Lots of people have tried to explain these stories/myths as things that really happened, but all explanations I have seen are scientifically unsound or so uncontrollable as to be unscientific (the latter sort isn't necessarily wrong, they are just unprovable, mainly metaphysical).
When someone offers a scientific explanation, no matter how tentative, I will look at it (as will many others), and see what parts are right or wrong or uncertain. But when someone declares that we have to take a text literally, and then proceed to pick and choose, I will be very hard to convince...

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse