In my daughter’s history class one day when she was in high school, after the teacher finished his description of everyday life as a slave in America, he decided out loud that on balance, slaves had a pretty good life in 1860’s America and couldn’t understand why they needed to be rescued and freed.
HER principal acted a bit more strongly than yours did thank goodness.
Come on - you know Hebrew doesn’t have a specific word for “ape”(the correct term is קופי אדם, or “man monkeys,” and it’s hardly in common usage).
Anyway, that’s basically what happened: as a respose to the Tail Challage one of the other guys on the patrol interjected that “not all monkeys have tails”, which led to a long argument as to whether chimpanzees do, in fact, have tails. Thankfully, we never got back around to talking about Creationism.
Serious question, which ones?
When I first moved to LA I was talking to someone and mentioned that I had recently moved from Columbus Ohio. They told me they knew someone from Atlanta, Ga and asked if I knew them. Since of course everything beyond the California border is so close together.
Ah, yes… Teh Gey :rolleyes: People telling me it’s contagious – if I ever have a gay friend I’ll become gay myself…
[Aside] I heard all of these in the US. Now, the US is the only place I’ve spent any sizable amount of time (except for Israel of course), but I’ve never heard anything this egregious here. Is this capacity for ignorance and downright stupidity something found in the US more than in, say, Europe? or have I just not spoken to enough Europeans?[/aside]
He must have meant to say the same thing my teacher taught us as a little “trick” to remembering the “greater-than” sign: that the hungry “mouth” eats the bigger “portion” first. At least, I’m hoping he meant to say that and got tongue tied. (Please tell me he didn’t score your tests accordingly.)
I have a hell of a hard time when I go to museums and zoos these days, because I hear that sort of thing all around me and it’s very hard not to go into Guide Mode. It becomes almost a irresistable urge to explain exhibits and answer questions for people because I love sharing knowledge with others.
Most varieties of Baptist teach that. I’m pretty sure that the other major demoninations say the same.
Huh. See what happens when I get too immersed in an English-language medium? I forget to translate back, is what. Never even crossed my mind… You’re right about that one, of course.
Still makes for a good comeback, however 
The ones I’m most familiar with are various Apostolic and Baptist sects, as well as small “independant” churches which don’t identify with any major denomination. I attended a lot of churches when I was a kid because in this area, it’s often one of the only places kids are allowed to go. I heard it in both Sunday School classes and in regular sermons. The school I attended (and which taught this theme we’re discussing) was operated under the guise of being “non-denominational” but was heavily Baptist-flavored.
Color me this guy: :dubious: regarding the “major denominations”.
I heard the same thing from my staggeringly ignorant stepson (when he was 20 years old). He insisted to me that the Nile flowed down the map, to the south.
He later got a degree in education, and is now teaching high school English. :rolleyes:
Nobody in the family thinks he is qualified to do his job.
He still got tenure. Why do they even have tenure for high school teachers?
That is horrifying. There should be a law against misleading people.
Anyway, I’ve heard many many tales of ignorance but here’s one I witnessed myself. I was on Capri, having a snack at an outdoor bistro. The lovely waiter spoke at least English, French, and Italian and probably a couple other languages beside. I ordered a ‘bombe’ as best I could because I like trying the language where I am and the waiter replied in perfect English.
A couple tables over were two fellows from the Nimitz, which at the time was anchored just off Naples. The waiter went to take their order, which was issued in loud tones complete with hand gestures; ‘Me … want… hamburger’. And no, they weren’t joking.
I nearly crawled under the table in mortification.
It’s been a long time since I posted on the Straight Dope, but hey, no better time than the present to jump back in.
This can’t be the most ignorant thing I’ve heard, but it’s up there on the stupidity scale. I had a health teacher in middle school who was also a gym teacher. In retrospect, he reminds me a lot of “Mr. Buzzcut” from Beavis & Butt-head. He said something one day to the effect of, “Your lungs only absorb 19% of the oxygen from each breath you take. So those professional baseball players who suck down pure oxygen from tanks aren’t doing any good, 'cause they’re still only getting 19%!” I guess I should just be grateful that he wasn’t a math teacher.
On the related topic of ignorance demonstrated in teachers…
My son’s 2nd grade teacher told the class to be careful with the thermometers they were using, because the clear red fluid in them was mercury. :rolleyes:
She even elaborated on this, telling the kids that the red substance was named “mercury” after the red planet of the same name. :smack:
I am not particularly tolerant of ignorance being spread about by teachers, so I made a point of correcting these misconceptions of hers when I saw her next.
Hold it! Fight my ignorance. What **is **it they use in thermometers, then? I always thought the red ones just contained dyed mercury, for easier reading… :smack:
Heh. Dyed mercury.
Most thermometers use tinted ethanol now.
Ignorance fought. Thank you.
Somehow, during a recent conversation with Mum, the subject of there being different versions of names in different languages came up. She was surprised; apparently she’d never heard that before. I explained it using John as an example, and listed some of the foreign versions that I could think of off the top of my head - Sean, Jean, Jan, Ivan. She shook her head in amazement and said “That’s just stupid. Why don’t they all just say John and be done with it?”
Our 3rd grade teacher taught it to us the same way, except a bit more morbidly. She told us to imagine an alligator’s mouth deciding which child to eat. Obviously the alligator would choose the fatter child. Thinking back, she was one of my favorite teachers, although I never could figure out why. Apparently, I appreciated her sense of humor.
Lutheranism traditionally says that you either follow God or the devil with no other choices. Some modern lutherans don’t believe that the devil is a real entity but more of a concept.
Prebyterian doctrine states that being seperated from God means being the bondslave of Satan. (from the book of confessions)
Those are the two I could find the easiest. It gets a little tricky at times because within a denomination you can have more than one teaching, often upon liberal and conservative lines. I guess it’d be clearer to just say that many of the more conservative flavors of christianity, across denominational lines believe that way while many of the liberal mindsets believe that the devil is a concept rather than an actual entity.