Interesting...

"A 2005 'study' determined the temperatures of Heaven and Hell. First, citing Isiah 30:26, which says that in Heaven "the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days," they did the math and found that Heaven would be 525 degrees Celsius, or 977 degrees Fahrenheit. For Hell they used Revelations 21:8, which describes a "lake which burneth with fire and brimstone". Their calculations determined that a lake of molten brimstone (sulphur) must be at or below its boiling point, around 445C (833F). The study's conclusion: 'Heaven is hotter than Hell'.

--found in Uncle John's Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader, p. 43

On the same page: "Myth-information: the actual communication from Apollo 13 was 'Houston, we've had a problem."

If you don't have a few of Uncle John's Bathroom Readers around, more's the pity. If I had to pick just one set of books to be stranded on an island with, it'd be a multi-volume treatise on boat-building...but the Bathroom Readers are great for around the house. You learn stuff on every page. Only occasionally have I ever read something that's wrong, viz. "Try it: it's physically impossible to tickle yourself"--oh, really? Take the tip of your tongue and brush it lightly around the roof of your mouth, and tell me that doesn't tickle.

Okay, looking around for more counterintuitive stuff...gee, you don't have to look far. We just had "Earth Hour", a sixty minute period in which we're supposed to show our solidarity with the environmental movement by--get this--dousing the lights 'to save energy'. How many of you remember to unplug all the lights you shut off, hmm? If you didn't, your energy "savings" were marginal at best. And for ONE HOUR...you know what? Turn off all the lights you don't need, all the time, like your mommy taught you...or don't bother.

Back to the Bible for a second...everyone knows about Adam and Eve and the apple, right? Except apples aren't generic to the Middle East. Now, some of you might dismiss that as an unimportant detail, but c'mon, if we're going to get snakes talking to us, let's get this fruit right. It's quite possible that Latin punsters are having fun with us down the ages...malum is Latin for both 'evil' and 'apple'.

I'm not particularly sold on Genesis being anything more than an occasionally poetic myth, the story of one tribe's history. In my first go-round with Christianity, I tried to take a more-or-less literal approach to the Bible, and found myself in knots pretty quickly. I mean, who did Cain marry? In my second incarnation, I made every attempt to take the faith seriously. I read the Bible stem to stern, skipping only the genealogical tables, and studied it critically over a couple of years. I came away from that exegesis firmly convinced that a devout Christian faith stands little chance of withstanding a close reading of its holy text. The foundation actually starts to crack before it's even formed...Genesis 1:1, translated properly, reads "In the beginning Gods created the heavens and the earth". Note the plural. You very quickly find yourself down the rabbit hole, debating which of our sources is responsible for this or that verse--or was it a redactor?--and, well, then you start seeing political axes being ground all over the place. The Bible may be divinely inspired, but if so, the God who inspired it is of human invention.

Interested in more common misconceptions? Get thee hence to my favourite Wikipedia page.