Misconceptions Archives - Page 10 of 16 - Tales of Times Forgotten

Was Giordano Bruno Really a “Martyr for Science”?

There are two main historical figures that are often cited as supposed “martyrs for science.” The first is the Neoplatonic philosopher and mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, who was murdered in March 415 AD by a mob of Christians who supported Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria. The second is the Italian mystic Giordano Bruno, who was burned alive on 17 February 1600 by the Roman Inquisition.

Hypatia was a real scientist (or at least proto-scientist), but she was murdered for reasons entirely unrelated to her scientific work. As I discuss in this article I published in August 2018, all the surviving contemporary sources indicate that Hypatia was murdered due to her involvement in a bitter political feud between Orestes, the Christian Roman governor of Egypt, and Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria. Hypatia was one of Orestes’s major allies. Her murder was basically a political assassination.

Giordano Bruno, on the other hand, was not a scientist at all and he was executed for reasons entirely unrelated to science. Ironically, by insisting on calling him a “martyr for science,” Bruno’s admirers are kind of shooting themselves in the foot by destroying their own credibility.

No, the Christian Cross Is Not Based on the Egyptian Ankh

The ankh is a hieroglyphic symbol composed of a T-shape with a loop on top that was used in ancient Egypt to represent the consonant sequence Ꜥ-n-ḫ. The Egyptian word for “life” was composed of this exact sequence of consonants. As a result of this, the ankh became widely used as a symbol for life. People would often wear the symbol on amulets for protection and it was used to decorate shrines, temples, and tombs.

In recent years, a claim has arisen that the Christian cross is, in fact, plagiarized off the Egyptian ankh. Despite its popularity, this claim is almost entirely false, for reasons that I shall explain shortly. Nonetheless, there is a very interesting kernel of truth behind this claim that many of its proponents are not even aware of.

Debunking the Supposed Lincoln-Kennedy Connection

When I was in AP US History during my sophomore year of high school, my teacher had a poster on her wall at the back of the classroom that listed “astonishing” similarities between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Similar claims about the alleged similarities between the two presidents are widely circulated on the internet, where they are often presented as evidence of some kind of mystical connection.

At the time when I first read that poster, I was astonished and a bit creeped out by the similarities. Now, though, I realize that many of the alleged similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy are entirely fabricated and that even the genuine similarities between them are extremely superficial.

Here is a thorough debunking of the supposed Lincoln-Kennedy connection. Popular claims associated with the urban legend are written in blockquotes and are followed by in-depth replies. Claims are organized loosely in chronological order of the events they pertain to.

The Dark Side of Alexander Hamilton

Today is Independence Day, the day when the United States annually celebrates the approval of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776. (The congress had actually voted to declare independence from Britain two days earlier on July 2nd.)

Coinciding with the occasion, yesterday, Disney released a recording of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton on their streaming service Disney+. My family and I watched it together. I had listened to the soundtrack previously, but this was the first time I had the opportunity to actually see the show in any form.

Hamilton accurately captures some of Alexander Hamilton’s more obvious personality faults: his arrogance, his impulsiveness, his temper, his womanizing, and his tactlessness. Unfortunately, the musical glosses over some of his more troubling faults, most notably his authoritarian political leanings. In this article, I want to explore some of the overlooked flaws of the real-life Alexander Hamilton.

Who Are the Illuminati Really?

When I was little, I would sometimes watch History Channel documentaries with my parents. These documentaries were often full of bizarre conspiracy theories about the Freemasons and the Illuminati. The History Channel claimed that these organizations were secretly controlling the world to bring about a totalitarian one-world government that they called “the New World Order.”

I think that most people who have a serious interest in history realize that you can’t trust anything you hear on the History Channel. I personally think that a more accurate name for it would be “the Conspiracy Channel,” since they talk a lot more about conspiracy theories than about actual history. Nonetheless, I think it is worthwhile to examine some of the ideas that are promoted on this channel and determine how much truth behind them there really is.

Believe it or not, the Illuminati was once a real organization and its history is surprisingly well-documented. In this article, I want to examine who the Illuminati were, what their goals were, what evidence there is for their alleged continued existence, and why so many people are afraid of them.

