Historical Mistakes, Bad Science, and False Prophets

What do these three things have in common:

• A junior high principal congratulating her honor-roll students by comparing them to Albert Einstein.
• A well-known scientist debunking an uneducated inventor, comparing the inventors theories with that of those who believed the Earth to be flat.
• A clergyman strongly rebuking "worldly sinners", telling them that he is only doing this because according to the Bible, he is commanded to.

I've witnessed these 3 things recently, and what all 3 of them have in common is that their analogies are all totally and utterly WRONG!

It always amazes me that if you say something emphatically enough, everyone around you will agree with you, no matter how wrong you are.  What is so incredible about above examples is that the primary people in the examples are in fact the ones proved to be wrong by the examples they themselves have given!

Let's think about it:  Do you think Albert Einstein was ever congratulated by his teachers in his early-education?  No, Albert Einstein was not an honor student.  His teachers said he was 'retarded' and would never amount to anything.  His teachers were WRONG!

Was it the educated scientists who first proved that the World was not flat?  No, it was the educated scientists who wanted Christopher Columbus killed for promoting such heresy as to suggest the World might not be flat.  These scientists were WRONG!

Did Jesus Christ walk the Earth, condemning and rebuking the lost and the sinners?  No, according to the Bible, it was the religious people of the day that condemned Jesus for living among the sinners.  The only recorded rebuking that Jesus did was when he was rebuking the religious leaders, who were looking down their noses at others who were different than them, while they themselves were secretly harboring evil.  Guess what?  The religious leaders were WRONG!

If you don't think history repeats itself, you don't have to look far to find that even today, the misfits, the down-trodden, and those adventurers who dare to question the mindset of the vast majority are looked down on and dismissed as worthless, unimportant idiots.  And this is WRONG!

Think about it.

(Sorry, just needed to get this off my chest...)

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Comments on this article:

» left by David Tanguay (1 year 238 days ago.)

I couldn’t agree more Mr. Horst, that’s what I keep telling everyone. “I’m right and the worlds wrong” ha ha only kidding, no seriously many of our great achievers in all fields of knowledge were considered to be crackpots at one time in their lives. Scientists of his day, told Thomas Edison an electric light bulb would be impossible to create.


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» left by Bruce Horst ⁽⁹¹⁸⁾
Bruce Horst (1 year 238 days ago.)
Ha ha, David. How can the World be full of so many people who don't know they are wrong, when you and I are here to tell them? (just kidding.)
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» left by Bruce Horst ⁽⁹¹⁸⁾
Bruce Horst (1 year 238 days ago.)
What other Historical Mistakes can you come up with? Please leave them as comments!
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» left by Kay Elizabeth ^(1,711)
Kay Elizabeth (1 year 235 days ago.)

So much truth in your article, Bruce! Thanks so much for sharing that. Sometimes we need to still the roar to hear what's really being said, that's for sure. I've met quite a few people that appear to think that shouting something tells everyone that they must be right, which unfortunately some seem to accept, instead of reasoned thinking or debate. It's amazing how many people take absolutely everything that others say at face value without going a little deeper into it sometimes.

I think Buddha said it best: " Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."


I have a few to add to your collection, Bruce. :) From A 2nd helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul:

In 1959, a Universal Pictures exec dismissed Clint Eastwood (" You have a chip on your tooth, your Adams apple sticks out too far and you talk too slow") and Burt Reynolds ("You have no talent") at the same time.


When Alexander Graham Bell was demonstrating his newly invented telephone in 1876, President Rutherford Hayes said " That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?"

Louis L'Armour, successful author of over 100 western novels with over 200 million copies in print, received 350 rejections before he made his first sale. He later became the first American novelist to receive a special congressional gold medal in recognition of his distinguished career as an author and contributor to the nation through his historically based works. (There's hope for us all!!)


In the 1940's, a young inventor called Chester Carlson took his idea to 20 corporations, including some of the biggest in the country. They all turned him down. In 1947, after seven long years of rejection, he finally got a tiny company in Rochester, New York, the Haloid Company, to purchase the rights to his electrostatic paper-copying process. Haloid became Xerox Corporation, and both it and Carlson became very rich.


And on Thomas Edison, that David mentioned:

When he first attended school in Port Huron, Michigan, his teachers complained that he was " too slow" and hard to handle. Edison's mother decided to take her son out of school and teach him at home. At the age of ten, he had already set up his first chemistry laboratory and went on to produce more than 13,000 inventions in his lifetime.

When Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2,000 experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times. He said, " I never failed once. I invented the light-bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process. "

************************

Your article's also a great reminder that we shouldn't give up on our dreams, even if others say they're wrong or won't work etc...we need to hold fast to them and believe in ourselves. An insightful piece indeed. :)
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» left by Andy from Lawrence, KS (352 days 9 hours ago.)

It is only popular myth that Christopher Columbus was the one to dispell the "world is flat" idea. People believed in a spherical earth long before Columbus.
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» left by Keith from Florida (301 days 11 hours ago.)

Short...but good! darn good article!
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» left by Leila from Mexico (279 days 11 hours ago.)

It's true. Christopher Columbus has nothing to do with the Earth being spherical...I believe 6th century BC or more. Maybe YOU should also, learn more about science and facts :) no offense, great artcile though
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» left by Rosemary from UK (224 days ago.)
Think about this one where it says in the Bible,
Isaiah 40:21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
Isaiah began prophesying about 740 b.c.
good article.

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» left by Anonymous (58 days 12 hours ago.)

Certainly the bible does "command" those in the church leadership to repove, exhort those whos sins oppose their own lives and the teaching of Christ. This in no way makes them a "false prophet." In fact the only way one can be called a false prophet is to make false prophecies. Your generalities can easily be misconstued. Jesus rebuked Peter. Paul and Thomas all severly and publicly and they were not pharisees or religious leaders.

 

Rev Michael Bresciani

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