Why Btonze Age?

[Rhondazvous]

I don't get how Iron age or Bronze age makes a difference? Could you explain their case a little more?

I’m not trying to say they make a difference. It’s just something I’ve heard a lot of people say. I’ve also heard a lot of Christians challenge this. If I just repeat what everyone is saying and someone challenges me, I want to be able to name my sources other than fiat credulity.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm sure.  You'll find a vocal doubter in every culture we have history for, and people like that don't arise out of a vacuum (in some cultures it was it's own little thing).  Now sure, you're going to find tons of peasants who believe this or that portion of a story, but they've probably heard it more than once, and more than one way.  They understand, at the least, that embellishment occurs.  They did it themselves. We still do it today.

You have to keep in mind, that these were anatomically and culturally modern human beings. The idea that they were ignorant pre-sapien fuckwads hiding from lightning is a story that christers, largely, told after they were finished gutting any contranarrative history they could find. This was useful to them, for many years, and became useful to empires and colonial powers for a long time after that. It's never been true.

There were and have always been people -just like you-, who know when they're being told a tall tale. Recall what the greeks had to say regarding their own myths, and what the romans had to say regarding the ignorant superstitions of the christians. Even christians, from the very beginning, were calling bullshit on each other (and they continue that grand tradition to this very day). Elsewhere in the world people like Cavarka committed to writing what you and I might mistake for a post on these very boards today before any of our current religious narratives had even been cobbled together. There is no point in history, and probably no point in pre-history, that we've ever actually been as dumb as we might imagine, or as the religious would insist. It wasn't on the backs of our idiocy or gullibility that judeo-christianity became a thing. It came by the sword, and the stake, and the gallows, and the machinery of state....by the conform-or-die mentality of the mob.

[Rhondazvous]

It pretty much boils down to weaponry. As is often the case with humanity. Iron gave you a literal edge over bronze. So Iron had an advantage. Not only in war, but also in terms of agriculture.

Duh. But how is that an argument for the Christian's making the case that it reinforces the bible or a case against Atheism? That's what I'm asking.

Any straw they can grab hold of, they will try. I guess they think if they can point out a discrepancy in history, they will be one up. If I say I don't know something, so what? But if I just pretend to know when I've only heard, then I'm just like the Christians.

[abaris]

There were and have always been people -just like you-, who know when they're being told a tall tale.  Recall what the greeks had to say regarding their own myths, and what the romans had to say regarding the ignorant superstitions of the christians.  Cavarka didn't mince words on the subject.

But what did the Greeks and Romans make of it? They laughed at the christian myths but still worshipped their own gods.

I think it's important to remember, the level of knowledge was much lower than it is today. There may have some select few really in doubt, not just about the foreigner's tales. Plyni the younger was the first to observe a pyroclastic wave in recorded history. Today we know, he described it correctly, but for the longest time, people doubted his account. Because they had nothing to compare it against. It's not even a hundred years that we have that level of knowledge.

It was much more common to doubt some tale back in the day, but at the same time still resort to the own tales. Since there was virtually nothing to compare it against. No reality checks of any kind. The ones leaving us written accounts were highly educated people by their standards. But the vast majority of people weren't. Not even in Roman or Greek time, when education was a little bit more common than it was in the middle ages or, if we take their contemporaries, in other regions of the world. But still, by todays knowledge only ten percent of Romans were literate.

[The Grand Nudger]

But what did the Greeks and Romans make of it? They laughed at the christian myths but still worshipped their own gods.

Not in the way you think.  Again, that's another christer fairytale.  

I think it's important to remember, the level of knowledge was much lower than it is today. There may have some select few really in doubt, not just about the foreigner's tales. Plyni the younger was the first to observe a pyroclastic wave in recorded history. Today we know, he described it correctly, but for the longest time, people doubted his account. Because they had nothing to compare it against. It's not even a hundred years that we have that level of knowledge.

Their level of knowledge regarding the existence of embellishment in storytelling was exactly as high as ours is today. In any case, in this example you present people doubting something, as I said, we've always been doubters. Every man who ever cried to heaven doubted the host when help didn't come.

It was much more common to doubt some tale back in the day, but at the same time still resort to the own tales. Since there was virtually nothing to compare it against. No reality checks of any kind. The ones leaving us written accounts were highly educated people by their standards. But the vast majority of people weren't. Not even in Roman or Greek time, when education was a little bit more common than it was in the middle ages or, if we take their contemporaries, in other regions of the world. But still, by todays knowledge only ten percent of Romans were literate.

Because your own tales are a cultural narrative regardless of whether or not you consider them to be literally true.  The greeks came up with euhemerism.  The romans worshipped the state. Uncle Ogg and Aunti Ugg knew that cousin BubBub was a bold faced liar.

The explanations for the various religions of the world are more complicated and nuanced than "people used to be dumb and believe dumb shit", know what I mean?

[CapnAwesome]

Duh. But how is that an argument for the Christian's making the case that it reinforces the bible or a case against Atheism? That's what I'm asking.

Any straw they can grab hold of, they will try. I guess they think if they can point out a discrepancy in history, they will be one up.  If I say I don't know something, so what? But if I just pretend to know when I've only heard, then I'm  just like the Christians.

I guess I sort of get it. I don't know, I never understand apologist logic much. If only they'd put that much effort into self examination.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Does it make much difference if these fables under discussion were written by Iron Age barbarians or Bronze Age barbarians? We have loopy-arsed religions cropping up in the Information Age, ffs.

If you're wrong, you're wrong. I can't see how being wrong on Tuesday is all that different from being wrong on Friday.

Boru

[Expired]

Waffle waffle waffle, enough said.

[Gawdzilla]

Ahem, "iron chariots"?

[Minimalist]

I don't get how Iron age or Bronze age makes a difference? Could you explain their case a little more?

It pretty much boils down to weaponry. As is often the case with humanity. Iron gave you a literal edge over bronze. So Iron had an advantage. Not only in war, but also in terms of agriculture.

Yeah but it is a bit more complicated than that.  The Greek hoplites, who were sine qua non as a military force wore bronze armor and had bronze spear points until fairly late in the hoplite period when they switched to a, believe it or not, laminate armor!  Even the earliest hoplite swords, the xiphos were made of bronze.  I suppose much of it depended on what was available.  You needed copper and tin for bronze.  For sea-faring trading states like Athens, Phoenicia or Carthage obtaining the raw materials was fairly easy.  For states like Sparta it was probably a little more difficult.  Nonetheless, they managed.

I suspect the one thing that led to iron's eventual preference was that it was much more common and thus cheaper to produce.  I don't know that it produced "better" weapons but it sure as shit could produce more weapons.