Popular ideas universally rejected by academia that are also anti-Christian?

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This may be a little bit off the beaten path, but I was where I could look for ideas that meet all three of these criteria:
  1. Academics generally believe the idea is nonsense.
  2. A surprising number of laypeople nevertheless take the idea seriously.
  3. The idea is anti-Christian.
For example: Jesus mythicism, Randian (atheist) Objectivism, the theory that Catholicism springs from a Babylonian mystery religion, (naive) scientism, anything written by Sam Harris, orthodox Marxism, and the New Atheists’ science-vs-religion historical narrative all fly in the face of what the experts know about economics, history, psychology, and philosophy. And yet all of these viewpoints have found enthusiastic audiences.

Can you think of any other ideas that fit this profile? And are there any master lists or websites that list any? (The Catholic Church has spoken against various bad ideas over its long history, so I assume there’s at least something out there.)
 
MadeUpName2 said:
This may be a little bit off the beaten path, but I was where I could look for ideas that meet all three of these criteria:
  1. Academics generally believe the idea is nonsense.
  2. A surprising number of laypeople nevertheless take the idea seriously.
  3. The idea is anti-Christian.
For example: Jesus mythicism, Randian (atheist) Objectivism, the theory that Catholicism springs from a Babylonian mystery religion, (naive) scientism, anything written by Sam Harris, orthodox Marxism, and the New Atheists’ science-vs-religion historical narrative all fly in the face of what the experts know about economics, history, psychology, and philosophy. And yet all of these viewpoints have found enthusiastic audiences.

Can you think of any other ideas that fit this profile? And are there any master lists or websites that list any? (The Catholic Church has spoken against various bad ideas over its long history, so I assume there’s at least something out there.)
Click to expand...
  1. Racial superiority.
  2. Eugenics.
  3. Miscegenation.
  4. Lamarkist evolution.
 
MadeUpName2 said:
This may be a little bit off the beaten path, but I was where I could look for ideas that meet all three of these criteria:
  1. Academics generally believe the idea is nonsense.
  2. A surprising number of laypeople nevertheless take the idea seriously.
  3. The idea is anti-Christian.
For example: Jesus mythicism, Randian (atheist) Objectivism, the theory that Catholicism springs from a Babylonian mystery religion, (naive) scientism, anything written by Sam Harris, orthodox Marxism, and the New Atheists’ science-vs-religion historical narrative all fly in the face of what the experts know about economics, history, psychology, and philosophy. And yet all of these viewpoints have found enthusiastic audiences.

Can you think of any other ideas that fit this profile? And are there any master lists or websites that list any? (The Catholic Church has spoken against various bad ideas over its long history, so I assume there’s at least something out there.)
Click to expand...
The “medieval flat-earther” myth is universally rejected by academia. Medieval people knew the earth is round and modern academia knows this. But some atheists still like to insist that medieval people believed in a flat earth and mocked people (like Christopher Columbus) who said it was round.
 
I would recommend a book that I am reading called Bearing False Witness Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History by Rodney Stark. The author isn’t Catholic but has followed some of the main myths. I am only part way through but it is fascinating as the author looks for the source, then looks for evidence to back up or debunk the assertion. He also puts things in context, so if there are a few small instances because some parishes strayed, that is mentioned, but against the backdrop of what the Church taught/instructed and the actions of the majority of the faithful who were better informed and followed the Church’s teachings.

It just goes to show that that some things don’t change over the centuries. 😃
 
MadeUpName2 said:
This may be a little bit off the beaten path, but I was where I could look for ideas that meet all three of these criteria:
  1. Academics generally believe the idea is nonsense.
  2. A surprising number of laypeople nevertheless take the idea seriously.
  3. The idea is anti-Christian.
For example: Jesus mythicism, Randian (atheist) Objectivism, the theory that Catholicism springs from a Babylonian mystery religion, (naive) scientism, anything written by Sam Harris, orthodox Marxism, and the New Atheists’ science-vs-religion historical narrative all fly in the face of what the experts know about economics, history, psychology, and philosophy. And yet all of these viewpoints have found enthusiastic audiences.

Can you think of any other ideas that fit this profile? And are there any master lists or websites that list any? (The Catholic Church has spoken against various bad ideas over its long history, so I assume there’s at least something out there.)
Click to expand...
Belief in superstitions.
 
MadeUpName2 said:
This may be a little bit off the beaten path, but I was where I could look for ideas that meet all three of these criteria:
  1. Academics generally believe the idea is nonsense.
  2. A surprising number of laypeople nevertheless take the idea seriously.
  3. The idea is anti-Christian.
Click to expand...
I’ll fight the urge to offer “rooting for the New York Yankees,” and instead point to some of the more exotic forms of anarcho-libertarianism on the Web.
 
MadeUpName2 said:
This may be a little bit off the beaten path, but I was where I could look for ideas that meet all three of these criteria:
  1. Academics generally believe the idea is nonsense.
  2. A surprising number of laypeople nevertheless take the idea seriously.
  3. The idea is anti-Christian.
For example: Jesus mythicism, Randian (atheist) Objectivism, the theory that Catholicism springs from a Babylonian mystery religion, (naive) scientism, anything written by Sam Harris, orthodox Marxism, and the New Atheists’ science-vs-religion historical narrative all fly in the face of what the experts know about economics, history, psychology, and philosophy. And yet all of these viewpoints have found enthusiastic audiences.

Can you think of any other ideas that fit this profile? And are there any master lists or websites that list any? (The Catholic Church has spoken against various bad ideas over its long history, so I assume there’s at least something out there.)
Click to expand...
Other than the ones already mentioned:

The idea that Constantine invented Christianity as we know it, including the canon of Scripture.

The claim that the Inquisition killed millions of people and/or that there was a massive slaughter of pagans in the Middle Ages under the guise of punishing witchcraft (the “Burning Times”)

The idea that the Middle Ages were “Dark Ages” in the sense of being a period of ignorance and cultural “backwardness,” brought to an end by something called the “Renaissance” in the fifteenth century or so.

A lot of commonly accepted generalizations, like “religion is the cause of war,” would not be accepted by academics without, at least, considerable nuanced, and would completely be rejected by many.
 
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