What story/religion/myth did you believe that you no longer believe in. Until I was 38 or so

[applegrove]

I believed that there had to be treasure buried deep in this 'money pit'. My dad used to tell us about it. I thought it was pirate treasure. While I was living in Halifax I drove down to Oak Island on the South Shore of Nova Scotia just to see it and we ran into a carload of university guys dressed up as pirates. The myth still survives though I no longer think anything is there. But I was not alone in my belief. FDR was interested in the mystery his whole life. Many lives have been lost in the search for the treasure.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island

[dawg]

1. I've read about that.

Very mysterious. Who constructed the pit? When did they do it? For what purpose?

I would love to know all the answers.

And I'm still not 100% there isn't some treasure still there.

[Odin2005]

2. That Vikings explored Minnesota.

I grew up not to far from the infamous Kenningston Runestone and my own home town of Ulen has something similar, a sword claimed to be from the High Middle Ages.

Both are know believed to be complete hoaxes, but there are plenty of true believers out there

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. OMG, now I know of TWO people from Ulen!

What are the odds?

[Odin2005]

10. Ha, too funny!

:hi:

[dimbear]

4. The runestone has many believers, including yours truly.

It was once discredited because of the unusual shape of some of the runes, and only later were identical runes discovered back in Scandinavia.

Open question. :)

[Lucian]

8. I attended a presentation in Alexandria...

where the questionable runes were actually discovered back in Scandinavia.

I remain questionable on the Runestone, but it wouldn't be surprising if the Vikings did come to MN. After all, they were in Newfoundland, so coming to MN isn't that much of a stretch.

[dimbear]

16. These archaeological outliers are fascinating. Sometimes opinion

sways back and forth between true or false time after time.

For instance there's a case of a set of Jewish ritual regalia found in America long considered by most to be forgeries, but now accepted by some as genuine medieval wares, and they're evidence of a murder.

Check out the site http://www.badarchaeology.com for some fun.

[undeterred]

11. It was actually the Packers who got there first.

:hi:

[Odin2005]

21. ROFL

[Xipe Totec]

5. The Bible nt

[Lionel Mandrake]

6. Santa Claus

Until I was about 9, I thought there really was a fat guy with whiskers who visited all the houses on Christmas Eve. Then I did some math and discovered that Santa couldn't even cover a small town, let alone the whole world, in one night. I confronted my parents, and they admitted it was a myth.

[NewJeffCT]

12. It's the Santa magic, though

that's what I used to tell my daughter.

[Lionel Mandrake]

13. A satisfying myth never dies.

If people want to believe a myth, they will believe it at some level, even if they know it's a myth.

[mwb970]

20. The whole Santa thing was problematic for me as a small child.

Everything about it was so counter-intuitive and ran up against everything I thought I knew: the many, many Santas in stores and on street corners, the seeming impossibility of the Flight itself as you mention, and the poor guy coming down the fracking chimney, how could that be, he'd be a mess! Plus my father had already told me the facts of life about chimneys and how they don't just go straight up, have flues and whatnot, etc.

I guess the final straw was the flying reindeer. I was an early reader and I had read numerous science books about animals, some with whole chapters on reindeer. It just seemed beyond belief that if these ungainly beasts could FLY, it wouldn't be at least mentioned in any of these books. Mentioned? It should have been highlighted!

Given all this, need I tell you that the God-Jesus business, which if possible is even MORE improbable than the Santa story, never really had a chance with me?

[DebJ]

7. The American Dream

[Lucian]

9. The Christian Bible.

Hell, I don't believe in any religious texts.

[RebelOne]

14. The Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and god. n/t

[Arugula Latte]

15. I believed in the first three, but never the last one.

They seemed plausible, and there was evidence that they did good works. God -- not so much. I always knew that was a big scam, even when I tried to will myself to believe to fit in with my little Xtian buddies when I was a child.

[snooper2]

17. I used to believe 911 was MIHOP but I grew out of that about 9 years ago

[applegrove]

18. I never believed MIHOP or LIHOP. But I do wonder if Bush/Cheney were not waiting

for a terrorist attack on American property again (outside of the USA too) to give them an excuse to attack Iraq.

[mvd]

19. Still believe in God, at least LIHOP, the JFK conspiracy, Roswell, etc.

Stopped believing in Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy when I was 7. One story I no longer believe now is that Wellstone was killed. I also don't take the Bible as literally as before.