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Ancient wisdom often sounds like common sense now that it is commomly taught. What is some ancient wisdom that we no longer teach because it was wrong? (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Lightning never strikes the same place twice. In fact it favors repeated strikes at the same arcing point.

In the middle ages churches would ring the steeple bells during a thunderstorm in an effort to soothe God. (it was assumed the Christian God was directly responsible for lightning.) This resulted in such an epidemic of lightning deaths among parish priests that ringing church bells in thunderstorms remains a criminal act in some regions of Europe.

Modern cathedrals and statues are fitted with replaceable lightning rods, in an admission God is content to let the mechanics of static electricity guide His thunderbolts.