What is the silliest thing that you have heard somebody say they believe?
First, any mention of religion of any type is off topic as this question is not about those types of beliefs.
Instead, it is about those little curiosities that people you know (or knew) believed to be true.
I will give an example. A girl I went to university with believed that if you visited another country for longer than 24 hours that you legally became that nationality. This would mean that if I was on holiday in Spain she believed it meant I was then legally Scottish (since I am), but also part Spanish. If I then travelled to China I would be Scottish, Spanish, and Chinese and so on. It was her belief that you could get a passport for the country and that due to being in the country you were a legal citizen.
So what strange things have people around you said that they believe in?
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A friend of mine once told me in all seriousness that people once had the ability to fly.
Not in airplanes, but like birds or witches on broomsticks.
Tea cup readings come to mind, for some strange reason. The configurations and patterns formed by your just completed cup of tea. Can form the shapes of not only your minds desires, future partners but also your past hardships. Maybe even the sex of your unborn child. Do hope this didn’t fall into the religious category as some no doubt seek spiritual solace through this cup of tea.
Unfortunately, I can’t answer this question without lying. So I will lie, because I wouldn’t want to talk about the silliest things I’ve heard.
Once I heard someone say they believed that an invisible pink unicorn was responsible for watching over day to day events on earth.
I also heard a person say they though there were little elves who lived inside of computers, and they were responsible for doing all the things computers do.
But these things aren’t half as silly as the silliest things I’ve heard people believe in. But I should get credit for admitting to lying.
I’ve known people who believed that eye surgery is done by first removing the eye and then putting it back into the socket when done.
An old girlfriend seriously believed her parents house was haunted. She claimed to have heard voices, and that one time when she sat in a chair it felt like she was sitting in a ghosts lap.
A man told me since he was born and raised in Kentucky, that made him an American Native.
A truck driver who thought he had to pay state taxes to every state he drove through.
A guy thought he could deduct the cost of his house and all living experiences, because he watched his own grand-kids.
A woman wanted deer crossing signs moved to low traffic areas because she thought that deer look for the signs when attempting to cross the road.
story
funniest thing I ever heard, even if it may have been a hoax
In working with the public, doing work of a therapeutic nature, I have heard way too many stupid theories and beliefs to even remember what the stupidest was.
I’ve met people who believe they knew everything and people who believed in absolute certainty.
How about somebody who insisted she was born on another planet? I laughed, thinking she was joking, but she wasn’t.
The stupidest stuff is probably in the nature of how-things-work or how-it’s-done or what-really-happened, the kind of wisdom that strangers routinely bestow on one another on public transit or in waiting rooms. Some of it must come from the National Enquirer. I try not to remember it or even think about it, but once in a while I write it down.
This wasn’t something that somebody believed, but the silliest thing I’ve ever heard was a woman who spoke nonstop baby-talk. She was telling me about how her boss had dumped a great deal of work on her, and she said “Him a little stinkpot. Me no likey.” That’s just one example. Every time she spoke, it was more of the same.
I never knew why a grown adult would behave that way. She was so irritating, I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
A girl from 4th grade. She asked me to open my hand, put a wiggling tadpole on it, then said, “I believe this was a prince.”
Two ridiculous things I read right here on Fluther:
Recently, I read on Fluther that who caes about global warming.
Also, that no one had ever been born gay or lesbian.
Having told some little kids living in a village of a Mediterranean country that I was born and raised in Africa, one of them asked how long it took to change from non-white to white and if it happened within a day or over a longer period!!!!!!!
Oh my mother in law is full of these. To preface, she is a little, old, Italian lady (78-years old). She grew up in a minuscule town in Italy, completed only third grade, and is always a nervous wreck.
She says:
• You will catch pneumonia from being under a ceiling fan.
• If a dog breaths in your face or licks you, you could die.
• There is no such thing as homosexuals. The newsman has made that up.
• The pope talks directly to god. Daily.
• When we were planning to adopt, she was very much against it. To try and persuade us, she said she would come back from the dead and be our daughter.
• Once we did adopt, from China, she begged us to never tell our daughter she was adopted. Did I mention we adopted from China.
• That using the dishwasher will make you sick if you eat off the plates.
There’s many more, but these are the ones I hear regularly or that stand out in my mind.
Of course, she’s also very superstitious and religious.
I did also know somebody that believed that every object in the world had feelings and emotions and this meant they believed that if you banged into a coffee table with your leg, then apart from you saying oww they thought that the coffee table also shouted out oww but at a pitch that humans could not hear.
@cookieman: How do you respond? How does your daughter respond?
Not long ago an aquaintence tried to convince me that cats “see” with their whiskers.
I explained that they used them to gauge depth and width from a spatial perspective and this person adamantly exclaimed ” NO! The really SEE with them!”
Right, they have millions of microscopic eyeballs on the tips of their whiskers.
