Ha, huh because.... Science says so!

[Redbeard The Pink]

I've actually heard some interesting theories behind why so many ancient cultures have flood stories.

Now, it's true that the villains in stories tend to be exaggerated forms of things that frighten us, especially things we have experienced recently and/or things we regularly deal with. Godzilla is a great example. Godzilla is a terrifying atomic monster that can level a city in moments; he was created in Japan on the heels of WWII. See the pattern there?

So what does that have to do with the flood stories? Why would so many cultures have a global flood story if they're not describing a real event?

Well, sufficiently ancient cultures tended to have the following two things in common:

1. They often thought the world literally stopped at the horizon, the edge of their community, or some other arbitrary point (meaning their "worlds" were actually pretty tiny).

2. They tended to build communities near bodies of water, often near rivers, often in valleys.

This means that to many ancient cultures, one of the most consistent natural threats they faced was...that's right, you guessed it: floods. It also follows that if you think the world stops outside your valley, it's no great stretch to believe that with enough rain, your valley could fill with water and then the whole "world" would be flooded.

So using this information for our model involving Godzilla, it's easy to see why so many old cultures have flood stories. They're not all describing the same flood; they're describing an exaggerated form of a threat that they had in common because of where they usually lived.

The war thing sounds good, though ancient cultures also have stories about massive battles and wars, so I'm inclined to take the flood stories as intended to be about floods. It certainly makes sense from a storyteller's perspective. Picking an exaggerated form of a common fear allows your story to be relatable and emotionally effective for the listeners.