More Replies... Sometimes I wonder why I'm a Christian. It all boils down to me believing the evidence that Jesus rose from the dead to be true. I believe it's a historical event like the pandemic we're in - one that demands a response. For me, it's to follow Jesus. If someone would disprove that Jesus rose from the dead or showed me that the evidence I base my life off is false, I doubt I'd stay a Christian.
That seems like a pretty decent mindset. Keep your beliefs but be open to looking at evidence should it be found.
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Someone very, very intelligent had to come up with our design … who could that be!??
Probably the same person who gives bone cancer to children and who "designed" spirochetes to create brain damage.
Load More Replies... DC = "What can be stated without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OP = I get that people believe in religion but they have zero proof that any of it is true. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lyone Fein = "And zero proof that it is not." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DC = "What can be stated without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Den Ver - (DC: I liked your quote and I copied it as a way to bookmark it in my comments section.)
Christianity is the worst! Everything is so rigid, and supposed to be substituted for science.
I agree, God Or the gods go’s against science, and physics, if science proves it’s real I will “ believe “ in that religion
It's a lot like trickle-down economics. Be patient in your suffering today because tomorrow you will be rewarded.
But without religion, what would people use to justify their horrible behavior?
Uhh.....probably planetary positions and other astrological nonsense? People are very good at justifying their behaviors!
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Um... there is plenty of proof. People keep trying to disprove God's existence and are convinced by small details that don't match the big picture.
Adam, could you please direct us to scholarly and scientific articles proving this? That is was religion is based on faith and believing.
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And now I've George Michael stuck in my head........
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Really? Just gonna decide without any research or further education that ALL religion is false? It’s just been a part of human civilization since we had civilization. But sure, you got it right on the nose. 🤦♂️
There are no proof any of the more of 3000 gods created by men are real. Religion is man made and it really shouldn't be seen as law anywhere.
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Everyone lives by faith! Faith is living according to what you know, in spite of how you feel! Why get up in the morning? Because you know the sun will come out! (Even though it often does not feel like it will.) Some of us know (from experiences! Not strange fancies! That there is a greater purpose than just surviving one more day! (And I think any religion that is about men controlling you is a crock of shite!)
Really? Are you aware that in Christianity, there is no actual mention of hell (eternal suffering for sins on earth). It is a construct of the wealthy to control and pacify the poor. The belief that someone who's greedy and treats their employees like second-class citizens will get his or hers in the end helps people feel better about their status in life.
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I am atheist/ satanist There is zero proof knowing and not knowing we should respect someone’s religion when they respect our own. I better not see any Christians coming at me telling me Satan is bad, because they are not they literally only punish people who do bad things.
That GMOs are bad. Without GMOs, we wouldn't have a lot of the food we have today.
We've been eating GMOs for 1000s of years. That's what selective breeding does. Some of the foods we eat would be poisonous in their original forms
That we use 10% of our brain. Power or capacity, this was actually proven to be b******t.
That shaving makes hair grow back thicker and longer.
When you shave, the hair is cut in two. The lower part of the hair is now the top, where it used.tot be the middle of a hair. The original top of the hair had to move up to skin level and further on and was damaged doing so. And damaged means thinner. So the cut side is al the way up and as thick as possible. And this is what you experience when it grows further on. Massive and thick hair.
I got pregnant in 2002 and people legit told me I shouldn't raise my arms over my head because the cord would wrap around the baby's neck. Not just great grandmas telling me this either. People at my restaurant job fussed at me all the time for getting things off high shelves. Insane.
This was hilarious! Can those people please draw a pic on how they think your arms and the cord ia connected?
That your generation is always the last good generation.
Swallowed gum will stay in your stomach for 7 years. Never seen a single wad of gum in the hundreds of thousands of stomachs I’ve looked into.
That fish only have a 5-second memory. My fish are fed automatically on a timer and they know dinner time better than my goddamn cat.
That your hair and fingernails still grow after you die. It's mainly an optical illusion. Your skin decays and shrinks, causing hair and fingernails to look like they've grown.
That birds will abandon their babies if they have a human scent on them.
That cats kill babies.
I’ve run into this so many times since having kids. And it’s not the older grandmas making these statements. I’ve had 20 year olds tell me that you can’t have cats if you plan to have babies because “they’ll steal their breath” or some other variation. No amount of reasoning or rationale will dissuade them of this belief
I've always hears that this come from cats that end up sleeping on a baby and the baby can't breath. I have no idea if this is true or not.
Circumcision is medically beneficial enough to be *routinely* done to every male infant born, rather than just like.. you know… waiting to see if it’s actually necessary.
Pit bulls can lock their jaws. If they bite you then you have to kill them because their jaws are locked.
No, I am not kidding. I’ve heard this BS from the elderly and from kids. They just keep repeating this nonsense.
