All of us believe things that we find extremely obvious, yet are also commonly denied. Here are three for me:
The Bible is not accurate (I gave up my faith at age fourteen).
Men and women have different levels and styles of sex drive. In particular, men are hornier than women, while women tend to care more about having a little bit of great sex than just having tons of sex.
Current human population levels are totally unsustainable.
I’d like to point out, right now, that I am not trying to start a thread to debate all of these. I would not mind debating any of these in Great Debates, but I’m mostly looking to start a show-and-tell thread. I’d like to know: what belief (or beliefs) do you consider really obvious, yet hear denied fairly often?
Well, dudes in denial often say these two things "I can quit smoking anytime I want to, I just don’t want to. "
and "I do not drive impaired when I am talking on my cell, I can stay focused on both". (Maybe for the first few minutes, but not after that)
I actually disagree with all 3 of your points, OP. Not that I think the Bible is 100% accurate, mind you, but for when it was written, some of the later OT is fair history.
I think women have as high of a sex drive (especially when they are a little older), but they have been conditioned to be the chased, not the chaser.
Current human pop levels are sustainable. The current rate of population growth is not.
It’s not so common any more, but 10 years ago people used to deny that ocean levels were rising and that it was getting hotter. Now they are on to denying that the cause are human pollutants putting large amounts of trapped CO2 into the atmosphere.
I didn’t say that every single thing the Bible says is inaccurate. But the fact that it describes the actions of deities is enough for me to say that the text as a whole is inaccurate in the sense that the statement “Lasagna is a chocolate dessert and Barack Obama is president of the USA” is inaccurate.
Well, okay, but as I said in the OP, I’m not really looking to debate these things. We could start threads on them in GD if you were up for it.
There is far more variation within the sexes than between them. Although there are probably tendencies, statements about what “men” and “women” do are so profuse with exceptions as to be next to useless when dealing with any individual man or woman.
Government programs such as universal education, universal health care, and the social safety net lead to increased social stability. It is many times more effective and less costly to reduce crime through bolstering the social safety net than via police and the courts.
There is no earthly good to be had in criminalizing marijuana or sex work.
Certain groups receive unearned and unasked-for privilege in our society over other groups. This is pervasive and exists throughout life. Those who belong to privileged groups should remain aware of their privilege and use their privilege to work against inequality.
Most of the “rules of grammar” are actually rules of style - for instance, there is actually nothing inherently wrong with starting a sentence with “and” or ending one with a preposition.
While it is important to have a good self-image, it’s also true that being overweight, or underweight for that matter, is unhealthy.
If something is an average, that does not mean most people conform to it or that it is in the exact center of the data. Averages are usually skewed by modal data points.
The Mayan calendar does not say the world is going to end in 2012. Nor do the prophecies of Nostradamus. Nor the Bible.
And finally, most of the crap on those ‘interesting facts’ lists that get emailed around is not, in fact, factual.
Seems like this thread contains more opinions than facts.
Here are mine:
A fat person is fat because they eat too much. Yet even on the SDMB, apologists will dream up all kinds of elaborate excuses for obesity.
Regular glass at room temperature is a solid. It is not a liquid. Get over it.
Many people believe it a fact that global warming is caused by humans. They are wrong; there is no solid, concrete, direct evidence that humans can cause global warming. I’m not saying it can’t occur, I’m simply saying that there currently is not enough evidence.
People think a plane stays aloft due to Bernoulli’s principle. They imagine the air being split at the wing’s leading edge, the air above the wing has a higher velocity than the air below the wing (due to longer distance), etc. etc. This is not true.
It is more than 100% obvious to me that 9/11 was a response to our policies and actions in the Middle East over the past decades and not anything to do with our way of life.
Believing the word of guys with doctorates of divinity over guys with doctorates in geology, anthropology, archaeology, etc… about where Man came from. Even if you’re religious (which I am), that sort of willful ignorance is stunning.
Percentage chance of rain DOES NOT mean that it’s the percentage of the forecast area that will get rain. Roughly, it’s the percentage of past situations with similar meteorological conditions that saw rain.
Christianity isn’t “under attack.” I’m a Christian, and I don’t see this horrible attack that many of the evangelicals and other less than rational denominations see. Just because the government is enforcing the laws to not discriminate against those that you don’t like, or to favor yourselves doesn’t mean that it’s an “attack” on your religion.
America wasn’t founded as a “Christian Nation.” The Founding Fathers were hardly the Christian Taliban, and it’s very well reflected in the structure of our government and laws. The only thing close to American being founded as a “Christian Nation” is that the majority of immigrants were Christians back in the day.
