Quote from: Nicodeme on July 10, 2014, 09:53:45 PM
The flood, though? Didn't the Abrahamic God regret creating humanity since we were doing a lot of terrible and stupid things and try to wipe us out? Isn't that admitting he made a mistake and trying to correct it?
I mean I'm a hard polytheist (there are multiple distinctly separate beings that qualify as deities in my worldview) and I find the gods fallible and I haven't picked up an Abrahamic piece of scripture in quite a while, so let that taint what I say if need be. But I do also believe that even if our higher power(s) are capable of screwing up, they're also capable of making brilliant saves or at least making their plans for you work out okay.
You make a really good point Nicodeme. There are a lot of reasons why there was a flood. The same thing could have happened in the western US when the great basin suddenly drained because a natural dam collapsed due to whatever and that flood drained much of Utah and Nevada which was a big inland sea. What is left is the Great Salt Lake. This flood and the sheer amount and force of the water created the Snake River Valley in Idaho.
Whatever happened is a story, maybe Noah could see natural signs. Maybe earthquakes that he had an idea that a natural dam might give way. Maybe volcanic action along with the earthquake from really high mountains with Glacial activity that cause the dam to burst and the forty days of rainfall from the glacial water melting or boiling and saturating the atmosphere condensing and falling back as rain. Maybe anything. But I don't believe it was a global catastrophe but more or less and natural disaster much like the one that happened in the west was limited to a geographical area. But I think it has to do with the Dead Sea, much like The Great Salt Lake and the high salt content and the same sort of thing happened and either volcanic and tectonic forces caused a natrual dam holding back and inland sea collapesd and cause the Great Flood in the Bible.
Also remember back then our perception of our "world" was fairly limited to how far we could see or travel and was fairly limited to our geographical areas of which we lived.
And also throughout history mankind has always tried to explain natural disasters as some sort of Devine intervention or destruction. In the minds of ancient man who else could destroy mountains or make the whole world shake besides a great and powerful God?