Only if it is a hybrid created in a Chinese research lab and one of its parents was a snapping turtle.
90% of the myths surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.
If the baby’s heart rate is fast it’s a girl. If you crave sweet things it’s a girl, if you are carrying “high” it’s a girl.
They’re the only ones I can think of at the moment but there are so many other myths out there.
funnily enough I had a major sweet tooth in both my girl pregnancies and was craving savoury foods with my boy. Didn't know about that belief though...
Lightning never strikes the same place twice.
As Fleetwood Mac would say, “Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice.”
Someone can be tested to determine their virginity status. Hymens aren't barriers, they aren't supposed to be broken, and they heal when they do tear. No one, not even a doctor can look at someone and know they're a virgin or not.
Bulls become angry seeing the color red.
Bulls become angry when men in stupid Prince outfits taunt them while crowds cheer and then the poor bulls get speared. Absolutely disgusting.
That reading in dim lighting will cause you to lose your eyesight.
If you watch the TV too much or too close, you will go blind
One that's still not known well is the white people in the south and middle America that think they are part Cherokee. You're like 99.9% sure to be wrong. Your family is wrong. There wasn't a "Cherokee princess" or any of that. It's a folks tale basically. And your grandma was told the same as a kid, she told your mom, hour mom td you.
People get defensive about this because you have to accept that A) Your family accidentally mislead you on something your whole life, and B) you don't have some magic Cherokee princess Native American blood. You're just white.
This is what happened with Elizabeth Warren. She was told this tale and believed she was part Cherokee. I was also told this and believed it while growing up. Almost all of my friends were told the same about themselves too.
Just a folk tale passed down the generations
100% true. I heard the same c**p my whole life. Did the old 23&me test... ZERO native DNA. I'm literally more Neanderthal than Native American.
Carrots improve vision. Has to be on the list for top propaganda campaigns. Started in WWII to cover for the use of radar. Still to this day more people I meet believe it than don't.
Carrots contain beta-carotene which is converted to vitamin A in the body, which in turn binds to a protein in the eye to make rhodopsin. Rhodopsin is a light-absorbing molecule necessary for low-light and colorvision. In turn, the absence of vitamin A can cause nightblindbess. So in a way, carrots can improve your eyesight.
Sugar does not make kids hyper.
Before you say "I'm a parent, and I can promise you it does", consider when kids have plenty of sugar. Birthday parties, exciting events, etc. *That* makes them spin up.
If sugar was a direct cause of making kids hyper, why can they sit on a couch mashing candy for four hours while watching Frost on repeat. There's also the fact that kids are... You know, kids. Sometimes they're activated, sometimes they're not. Regardless of sugar intake.
The right side of your brain is for creativity and the left is for logic. If I see one more psych student with that sticker I’m gonna lose it
In my country there's still a lot of people believing that first period blood is good for skin, like if u spread it on your face they say it will make your skin clear and you will not have acne if u did. It's dumb, stupid & disgusting.
Taking hot showers is good for sunburn. Helps draw out the stinging. When I was young I would always get sunburnt on vacation my dad always told me to take hot showers. I suffered through the pain thinking it would help. Turns out it’s the worst thing you can do.
Every once in a blue moon I stumble across someone who believes that cabbits are a thing. Some people genuinely believe that a cat and rabbit can bang and produce viable offspring, but anyone with an ounce of common sense should understand that it would be impossible.
If your eyes stayed open during a sneeze, those mf's would pop right out
But this actually has happened on rare occasions e.g. the case of a 44-year-old male published in Emergency Physicians Monthly, December 2015.
sex can make your vagina loose
... but only if it is with different guys... With the same guy it doesn't get loose. Although after you have given birth then it's like throwing a sausage down the hallway for the guy. *eye roll* I wonder, if the people coming up with bs like this ever had sex with a vagina involved somehow
If I get a raise at work, I’ll pay more taxes and just make *less* money!
This is not a sure thing. But in certain situations it could happen in the US tax system.
Having the overhead light on in a car while driving is illegal.
This isn’t specifically illegal. But it could be considered Distracted Driving, which in the US legal system is defined as “any non-driving activity a motorist engages in that has the potential to distract him or her from the primary task of driving”. Distracted Driving may be classified as either a moving violation or a criminal misdemeanor depending on what jurisdiction you are in. To be realistic about it, you probably wouldn’t get in any trouble for having the light on unless you got into an accident.
That pissing in a pool makes the water go purple.
I was told as a kid if I touched myself I’d go blind. I used to love telling that to optometrists, until laser eye surgery completely ruined that joke!
There was also the myth that touching yourself would cause hair to grow on the palms of your hands.
That you should give cats milk.
