Is it bad to be left hand dominant? (left handed)

What the hell kind of church was this? (pardon my french) . I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Sounds like an old school catholic church. Old time catholics used to think that being left handed meant you were of the devil. Crazy.

Christian church.

The Church is full of shite, and also you are actually the spawn of the Devil, so I suggest avoiding the place in future, in case they figure you out and attempt to destroy you.

That old man needs to launch himself into one of the later centuries. Of course it’s o.k. to be left handed. My dad was left handed and grew up a time and place where he was forced to learn to write with his right hand, in the public school system, but that was a long time ago and that kind of nonsense is no longer done. I doubt that man represents the feelings or beliefs of the whole church; it’s just the rantings of one misguided and ignorant old man.

What kind of paper were you signing?

No, of course not. Consider it a test of your skill in tolerance. The older generations learned many things which the young will never know or experience except as something weird as said to the young by the old. These cryptic, suspicious, prejudicial ideas had a basis in something, but that something may have expired long ago. The elder may be pulling your leg, just to test your responses.

Your mission is to read much, consider much, question much but be polite to the elders, someday you will be one. And don’t sign anything you haven’t read and understood, no matter who asks or which hand you use. Ambidexterity is a great skill, btw.

I’d’ve punched him in the face with my right hand. I don’t stand for that sort of ignorant discriminatory bullshit.

@ninjanick They may have claimed to be Christian but they weren’t.

I would like to know what kind of piece of paper you had to sign “for no reason at all.”

My dad is left handed. He is a retired preacher. Hopefully it was just one bitter old man and not an official representative of the church talking.

If it was the latter, find a new church.

Yeah it is bad to be left handed – bad ass!!! fellow lefty here On a more serious note I think this goes along with the schools that forced leftys to write with their right hand. Apparently the Devil is thought to be left handed so by being a lefty you were associated with evil. You can read more here: http://www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk/lh-info/myths.html

I say screw the old man and rock on. Left handed people have the highest and lowest IQ scores :)

Back in the day people thought it was bad and would force children to write with their right. Usually you heard about it in religious schools, but it happened in public schools also, but usually was just one freak teacher who thought she should insist on right handed writing. I have a feeling it was not a school policy, but a teacher getting away with bullshit. You can just chalk it up to another fear based, fire and brimstone, unreasonable notion.

There are many many famous and brilliant people who are left handed including several US Presidents: Obama, Clinton, Reagan, Bush Sr, and Pres. Ford. There may be others. I think it is something like 10% of the population is lefty, that is a lot of people. I have a few left handed people in my family.

It was probably Christian teachers in public schools, @JLeslie.

@bkcunningham I have no idea really. My mom had one teacher who made her write with her right. The teacher said she liked to see all the pencils being held the same direction when she watched the class. Sounds like an OCD disorder. Hahaha.

I only mention the fire and brimstone because it happened to the OP at a church.

@bkcunningham Plus, I think the negative association with left and left handed was in Judaism and Islam also? Not sure.

Irony.

@bkcunningham What is ironic?

A couple teachers tried to force me to become a righty at school. They failed. It is no way bad to be left handed, except that you have to put up with a world not exactly built for you.

Me. I was being ironic with my comment to you about Christian public school teachers. Sorry.

My father was left handed. The English school system forced him to write with his right hand. His handwriting was a sight to behold. So precise, each letter perfectly formed, the lines vertical and the loops almost perfect circles. I would have loved to have seen him try calligraphy.

@rojo My dad too, as I mentioned; though he grew up in a small town in West Virginia, in the U.S. during the thirties where he was also forced to learn to write with his right hand and did so his whole life, while doing everything else left-handed, but he never wrote long hand, he always printed. I’ve never seen any of his handwriting from when he was a child but I imagine he was taught cursive writing, I just never saw him do it; maybe because he was a chemist. He had to keep his lab notebooks a certain way and he had to print in those.

