Audie
Veteran Member
I have no problem imagining the scene.
There had just been a shipwreck. People had had to swim ashore. It was cold and raining. The local people kindly built a fire, and Paul collects sticks to help build it. As he adds his bundle of sticks to the fire a viper, hidden amongst the sticks, bites him. He shakes it off as soon as he realises that a snake has its fangs in his skin!
The locals, who must have known of these vipers, witness the scene, and think that the bite will kill Paul. But he is unaffected.
It's hardly an unbelievable story!
You can imagine gathering sticks but not noticing one is not
a stick? Thats a lot of imaging but zero thought.
You may want to be careful about being a gullible
believer/ assumer.
A "believer"* who will believe anything, including that
a person could go about picking up sticks and
not even notice one of them is a snake. Seriously?
How obviously unlikely can you get?
It is also obvious that the locals are ignorant and superstitious about snakes- like todays americans.
Some bites are painful, none are fast acting as in what they are described as expecting.
But, you know, ignorant.
Viper bite takes hours to kill, if it kills the person at all.
Very few can correctly udentify a snake. Seeing a small one ( IF there ever was a snake) being thrashed about for a moment, then correctly identifying tho it behaves it a unique way?
Fat chance.
Most people are apt to be terrified by any snake bite and expect sudden death.
Any snake would have fooled them.
Also, a viper does not " cling". Its a strike
so quick all youd see is a flicker of movement.
Of course you did not know any of that.
* not so a Believer who believes in God but is not gullible.
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