What do you know to be true that others would not believe is true?

I take attendance by asking the students a question.

What do you know to be true that others would not believe is true?

Some focused on stories/mythology:

• Santa Claus (x3)
• magic (x2)
• Mary Poppins
• Easter Bunny
• the  fae
• God
• Atlantis
• all the stories are true
• people with spiritual powers
• They walk among Us
• aliens
• The show Jessie is based on Angeline Jolie's kids.

There was a notably early-in-the-semester focus on sleep:

• those who sleep more live less [a later student added the annotation: "wrong"]
• sleep is for the rich
• sleep is boring
• I can pause and resume dreams.

Then there were people focusing on concrete ideas:

• tortoises can't swim
• Cares are inherently bad/unsustainable even if electric or self-driving, only a switch to a bike-centered infrastructure will work.
• I can bend my thumb backwards
• snakes are scarier than eagles
• I'm cool
• Marx was not Marxist
• P ≠ NP

And then a cohort of nihilists:

• Only the good die young.
• probably nothing
• everything will be fine
• good
• I just want to say "I was here" for this one
• literally nothing

This post's theme word is euhemerism (n), "a theory attributing the origin of the gods to the deification of historical heroes." The mythology class discussion degenerated into euhemerism and grasping at historical anecdotes.