Unexpected level of stupidity

[Cyberman]

Celtic, I think.

Definitely not Rangers, anyway.

[bennyboy]

[LastPoet]

Yeah, I saw an hypothesis that the black sea quickly formed after the bosphosrous (spelling?) strait broke and flooded the area known as the black sea, but I am not a geologist, so I dunno if it happened when humans were able to write about it.

Still, fiction like the bible could be based on such a natural event and later exxagerated to a world wide flood. By science, there isn't enough water on earth to cover all the landmasses.

[Jesster]

Yeah, I saw an hypothesis that the black sea quickly formed after the bosphosrous (spelling?) strait broke and flooded the area known as the black sea, but I am not a geologist, so I dunno if it happened when humans were able to write about it.

Still, fiction like the bible could be based on such a natural event and later exxagerated to a world wide flood. By science, there isn't enough water on earth to cover all the landmasses.

Theists would still claim that God was able to conjure up enough water for a global flood, then got rid of it later. That's bullshit too, though. We have historical records from other cultures around the globe who made no reports about a global flood at the time.

So yeah, there may have been some more local flood that got exaggerated. It could just be complete fiction as well. At least those explanations don't conflict with what we do know.

[Bunburryist]

Mesopotamia is very, VERY flat.  And a flood of only moderate proportions can cover a great deal of land.  I have this image of a guy, his wife, and a kid or two, along with goat, a few chickens, and maybe a dog or two floating around on the remains of a house in a flood.  Stories tend to grow in time.  So after a while he had a brother-in-law and a couple of cousins, 3 goats, 16 chickens, and maybe a cat or two with the dogs.  When one considers that in a generally illiterate society where the average life-span was about 30 years, stories can evolve, very, VERY fast.  We don't appreciate the extent to which writing tends to freeze historical accounts.  Without writing, stories - like language itself (which can change rather quickly in small, illiterate societies) - can morph from guy on a raft with a few animals to an ark in not too many generations.  Throw in a god and people looking for a reason for something they don't understand (why floods happen) and you're off and running.

[The Grand Nudger]

[bennyboy]

The specific bodies of water aren't mentioned in flood mythologies, but I find it interesting that almost every culture has a flood myth. I'm very intrigued in the idea that it might represent a very distant cultural memory.

I'm also curious about the 6 days of creation in the Bible-- specifically, how they arrived at the particular order. Were there some primitive fossil-hunters in ancient times?