@lillycoyote My fathers writing was almost exclusively cursive but he too did everything else left handed. How effectively brutal must the school system have been to change a persons life to this extend for the remainder of their days?

There’s nothing wrong with being left-handed, though it does complicate matters. The world is designed by and for righties, but then you’ve probably figured that out already.

Sounds more like an old man thing than a church thing.

Which denomination, if I may ask?
My sister was allowed to go through school left-handed (and we went to Christian schools k-2 and k-4 respectively)

@Nullo I think it had more to do with the age of the guy. If I remember correctly you are fairly young? I don’t think forcing kids to write with their right has been done at all in the last 40 years. I could be wrong, there might be a few hold outs, but it would be very rare I think.

@rojo I’ve also always though it was an incredibly cruel and brutal practice, to force a child to go against his nature, where something, like left-handededess, was just a matter of biology, and force that child to do something, to write with his non-dominant hand when it is a purely natural thing, not a defect. It is a matter of pure biology. I always think about how hard it must have been, and I’m sure you do to in regards to your father, for him to be forced to write with his non-dominant hand, and on top of it, to be viewed as somehow defective, merely because he was left-handed.

We’re not so far removed from lefty’s like you and me being discriminated against for who we are. Attitudes like this aren’t constructive to be around. I hope that this was some silly object lesson.

I’m left handed.

Yes it’s bad. The word sinister is derived from the Latin word for left ergo you should force yourself to go through life miserably using your non-dominant hand. Also, be sure to always cary garlic to ward off vampires and evil spirits.

Somethings’ very suspicious about that church if they make you sign something to be allowed in, and then someone scolds you for being a southpaw.

I’d suggest you simply find a different church.

The only bad thing about being left handed is that you are more likely to get into a head on collision in a car accident if you (without thinking) are trying to avoid something as your tendency would be to pull to left.

That old man is living way, way, way in the past.

On second thought, was the old man one of the pastors or a “church person?” Or was he just another parishioner? If a pastor, then yeah, what I said, find another church. But if he was just just another parishioner, I’d have flipped him the bird…

Or, you could have retorted with, “Being judgmental isn’t acceptable in my world”.

“But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab.” (verse 15)

See Judges Chapter 3, Old Testament

It’s an interesting story.

@HungryGuy It’s not uncommon for churches to ask you for contact info. This frequently result in newsletters, event notices, and entries in the church phone book. Never heard of it being mandatory, though.

I wonder why @ninjanick hasn’t returned to answer questions pertaining to his question? Hhmm

@bkcunningham maybe because he’s been busy…

@ninjanick People can be weird, strange, rude, dismissive etc. The best thing is to have a good attitude yourself and ignore them.

No it’s not bad to be left hand dominant (left handed) 80% of former Presidents of the
United States were left hand dominant (left handed) and they were great Presidents.

My mother and brother are both left handed. I have known a few other left handed people over the years. My personal conclusions have left handed people extra bright with very good reasoning skills. They CAN be quite talkative and definitely resourceful. They are, I think, special people with a prewired purpose about their lives. They know their own mind and won’t compromise their own needs easily to follow other’s expectations. Definitely need time to themselves and are not people pleasers.

@smilingheart1

Fucking expounding the virtues of left-handedness? Oh—ho!

What audacity! Technically, ‘handedness’ is merely a predisposition to use one hand or another. To suggest links with other character traits is most daring of you, I must say!

Replace ‘Left and Right’ with ‘Black and White’, then see how eyebrow-raising such an assertion about phenotypic correlation is! Haha!

The question for you, though, is:
– does this challenge the taboo against genetic correlation of behaviours with race?
– or does it suggest that your assertions were unreasonably conjectural extrapolations of your observations?

Don’t imagine I’m trying to manoeuvre you into anything, or that I’m trying to put down what you’ve said. I’m honestly very interested in this subject, and the taboos that go with it.

@smilingheart1, I’ve made a personal observation in my life that the majority of attorneys I know are left-handed. I have no stats or studies on this. Just my own personal conjecture. I actually agree with you.