Misconceptions and Rumors on Religion

by Levi Larsen, Kyler Zuccato, and Charlie Miller

There are several churches that over many years, have endured lots of misconceptions and rumors that have spread across the world. Many people believe these misconceptions to be the truth. Every religion has its rumors, but there are quite a few more well-known religions that most people understand pretty accurately. There are a few churches in particular with smaller minorities and members, leading for some information not to spread widely, and some inaccurate information to grow that most people think is factual.

One common misconception is the fact that people think that belief means faith. Just because people believe in a god or their god doesn't mean they commonly believe it as their faith. The difference is huge. https://askanydifference.com states, “The difference between faith and belief is that faith is a trust in something or someone, and belief is a mental state where trust is placed in something or a person. Faith is generally used to refer to belief. Religion is used for general contexts. Faith is a divine trust in religion, but belief may or may not be as strong as faith.” This is one of the biggest misconceptions In the world. 

False impression can happen with churches like the Mormon church if they do something such as drinking coffee, or other commonly known Mormon beliefs like this. Just because they are Mormon doesn't mean they will follow all the guidelines. But this doesn’t go only for members of the Mormon church, there are a ton of churches that are commonly misinterpreted, such as many people thinking that the Catholic church worships the Virgin Mary, or that a lot of people think that Muslims don’t believe Jesus to be of any importance. While they don’t believe him to be our savior, they still believe he has influence from God and was a prophet. Lots of churches, and maybe most commonly in select religions develop a lot of these misinterpretations.

Misunderstandings such as these sometimes come from pure assumptions that spread throughout the world, and others might come from true beliefs that were misinterpreted or unintentionally exaggerated by other people. For example, in the Mormon church, some people who aren’t members believe that their church believes silly things, such as them not being able to play full-court basketball, or being taught not to swim. These ideas both come from the fact that when people serve their missions for their church, it is recommended they don’t do either of these things while on their missions to keep them safe. After this information about the church spread, other ideas were attached to these guidelines. It is believed by some that children are taught not to swim since they believe waters are in control of the devil. This isn’t a common belief within the Mormon church, but the origins came from somewhere legitimate. This can also spawn from things said in their religious texts, where the wording can be either misinterpreted or dated.

After all, quite a few of these misconceptions can be pretty reasonable, while others are somewhat ridiculous. Since everyone has such different views, always has, always will, people struggle to relate or understand someone of a different religion. It isn’t necessarily a problem, but it’s worth stopping to talk and find out about and respect other people’s views.