Answers:
Left-handed people were thought to be influenced by the devil. In the old days, anything 'different' was bad. The majority of the population was right-handed(still is today), so anyone born left-handed was thought to be evil. Being the 'Right-hand' of GOD or sitting on the right side of Jesus was the greatest honor imaginable.
im guessing bcus that was not commone most ppl were right handed i think
First time I ever had any one ask.! and I am old..so I'd say NO
It was bad to be left handed because it was considered "wrong." If you wrote with your left hand, teachers would slap your wrist with a ruler in school until you learned to write with your right hand.
I guess because only devil's children used their left hand. My mom and her sibling went to Catholic school, and the Nuns would tie my uncle's hand behind his back so he would have to use his right hand.
Mostly from religion. It was considered "bad" to be left-handed because not a whole lot of people were left-handed. My grandmother was born left-handed but now she only uses her right hand. She's Catholic and went to Catholic school. They force you to use your right hand until you don't use your left hand again. It was different, and it was bad to be different. They also thought that those who used their left hand were "influenced by the devil" and whatnot. Something about Jesus being on the right side of God... =/
Because fewer people are left-handed than right-handed. Therefore, people believed left-handedness was inferior.
In latin, the word for left is "sinister" (the word for right is "dexter")...I believe that this had something to do with it.something about evil controlling the left hand
Left is the side of sin. In Latin, Italian for example; to turn "left" is "di sinistra" = "sin" istra.
You can look it up in the encyclopedia, it's and old belief that being left handed meant you were under satanic influence.
Probably because anything outside the norm is usually treated like a bad thing. I heard they used to profile criminals based on them being left-handed, having a broken nose, and bad teeth.
Association with Devilry Being Left Handed has, for some reason, become associated with devilry and bad luck. Superstitions that differentiate between left and right always consider the left to be bad, unfortunate, cursed, poisonous and satanic.
Devil has been associated with the left hand in various ways and is normally portrayed as being left-handed in pictures and other images
If the other hand is right, the other must be wrong. Likewise, if you drive on the right side of the road, you are right, otherwise you are wrong.
It still is. In the Abrahamic (Judeo-Christian-Islamic) religions left handedness is bad. Look it up in the OT, NT and Koran. Why do you think Keanu Reeves plays bad guys?
A long time ago it was considered evil to use your left hand. Some people felt that if you used your left hand it meant that you were doing the devil's work. In many languages left meant something evil. For example in latin the word "sinister" means left. And since the ratio for left-handed to right-handed people is 1:4 (the ratio was probably higher than that in the old days since parents/teachers forced children to write with their right hand) people thought that something was wrong with the person. Some famous people were thought to be a bit strange were: Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, and Benjamin Franklin.
The simple answer is that God created Man in the way He wanted man. Most things that were different from the normal were thought to be NOT the way God wanted them, that is, to have been caused by the Devil. Thus left-handed people were thought to be somehow evil. On a related note, the Latin for "right" (as in right-handed) is "dexter," and the Latin for "left" is "sinister." Latin was the language of learning in the Middle Ages, and so anything related to the left hand or the left side was described as "sinister" -- the fact that the word "sinister" looked an awful lot like the word "sin" helped also. This is how the word "sinister" (or "left") became associated with evil, and "dexter" (or "right") became associated with good -- "dexterity," "dextrous," "ambidexterous."
check wikipedia for the answer :-)
The Inuit people from Alaska or Eskimos (they don't like to be called that way) used to beleive that every one left handed was a sorcerer.
In some biblical scriptures it says that the evil will be sitting at the left hand of God, while the righteous sit at the right hand of God, during the last Judgement.
In Muslim countries the left hand is used for wiping oneself after defecation, while the right hand is used for eating, drinking or a handshake.
Lots of famous people are left handed, both Prince Charles of Wales and his son Prince William of Wales are left handed, former president Bush was left handed, Clinton too.
Michelangelo, Picasso, Da Vinci, Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Hendrix, Sandy Koufax, were left handed.
Matt Groening creator of The Simpsons is also left handed.
Jack the Ripper is thought to had been left handed.
