What's the strangest myth that you've ever heard?

You mentioned easter.

I once heard this myth about a virgin teenager who gets impregnanted by some spirit and gives birth to a child that’s his own father and was tortured and executed, and by this execution humanity has a “get out of jail free” card for breaking some imaginary rules just by being born.

That myth seemed pretty strange to me.

That Republicans actually claim to be for the working man.

That there is a “God”, a afterlife, and all that other fantastic religious stuff. (Wasn’t this question asked already???)

Taking a bath in Epsom salts right after will prevent pregnancy, and various other sex related myths.

When I was a kid there was a stretch of woods in my neighborhood where a lot of people claimed there was a peculiar old house that people going through the woods claimed to see from time to time. At least four unrelated people I know had seen and described the house .

I searched for it several times to no avail, and was quite familiar with the woods

I finally found the house when I was walking through the woods at night along a railroad track that runs through this tract of land— when I had a really bright flashlight (I was working at FedEx at the time and,after getting off work and coming home, would walk for the remainder of the night)—it appeared to be part VERY old (1840ish) and part maybe late 1930s. I can stil remember it and made many mental notes as to what it looked like,

In more recent years my sister was working with someone who owned that land and there actually never was a house on it. I know the owners now and they have built anew house on it in recent years, but the one I saw, the one I heard about as a kid, was evidently never there.

Just a local ;urban legend’ that isn’t even known or talked about by many people

This might be more of an old wives tale, but one I have only heard from my MIL. My nephew was having some problem with his eyes, and she recommended squeezing orange juice into it. I couldn’t help myself and blurted out, “what? No. I would never do that.”

Common myths still believed by so many people are sweating out a fever, and going from hot to cold will make you sick. They say that hot to cold thing like you don’t need an actual virus or bacteria present. I live in Florida, we go from freezing cold air-conditioned spaces to hot weather outside almost all year. We typically have less cold and flu than other states.

That some evil spirit murdered all life on the planet, except a drunkard and his family, who cramped a pair of each species into a wooden box, and then repopulated the planet through hardcore incest.

^^That reminds me that I know people who believe the earth is only 4,000 years old. Some believe 10,000.

I attended that church in my childhood.
They had hilarious ways to explain away fossils.

There is an anecdote some attribute to Bertrand Russell and some to William James. In either case, the person gave a lecture telling about stars and planets revolving around them. After the lecture, an old lady stated that the theory was all wrong. Everything rests on the back of a turtle. When asked what the turtle stood on, she said that it stood on another turtle. And where does that turtle stand? The lady said that it was “turtles all the way down”.

@Patty_Melt
Fossils were planted by either the devil, to mislead humans, or god, to test humans.

That a minuscule amount of a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people would cure similar symptoms in sick people.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to respond to this. I found many interesting ideas here…some of which I had never heard before & may well be looking into further!!!

“Young Earth Creationists” are far from rare among conservative Christians. But not all conservatives/evangelicals adhere to it.

I’d guess / observate that maybe 30% believe in young Earth creationism but not to any deep level, and 30% believe in standard evolution. 40% are ambivalent. Science does affirm, at least, that all humans are descended from one woman referred to as mitochondrial Eve.
In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (also mt-Eve, mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all currently living humans, i.e., the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers, and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman.
So the idea of an original Adamic bloodline is not that far fetched.

The Bible timeline refers to the history of the planet in a very abbreviated form, but deals with humankind from a specific point or bloodline.