That’s a good point, I worded it poorly. I didn’t mean to imply that the adults didn’t ‘believe’ it and just told that to their children. I think that it was more the case that they believed in the spiritual truths behind the stories and not necessarily that they were literal, although I can’t say for certain that was the case in all instances. Maybe some of them did believe it literally or didn’t really make a distinction between spiritually true and literally true. It’s not like they had the scientific knowledge to know what the alternative was.

I think it’s natural to try and explain the world around you, and if you don’t have the tools to know what is really going on- then yeah you will probably make some crazy guesses. And then if you tell it to your children as if it were fact, then they might not question it seeing as how you are a trusted elder.

I think my point though was that it really isn’t what I would call ‘stupid’ to do something like create a silly myth and pass it on. For me where it becomes stupid is when you insist it’s the literal truth and that other people believe it, or when you refuse to update your worldview in the case where better evidence comes along because you are a zealot about your mythology.