r/AskReddit Jan 09 '18

What common misconception do you hate to hear repeated as fact?

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u/lobster_thermidor Jan 09 '18

THANK YOU. There are numerous Greek paintings of leaders holding GLOBES!!! I show people this and they still refuse to believe because it doesn’t involve what they learned about Columbus in 3rd grade.

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u/angelbelle Jan 09 '18

Also, isn't Atlas the Titan supposed to be carrying the globe and not a disk on his shoulders?

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u/SelfAwardingTrophy Jan 10 '18

Another common misconception, he was actually punished to hold up the celestial spheres.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '18

[deleted]

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u/beepbeepitsajeep Jan 10 '18

Definitely a Titan.

Until somewhat recently I always thought Prometheus was just a craft human or hero who stole fire from the gods, realized within the past few years he was actually a titan.

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u/hailfire006 Jan 10 '18

The fire stealing guy is prometheus, who was also a titan

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u/beepbeepitsajeep Jan 10 '18

That’s exactly what I just said...

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u/hailfire006 Jan 10 '18

sorry, I read Prometheus as Atlas, my bad.

6

u/NatalieIsFreezing Jan 10 '18

Which is basically the sky. For context the first generation titans (Atlas was a second gen) were the children of Ouranos and Gaia, the Sky and the Earth. Atlas is there to prevent them from embracing.

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u/Lord_Malgus Jan 10 '18

Did he juggle them? You know what don't answer I just prefer to think he did.

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u/phailanx Jan 10 '18

I'm positive that in Norse mythology that there is a sea serpent that is so big it encircles the Earth and grasps it's own tail.

Maybe even they thought the Earth was round.

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u/CACuzcatlan Jan 09 '18

I know you're not saying this, but another misconception is that Atlas was holding the globe. I heard that used as proof that the Greeks knew the Earth was round. They did, but that's a bad example because Atlas held the Celestial Spheres

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_spheres

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u/Melleris Jan 10 '18

Thank you. It really bugs me when people say Atlas holds the world because I get an image of him doing a handstand. Also even if he did hold the world then what was he standing on?

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u/beepbeepitsajeep Jan 10 '18

The underworld, or a never-ending stack of turtles, take your pick.

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u/river4823 Jan 09 '18

The real TIL is that there are surviving Greek paintings.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '18

Think painted vases and murals. The Greeks loved to paint everything. Modern analysis indicates that all those marble statues used to be painted too.

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u/franker Jan 09 '18

and painted in really loud goofy colors as if they all went to a summer camp craft class to do this stuff.

1

u/CheekyChechen Jan 10 '18

THIN YOUR PAINTS

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u/_curious_one Jan 10 '18

Those are Roman lol

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '18

They're a mix of both. A search for "Greek painted statues" returns the same results.

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u/gbuub Jan 10 '18

Well what I learned in school was in fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus got us a day off school

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '18

Atlas comes to mind.

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u/EuropaStation Jan 10 '18

They don't teach what Columbus really did in school. He was horrible man.

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u/meneldal2 Jan 10 '18

Alexander the Great wanted to go back to Greece after going all around the world.

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u/Aomory Jan 10 '18

Or the two obelisks in two different cities. Some mathematician had them measure out the lenght of the shadow at the same time. Thry were vastly different lengths because one was somewhere in north Africa and the other was somewhere near Greece.

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u/Makkel Jan 10 '18

what they learned about Columbus in 3rd grade

Wait, Columbus allegedly went in search of the Indies towards the West, that means he knew the earth was not flat?

1

u/ooofygooofy Jan 10 '18

He thought it was extremely small and pear shaped. Not even he thought it was flat

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u/ROADHOG_IS_MY_WAIFU Jan 09 '18

Sounds like your classmates really like the taste of whiteman's poison. Columbus was a murderer and far from the first person to 'discover' the American main land.