A lot of old religious beliefs don’t really make much sense anymore, and here are ten religious beliefs that don’t match reality today.
The Center
People genuinely used to believe that everything revolved around the Earth, and it was something that both religious teaching and scholars alike supported. They used Ptolemy’s system to justify their beliefs.
They thought that the Sun, stars, and planets all moved around us, but we know today that it’s simply not true. Agencies like NASA have repeatedly confirmed that the Earth orbits the Sun instead of the other way around. However, it’s not hard to see why people used to believe the Earth was at the center.
A cosmic mountain
Several South Asian traditions include mention of something called Mount Meru, which is essentially a physical center of the universe. Believers genuinely thought that it was a real place that the continents were arranged around, with ancient texts mapping the world using this idea.
In fact, Mount Meru is a key part of Hindu cosmology. But modern geography and astronomy both show that there’s no such structure anywhere in the observable universe, so such an idea no longer holds up.
The World’s Age
People used to calculate the age of the Earth by using religious texts, and Archbishop Ussher famously once dated the Earth’s creation to 4004 BCE. Such a timeline actually stuck around for a while, although modern geological dating methods show a different story.
The USGS puts the Earth at around 4.54 billion years, thanks to the levels of radioactive decay in rocks and meteorites. It’s quite a bit older than what Ussher claimed it to be.
Fixed Species
It was a common religious belief that every plant and animal was exactly as it was created. That was it. Yes, many people thought that God created life exactly as we see it today, without any kind of changes or movement between different types of animals. Yet biology works differently today.
Practically every scientist agrees that species evolve over time through a process of adapting and changing via natural selection. As such, the living things around us today are completely different from those of millions of years ago.
Seizures
Before we had modern medicine, people had to rely on religion to help explain health issues, and that includes seizures. They interpreted them through a spiritual lens, claiming that possession was the cause or some other kind of unseen force acting on the body.
Different cultures around the world accepted that theory. Now, though, we know that many seizures are caused by neurological conditions like epilepsy, rather than anything supernatural. It’s not a sign of evil.
Ordained Kings
Monarchs used to claim their authority came straight from God, and it was an idea known as the ‘divine right of kings.’ It essentially meant that they didn’t have to answer to parliaments or courts. Such a belief affected how governments worked, and it was a very popular doctrine.
But these days, most countries work under constitutions that give individuals political power through legal systems. Yes, some countries do still have a monarchy, but their power doesn’t come from divine appointment anymore.
Interest
There was a time when lending money with interest was something seen as morally wrong. Several religions warned against it, and in medieval Europe, people thought that charging a small amount of interest was unfair. It completely changed people’s financial lives.
Unfortunately for us today, interest rates are a standard part of banking systems across the planet, and we don’t tend to judge central banks for charging them. We tend to see interest as a fair price to pay for being lent some money.
Eclipses
It makes sense that eclipses used to make people nervous. After all, they seemingly appeared without warning, and people took them as a sign from a higher power, with some cultures seeing them as signals to rulers or disasters. We know that’s not true anymore.
We’re able to use modern science to predict when eclipses are coming even years in advance, and we no longer see them as any kind of message. They’re simply a natural phenomenon.
Trials
Evidence in courts didn’t always work the way that it does today. In the past, the court would hand things over to God, and they’d make the accused do things like hold hot iron or be dropped into water. Whatever happened next was a divine decision.
They believed God would save an innocent person but allow a guilty person to die or be seriously hurt. Thankfully, we don’t follow that system anymore, and our legal systems rely on testimony and records, as well as physical proof.
Rain Gods
Communities used to pray for rain to come, and they believed that it’d happen as a result of them doing certain actions. Both biblical accounts and Vedic traditions include rituals and prayers that people would carry out with the belief that they’d cause rainfall.
But NOAA describes it differently. We understand that rain appears after water evaporates and cools before condensing in the atmosphere. It has nothing to do with the ceremonies that people perform on the ground.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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