Yeah, I never doubted it.  There must have been thousands of witnesses.

There's no actual reason for david and goliath not being an actual historical event.
However I believe that it's only mentioned in the old testament, which is not an historical record but a series of stories to illustrate life.  Bear in mind that those who write 'historical texts' for religious reasons are not impartial in any way - so the truth is invariably substituted for something that gives a better impression or serves a better purpose. ie: in this case showing David as chosen by his god.

If there were corraborating historical texts that also described the same battle/events - then yeah I'd go for it.
But in their absence I have to see it as a fable based on possible generalities.

As far as the heaven hell thing goes. If you believe the bible then you believe that god cast lucifer morningstar down and created hell.
So is it that you simply don't believe in angels or that you don't believe in an afterlife where souls are sorted into good and bad ?

whatever works for you  :-)

Personally I'm just too cynical to believe in a god of gods.

Although I do have a soft spot for guanyin, but that's another story lol

Many events have been proven to have taken place, as well as places and locations have also been found to have existed, that no longer exist today, through archeology, excavation and and the reading of ancient languages and scripts, which leads me to conclude that this event, in all probability did take place, I also think that the Bible does give us a good and acurate history of ancient man and what life was like back then.
Of course all books that were written, were written by men who are indead fallible,
I wonder if in a thousand years, men will pick apart Einstein's theory of relitivity, saying he was only a fallible man, and that E=mc x 2 probably never realy existed, even though it was written down, by men, in the pages of a book.

I think I overlooked something. David was running towards Goliath while slinging the stone before Goliath could see what was happening. ?

Back then, it was fairly common for battles to be opened, and perhaps decided entirely, by a fight between champions.  Goliath had been out there every day for more than a month, challenging the Israelites to send him a champion to fight with.  I won't say they were too chicken, but certainly no one considered himself to have a chance against the Philistine giant.  Remember the terms of Goliath's challenge: "Choose you a man, and let him come down to me! If he prevail in fighting with me, and smite me, then will we become your servants -- but if I prevail over him, and smite him, then shall you become our servants, and serve us."  Both armies would be able to watch the contest, from their camps on opposite hills with a valley between; Goliath called his challenge each day from the valley, below his own people. If a Israelite accepted the challenge, and lost, it would be disastrous for his side, for they would be bound to serve the Philistines; and if they decided after the contest to fight, they would be at a distinct disadvantage, because the Philistines would be heartened by their champion's victory, and enraged by the dishonorable conduct of the Israelites.

The point is, David had no thought of fighting all the Philistines with five stones.  He needed only to kill Goliath.  If there was fighting after that, the whole army behind him would be involved.  With no armor and only a sling, David would be entirely justified in running back to his own lines, away from the Philistines; no one would expect an unarmored youth to stand up to an armored army.

I don't have any idea how heavy a stone David used, but it was sufficient to cave in Goliath's forehead.  He was dead or dying when David took his sword from him and cut off his head.  This was for the Philistine's benefit: it is one thing to see your champion fall, from where you stand watching on the hill; you might expect him to recover himself, get up, and slice the kid with the sling in half.  But when the kid holds up your champion's head, you know the fight is over.

In my translation it just says "fünf glatte Kieselsteine" ("five smooth pebbles")

Well I'd have a pouch with as many good stones as I could cram into it and a handful besides.
Assuming the fight did actually take place - most of the details would be aprocyphal anyway.
It sounds much better to say he only had five stones.
That way it looks like he either had faith in his god to help him (what you are supposed to think) or he was a cocky little git who didn't think he'd need more than five stones.
:-)