Ooookay….well….have a nice day, gotta run! lol
@gailcalled: I have survived twenty-five years with the woman with lots of humor and trying to know when to keep my distance. My daughter has tried to adopt the same tactic but does get frustrated by the complete lack of logic.
My wife, once trying to explain “Nonna’s” ways to my daughter, pointed out that she had only made it through third grade. My daughter said, “Then how come I’m in third grade but I know she’s completely wrong?”
I know a guy who actually thinks he can beat up a moose.
He claims to have slapped one in the face once.
Pffft.
@AshLeigh: I have had the very scary opportunity of being within inches of a moose’s face and I will tell you, the last thing I wanted to do was slap it.
^^^^ LOL….I was hiking in the Redwoods a few years ago when these moron tourists were right up in the face of this giant bull Elk with his cows and calves milling around. The damn thing was like 7 feet tall, seriously, and it was a freaking MIRACLE this guy and his family didn’t get stomped to death. People are fucking nuts. “Here cute giant bear, have a marsmallow. Oops, that was the last one!” haha
@cookieman, I’ve been inches from a moose’s butt, and the first thing I wanted to do was slap it. :)
I have a goose call that doubles as a rape whistle.
Hoooooooonk! lol
When we were kids a friend of mine thought that being shot in the head would merely render you unconscious for half an hour or so after which you would get up none the worse.
Not silly, but deadly – people who think they can copy movie stunts safely. One report was two kids who drove up a service ramp right into the side of a boxcar, expecting to crash right through just like in the movies. They both were thrown through the windshield and died on the scene. Another was a guy who laid down on the center divider line of the street to film traffic passing by.
When I was a kid the really old lady that lived across the street from us thought that there were real people inside the TV doing all those shows.
^^^ Haha..that’s priceless!
My poor daughter, now that she is an adult she told me a few years ago how she really believed me when I told her that there were little monkeys in the traffic lights that changed them when she was about 4 years old. haha
@AshLeigh: I hope you and the moose had a magical night.
When I lived for a short time in Louisiana, a white guy told me not to buy Coca-Cola because the company gave 20% of its profits to the NAACP.
And a black guy told me Coca-Cola supports the Klan.
Good times.
My daughter has an ex room mate, nice girl but a ditz, for lack of a more PC term. lol
She was working out extensively and dieting for a bikini contest once and told my daughter that she was going grocery shopping and needed to get some ” Albuquerque” Tuna! hahaha
Poor Whitney…cute as a button but has the IQ of a Cocker Spaniel.
That when cats lie on your chest they are sucking your soul out. The person really believes this.
That plants suck all the oxygen out of the air, and that you’ll smother if you keep houseplants in your bedroom. Of course, plants produce wonderful oxygen, and they clear air pollutants to boot.
^^^^ To both of the above…hahaha!
I’ve heard grown men discuss how the government seeds the clouds to provide our city with rain and warmer temperatures than they get in the surrounding countryside.
I heard women state that standing on some magnetic type thing takes all the toxins and metals out of their bodies.
Some of the people I hang around hold some pretty strange beliefs. Tongue biting is often a necessity.
I have a friend who is a prepper.
He has dozens and dozens of pistols, rifles, and weapons.
He just bought a house up near the Oregon boarder. 40 acres. Isolation. He wants to live off the grid, since he believes the entire American economy is going to flat line in 5 months. He thinks the cities are going to turn into a Road Warrior kind of life.
@filmfann Does he have space for a bohemian gal with geese and a green thumb?
I can grow my own. lol
That there’s no such a thing as global warming.
@Coloma
Cats ‘seeing’ with their whiskers is not as far fetched as you might think.
Seals for example can use their whiskers to accurately detect the turbulence trails in the water left by the fish they want to eat. They can do that blindfolded and without sound, and quite some time after the fish has left that trail and is no longer moving.
It is not much of a stretch to suppose that cats’ whiskers play a similar role in detecting disturbances in the air.
My mom traveled in the Deep South when she was in her 20s and had dinner with some acquaintances. Upon finding out that she was Jewish, the family’s small child asked where her horns and tail were.
My Tea Partier aunt truly believes that there are no poor people, and that those who claim to not have much money are lying.
Had a great-grandmother who said a woman can get syphilis by milking a cow while on her period. She got mad at me when I commented “well, she may have got it in the barn…”
That mankind came from apes.
There is equal justice for everyone here in the US.
A house or building is haunted.
@DrBill brings up a great point. One thing I’ve learned in dealing with people like this is, do not try and correct them. In my experience, it only ends badly.
Just smile and nod.
That mankind was made by a skywizard.
Taking all of those end of the world predictions seriously and believing that colon cleansers really clean out your intestines.
My father, an otherwise logical man (for the most part), had a genuine fear of 12/21/2012.
When the day arrived, he refused to go for his usual kidney dialysis treatment (he needs treatment roughly every other day to stay healthy). “I want to stay home with you in case anything happens”.
Pathetic.
marijuana is good for you and does no harm.
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