The Modern World Isn’t Even Remotely Secular

In his 1882 work Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft (i.e. The Gay Science), the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared:

“Gott is tot! Gott bleibt tot! Und wir haben ihn getötet! Wie trösten wir uns, die Mörder aller Mörder? Das Heiligste und Mächtigste, was die Welt bisher besaß, es ist unter unsern Messern verblutet—wer wischt dies Blut von uns ab? Mit welchem Wasser könnten wir uns reinigen?”

In English, this means:

“God is dead! God remains dead! And we have murdered him! How do we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? The holiest and mightiest thing that the world so far has possessed, it has bled to death under our knives—who will wash this blood off from us? With what water could we purify ourselves?”

When he wrote this, Nietzsche did not mean that God had literally died, but rather that modern science had disproven his existence and human beings had entered into a new, secular age. Nietzsche believed that humans needed to find something to replace God to provide life with meaning.

Few academics today agree with everything Nietzsche believed, but they do generally seem to agree that, in the western industrialized world in the twenty-first century, religion is no longer important in most people’s lives and secularism and rationality now generally reign supreme. This notion, however, is entirely mistaken. Traditional religions of all kinds are, in fact, thriving in the western world, especially here in the United States, and belief in the supernatural remains widespread.

Yes, Public Schools Can Teach About Religion

In many countries around the world, teaching about religion in public schools is normal and generally uncontroversial. For instance, in Germany, all public schools are required by law to offer courses about religion and all students are required to take either classes in religion or classes in philosophy and ethics. In Greece, students are required to take classes in Eastern Orthodoxy, although parents are permitted to opt their students out of these classes if they choose.

In the United States, though, very few public schools offer classes that are solely devoted to religion and most people incorrectly believe that public schools are not even allowed to teach classes about religion at all. In reality, public schools in the United States are allowed to teach about religion, but there are limitations on how they are allowed to teach about it.

Religion is only allowed to be taught in public schools in the United States if it is taught in an academic, non-sectarian manner. Schools are not allowed to encourage students to follow any religion or discourage them from following any religion; they are only allowed to teach students the facts.

The Amazing Origin of the Story of Achilles’s Heel

We all know the story of “Achilles’s heel.” The story you probably learned in school goes like this: When Achilles was a baby, his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx to make him immortal and impervious to all wounds—except she held him by his heel, meaning his heel was the only part of him that was vulnerable. Many years later, near the end of the Trojan War, the Trojan prince Paris shot him in the heel with an arrow guided by the god Apollon and killed him.

This story is the source of our English phrase “Achilles’s heel,” which is often used to refer to a single fatal weakness in something that is otherwise seen as invincible. It may come as a surprise to some people that this story is not actually found in the Iliad or in any other work of classical Greek literature from before the Roman Era. In fact, in the Iliad, Achilles isn’t even invulnerable at all!

No, “Edelweiss” Is Not an Austrian Folk Song or a Nazi Song

There are a lot of popular misconceptions about the song “Edelweiss.” Many people think it is an age-old Austrian folk song. Many people even think that it is the national anthem of Austria. Other people have gotten the bizarre impression that it was composed as a Nazi song or even that it was the national anthem of Nazi Germany.

In reality, the song “Edelweiss” was composed by the American composing duo Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers as an original song for the 1959 musical The Sound of Music. Although Hammerstein and Rodgers were trying to imitate the overall genre of folk music, they did not base their song on any preexisting lyrics or melody.

Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus Really?

In popular culture, Rameses II (ruled 1279 – 1213 BC) is almost always portrayed as the pharaoh of the Exodus. He is most famously portrayed as such in the 1956 epic film The Ten Commandments, but he has also appeared in this role more recently in the 1998 DreamWorks animated musical drama film The Prince of Egypt, in the 2013 History Channel miniseries The Bible, and in the 2014 epic film Exodus: Gods and Kings.

It may come as a surprise to many people, then, that the Book of Exodus never actually gives the name of the pharaoh who supposedly tried to keep the Israelites from leaving. Instead, throughout the book, the pharaoh is merely referred to by the Hebrew word פַּרְעֹה (par‘ōh), which is the source of our English word pharaoh. How, then, did we all come to think of Rameses II as the pharaoh of the Exodus? And, more importantly, who was the real pharaoh of the Exodus? Let’s delve back into the mists of antiquity and find out the truth.