Some cats like a taste of it, but not entire big bowls. Our cat, Bazzy, who passed away a year ago at age 19 1/2 (we adopted him when he was 9 weeks old), was partial to a little bit of half and half in the morning. Milk was too thin, and cream was too thick, but half and half was just right. He never has digestive or other issues from the thimble full I gave him, but the fats in it made his fur incredibly soft. As long as it isn’t poisonous (it’s not like I fed him chocolate or anything fatal for a cat, and he ate regular cat food), anything in moderation should be OK. I miss him terribly. RIP, dearest Bazzy!
Putting something still warm in the fridge will cause it to go bad.
Leaving it out actually allows bacteria to grow faster and putting it in the fridge will reduce the time it spends in the danger zone. Although, it should be put separate from other fridge items, as it can unnecessarily warm those items and potentially reduce their lifespans.
Putting warm food in the fridge acts as a radiator, heating up the fridge which can possibly ruin the other food in there, particularly if it's large.
That eating after a certain time causes weight gain, when in fact it has more to do with what time you go to sleep and not a specific time of the day
More like how much sleep you get, and how overall healthy your lifestyle is. Plus the fact that most dinner food is heavier and has more calories, and many people follow it up with with a sweet dessert.
That you won't get hired or taken seriously with piercings or tattoos. I've held a few jobs over the last 15 years that actually took your qualifications more seriously than your appearance.
S**t, even when I got my first adult job at age 20 as a medical filing clerk, I got my tongue pierced a few months later & my manager was like "you never had a lisp before" (tongue was swollen so I couldn't talk without a lisp) & when I showed her, she only said "hopefully the patients don't see it" & that was it.
I'm tired of ppl saying these things make you unprofessional. I respect those who choose to get tatted or pierced in unseen locations but stop telling ppl it's taboo. Times are changing & appearance does not necessarily translate into one's personality or intelligence
The reason astronauts float on the International Space Station isn't because of low gravity, they're would actually be 90% of Earth's gravity but its actually because its in a perpetual free fall.
The movement of the space station causes it to be falling toward the next point past the Earth horizon. The fact that it doesn't fall is one of the ways we know Earth is not flat.
Not a myth exactly, but more of a misconception.
Yawning is not because of boredom or for getting more oxygen to your brain. The latest research points to yawning assisting in lowering brain temperature.
Don't eat before swimming
i have eaten *in* the pool. swam about, bobbed, and dived. no issue. This also applies to swimming in the sea. check these tips out if unsure how to swim from Englan to France (and eat snacks on the way) http://cspf.co.uk/nutrition
My dad insisted that if you didn't dry your hair immediately after getting out of the shower you would "catch your death of cold." As far as he was concerned, letting your hair stay damp would immediately give you a respiratory illness. Similarly, putting away dishes that weren't completely dry would putrify and poison someone. I know germ theory wasn't very well understood when he was a lad, but water was basically the end of all things as we know it to him.
Losing 90% heat through your head
Well it's *sort* of correct, but only by virtue of the fact that obviously you'll lose more heat through uncovered parts of your body rather than any anatomy-specific reason, and having an uncovered head is more likely than any other body part; if you don't wear a hat then sure, most of your heat loss will come from your head, but if you wore a hat and no pants most of the heat loss will come from your legs.
That Nightshade is a poisonous plant.
The European variety of nightshade, Belladonna, is poisonous, however there are other varieties that are completely edible. When European explorers went over to the Americas and Africa, faced with the contradiction of seeing indigenous peoples eating nightshade stalks and leaves as a part of their diet, came to the conclusion that it must be because the indigenous people were closer to animals than humans.
To this day people still believe that Black nightshade is a poisonous plant— entirely rooted in racism, scholars across generations have defended this lie.
That women’s menstrual cycles sync up with each other after being around each other for a long enough time.
Years of this happening to me with women I'm close with. We're both PMSing together and we want to kill each other and everyone else. I know science says it's not true, but my experience says something different.
Checking Halloween candy for whatever the hell it was checked for - razors, drugs, whatever the myth was
It stemmed from a real story. There was a man who killed his son in 1970-something by lacing his halloween candies with poison to get an insurance money. He also gave poisoned candies to few other children (if I remember correctly, they all survived) to cover his tracks, thus causing a big mass hysteria and starting a myth which lives to this day.
That removing a gray hair from your head will cause ten more to grow back.
Right? LOL because if it were true balding people would gladly pluck the grays to get two more.
Load More Replies... How do you add more? That spinach has an amazing amount of iron. Like all dark leafy greens it has some, but not a lot. Someone mad an error with a decimal point many years ago and some textbooks picked it up and for years it was taught.
That removing a gray hair from your head will cause ten more to grow back.
Right? LOL because if it were true balding people would gladly pluck the grays to get two more.
Load More Replies... How do you add more? That spinach has an amazing amount of iron. Like all dark leafy greens it has some, but not a lot. Someone mad an error with a decimal point many years ago and some textbooks picked it up and for years it was taught.