Pretty much what others have said on here ... I remember seeing a documentary about old stigmas and the witch hunts, etc. and yeah, people who were left handed were thought to be possessed by demons, and some children would be locked in cages, etc. and forced to write with their right hands. Actually, nothing crazy, or extreme like that, but my grandfather, who is left handed, told me the teachers always used to holler at him and force him to write with his right hand in school when he was a child. I am left handed as well, and damn proud ! So all you hoighty toighty right hand people, trying to keep us left handed folk down, can kiss my demon possessed left hand using @$$ !
WOW i did not know any of this. Im left handed and when ppl notice they always say wow like they believe that left handed ppl are supposed to be smarter than average. I wish I could boast that, but nah, im just left handed.
I did see on Oprah that its determined in the womb whether you will be left handed or not by your brain formation, now thats interesting.
If you think of how the handshake developed [and why we properly shake the right, not the left hand], it was originally a practice when meeting an enemy or stranger. Each man [traditionally, women didn't shake hands, as they weren't likely to engage in combat] clasped the others right hand to ensure that neither could draw a weapon on the other while they talked. Left handers weren't to be trusted, because they could clasp with their right hand and still draw a weapon with their left hand. Thus, a left hander ['sinister' in Latin] was treacherous, evil. A right hander [dexter in Latin] was trustworthy, not 'underhanded' (a 'south paw'); he was 'rect', hence, correct, direct, 'right'. No one wanted their child to suffer this stigma, thus the centuries of repression.
In olden days it was considered bad to be lefthanded because everyone thought left handed people were possessed by evil spirits.
maybe cause they thought they were cursed. cause even back then most people where right handed and back then they thought if anyone different from them would be cursed
If you were writing with a fountain pen your hand would often drag through the ink, creating smudged handwriting, because of how leftys hold the pen. I am left handed and still have this problem when I write with those "liquid ink" pens.
There's a very practical explanation for this distrust of left-handed people that goes beyond religious superstition, and I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it. It has to do with hygiene. Running water and toilets in the homes have only been around for a little more than 100 years. For thousands of years before this, it was more common for people NOT to have resources to wash their hands after using the bathroom (or ditch, as it were), so to keep the germs from spreading, it became customary to use the non-dominant hand to wipe - which for most people was their left hand. So if someone would reach to shake with their left hand, they immediately offended the person they were greeting.
One more note on left-handed people and the prevalence of superstition to this day. Southpaws aren't considered to be more intelligent, but ARE considered to be more creative. Until a few years ago, I worked at one of the top advertising agencies in the world, and MANY people in the Creative Department were left-handed. Their left-handedness actually helped them get the job!! They didn't have to work so hard to prove their creativity. As a right-hander, I felt discriminated against. (Hmmph!!)
It probably also has something to do with the taboo in some eastern cultures to only use your right hand for eating.
The answer to this question depends on how far you want to go back in history. Most people have the Christian answer to the question, but you can go back further into history and find pagan origins as well. In Slavic folklore, any child born with an "abnormality" (red hair, breach, or left handed), would become a vampire, so its safe to assume that the Christians (like in many other situations) adopted the "evilness" of the southpaws.
However, the history of handedness goes back further than this. When people didn't have the commodity of anti-bacterial soap or even running water, certain actions were given to each hand. "Clean" actions like eating and greeting others were done with the right hand. "Dirty" actions like touching the genitals or anus, were done with the left hand. The assignment of which hand got what was simply due to majority rules. Most people ate and worked with their right hands (remember older civilizations left the writing to the scribes), so the left hand got the dirty work. Think of it as archaic face and butt soap. It just became custom for the left hand to do the dirty work.
The left hand became the "unclean" hand and eventually the hand of Satan. I'm a lefty, and wrote a paper on the subject back in high school.
THEY DID NOT HAVE ANY TOOLS FOR A LEFTY
It wasn't normal and was deemed to be evil. Teachers tied my left hand behind my back to make me write right handed. Now I can write with either hand...
People felt it was bad. I'm left-handed, and so was my gran, but they tied a stone to the hand so she would use the right one. A bliddy teacher tried to do that to me, but my dad slapped him around and stopped them before they damaged my intelligence.
This article contents is post by this website user, EduQnA.com doesn't promise its accuracy.
More Questions & Answers...