If anything proves human beings are not omniscient, it’s the questions civilizations debated for centuries, like, are tomatoes poisonous or passion-inducing?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #203 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
Human history is replete with scores of arcane, often inane questions that have caused debates and arguments, fear, and fights leading to death. No human culture, subgroup, or nationality is without a list of what we now often consider laughable, idiotic, or irrational questions that once created controversy for decades, even centuries. Let’s list a few.
Did Adam have a belly button? This is rooted in theological debates about whether God created the first man and woman, who had no prior need for a belly button, or whether he created them with bodily realism as all human beings would be thereafter. A similar question: will resurrected bodies in heaven have belly buttons?
Are tomatoes poisonous? For nearly three hundred years people in most of Europe avoided tomatoes, except in Italy where tomatoes were considered an aphrodisiac called “love apples” capable of stirring dangerous lusts, so rather than avoid tomatoes, Italians just said, “Pass the sauce.”
Can God make a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?
Is God inside time or outside of it, meaning is time linear for God such that he cannot foretell the future?
A medieval favorite – how many angels can dance on the point of a needle?
If you replace every part of a ship, piece by piece, is it still the same ship?
How big are fairies?
Did the Virgin Mary experience labor pains?
Is infinity a real, usable concept, or a paradoxical mess? Mathematicians literally lost their minds over this. One troubled mathematician, Cantor, ended up institutionalized, partly due to the strain.
Is white bread better than or morally superior to brown bread? This was not just culinary — it became a moral and class issue. Eighteenth–Nineteenth Century philosophers argued over whether refined white bread was luxurious and corrupting, or whether it was the “ideal” food of the elite. White bread was considered rich, refined, elegant. Brown bread was considered coarse, peasant, “earthy.”
But some reformers flipped the script: White bread was called “devitalized” and dangerous. Brown bread became a moral virtue food. Result of all this: “bread-shaming,” class snobbery, and health fads. Aspects of this debate continue in dining rooms yet today.
What if you're not dead when they bury you? Solution? "Safety coffins" with bells, flags, breathing tubes, and windows. One doctor suggested a hammer should be used to deliver a fatal blow to the body prior to closing the casket, so they could be sure, just in case.
Should you put a comma (the so-called Oxford Comma) before the last item in a list, e.g., eggs, toast, and ham vs. eggs, toast and ham? Style guides, lawsuits, and grammatical warfare have all been waged over this. For the record, I’ve always been a use-the-Oxford Comma-guy.
In the 17th Century, do dogs understand Latin better than the vernacular? If you train a dog with Latin commands, does it understand you better than if you use English or French? At that time, Latin was considered a "noble" or "divine" language, so maybe dogs would respond better? But alas, dogs didn’t seem interested in this theological debate.
Can laundry day affect the weather? This question motivated people in the 1700s–1800s. Some people genuinely believed hanging laundry could cause it to rain — either as a form of bad luck or as a type of magical-meteorological provocation. Others swore laundry was guaranteed to bring sun — thus causing turf wars among neighbors.
Do socks have a natural foot (Left/Right)? As machine-made clothing became popular in the 1800s industrial era, people debated: should socks be symmetrical, or should they have specific left and right designs? Some swore that undifferentiated socks were “an insult to the foot’s divine architecture.” This escalated into patent fights and sock manifestos.
Another one from the 18th–19th centuries: Can you become sick from reading novels? Doctors and moralists thought excessive novel-reading (especially by women) caused hysteria, fainting, disobedience, “overheating of the imagination” Their recommended treatment: more housework and less fiction. Yes, really. Clearly, more men were debating this than women.
More for women: can women be rational? In other words, are women capable of reason or are they governed by emotion? This argument runs from antiquity through the Enlightenment. Many early philosophers argued that women had weaker souls or that their uterus clouded their judgment.
Should women be educated? Does educating women improve society or destroy the social order? Arguments against: it would make them uppity; it would ruin marriage; their brains were too delicate.
Arguments for: it makes them better wives/mothers; it helps pass on culture.
Is it moral or proper for a woman to appear publicly as a stage performer? In England, women weren’t allowed to act on stage until the 1660s — female parts were played by boys. The hidden anxiety: fear women would gain public voices and agency.
"To Lace or Not to Lace?" Many women, fashion designers, etiquette writers, some doctors argued "Corsets are elegant, necessary, and morally correct." Women wore corsets to support the spine and improve posture, to create the ideal feminine silhouette, i.e., a tiny waist = high status.
Loose clothing was sometimes seen as morally suspect or “slovenly.” Corsets symbolized modesty by smoothing the figure and preventing jiggle. Opponents—early feminists, reformers, doctors, dress reform advocates—argued "corsets are dangerous, oppressive, and a literal squeeze on women's lives." Corsets were said to be health risks leading to crushed ribs, displaced organs, restricted breathing, fainting, or digestive issues. Tight lacing led to deformed pelvises and complicated pregnancies. Corsets were labeled symbols of oppression; a physical manifestation of women being shaped for the male gaze.
Post WWI when women went to the factories and by the 1920s with the emergence of the Flapper Era of loose clothing, as well as the development of other women’s undergarments, corsets largely faded into history. Flappers wore knee-length dresses (which were shocking at the time), bobbed hair and heavy makeup, danced, drank, smoked in public, often remained unmarried, independent, and working. They embodied youth, rebellion, and a desire for fun. But when the Great Depression hit in 1929, the Flapper Era also faded into history.
Can sex determine a baby’s gender? People debated this in Ancient Greece → Middle Ages → Renaissance.
Can women conceive from wind, water, or dreams? Some believed that pregnancy could result from hot baths, river spirits, or erotic dreams, especially for unmarried women.
Can too much sex make you dumb? A lot of speculation here but very little biology.
Is coffee Satanic or sacred? This question bothered people in the 1600s. Coffee was considered an energizing elixir of productivity or a demonic stimulant that corrupted souls. Some Christians called it the “Devil’s drink.” Others said it should be baptized by the Pope, which he allegedly did! The Ottoman sultans banned coffeehouses… for fomenting revolutionary thought.
Are Dragons real or metaphorical? Did the serpent in the Garden of Eden have legs? Did other snakes in the Garden of Eden, walk? Should adults drink milk? This worried the Romans to the Victorians.
How many eggs can a human safely eat in one sitting? I don’t know. Watch the first Rocky movie and ask Rocky Balboa.
What are your arcane and inane questions?
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2025
*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers or https://x.com/RexMRogers.