Literal belief in the flood story

[Tonus]

Omniscience is a tricky one, though. The Bible doesn't claim that god is omniscient,

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Job 37:16

Do you know the balancings of the clouds,
the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge.

1 John 3:19-20

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.

Psalm 147:5

Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

Isaiah 55:9

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Job 28:24

For he looks to the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.

Hebrews 4:13

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Isaiah 46:9

I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done.

Psalm 139:4

Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

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Fair enough, I'll concede the point.

and at times it shows that he changes his mind (as he did when he decided to spare Noah).

A difficult understanding. I will defer to someone who knows more than I do: Does God change His mind?

If I'm reading that correctly, it sounds as if they're explaining why god would change his mind, or why he would make it seem as if he did. The implication that god played a fairly elaborate word game just to provide very subtle prophetic clues is a whole other discussion, I think.

If man is made in god's image, and man is a creature given to experimentation and occasional failure on the way to reaching goals, it doesn't seem so odd to assume that god would be the same.

That is a very logical approach to the subject. There are a few things to consider in your assertion. First, while man was created in God's image, that doesn't mean that man is God. Man being made in God's image does not necessitate that what man does God does or vice versa. We often can only understand God by viewing Him through human understanding which reduces Him to our level so to speak. Secondly, while man was created in God's image, man has fallen from that image and has been cursed. It is quite possible that in our created state we wouldn't make mistakes on our way to understanding.

That leaves us in the position of having to blindly determine which of god's qualities are reflected by man, and to what degree. We can pick and choose those which are convenient to our argument, one way or another. And if you run into any inconsistencies you can fall back on the lack of understanding, or on man's imperfect nature. Now god's actions become inscrutable and can be used to justify pretty much anything. That is one of those areas that was a problem for me as a believer.

Yes, or if he can really see into the hearts of men and determine what sort of person they are. But if that was the case, he could have headed off the problem long before it would have necessitated destroying almost all life on the planet. Otherwise we are left to wonder why he let things get to that point before taking action.

Why do you think He waited?

Forgive the snark, but I think it's because he is a fictional character in a story that needed for him to wait to set up the action.

The JWs teach that Satan turned Adam and Eve against god to prove that humanity did not need god to guide them, and that god therefore allowed a period of time for humanity to prove Satan's point. When we consider the rank unfairness of the way god rigged the game (by cursing humans with imperfection and a world that suddenly turned against them), it makes the flood narrative completely illogical. If humanity had --within a few hundred or a few thousand years,-- gone almost completely bad, then god's point was proven. Man in his fallen condition without god was doomed. Why draw out the drama for another few thousand years, knowing that the end result would be no different?