BadNick

One simple and plausible explanation (imo) is that they all noticed local geological evidence of ancient flooding, couldn't quite understand or explain how it happened, and with thoughts and fears about what would happen if it occured again, their similar myths arose. Sort of similar to how different peoples in far apart places on earth made up other somewhat similar myths about the sun, moon, and stars and what effects they have on earthlings.

Charlatan

You are being needlessly obtuse. Either explain why you find something insulting so we can either rectify or explain OR suck it up and stop wingeing. Seriously. If you have an issue with something I've said, tell me what it is.

As it is, I agree with Politicophile, you are being sophomoric.

I have already said that I have no problem with the idea that there was a great flood of some sort but I am also interested that many creation etiologies start with a world of water (including the book of Genesis). I am not surprised that when "starting over" the story would go back to a world of water.

To recap:

1) probably was some sort of flood or rising waters or great period of rainfall.
2) Mythologies grew out of these cataclysms - the most typical being the Gods are angry and washed the place clean.

If you wish to believe that the Noah story was real and happened just because it was in Bible, that's your business.

__________________
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DaveOrion

I found this while doing a little research....interesting, but the theory of an asteroid impact induced great flood myth was apparantly ridiculed by mainstream scientists...oh well, thats to be expected! The whole article called 'Cosmic Dancers on History’s Stage? The Permanent Revolution in the Earth Sciences' is a long read, heres part of the Taurid Demons section...

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:...lnk&cd=4&gl=us

Even within the short history of Homo sapiens, the most violent events onEarth have been extraterrestrial impacts.’John Lewis111Like the supporters of Gaia, the advocates of the Shiva hypothesis are asmall but seminal scientific minority. In light of the overwhelming evi-dence that impact cratering has remained a significant geological processthroughout the Phanerozoic aeon, they have built a respectable case forits episodic role in detouring evolution down new and unpredictablepathways. And, together with other neo-catastrophists, they have addedimpressive scaffolding to the Gould-Eldredge theory of punctuatedequilibrium and chaotic Earth history. The Impact Hypothesis, in otherwords, now has a firm purchase within geological time (107to 109years),and an important beachhead, established by the k/t debate, within evo-lutionary time (106to 108years). But what about ecological time (104to106years) and cultural time (102to 104years)? Have impact events lefttheir catastrophic imprints within human history? Few questions inEarth science are more controversial.In 1993, for example, two Austrian scientists published a book in whichthey claimed to solve the mystery of ‘the darkest chapter in human his-tory’: the deluge catastrophe chronicled in the Gilgamesh Epic, the OldTestament, the Vedas and scores of oral traditions all over the world.Edith Kristan-Tollmann and Alexander Tollman marshalled anthropo-logical and geological evidence to support their thesis that seven largecometary fragments had struck the ocean nearly ten millennia ago, caus-ing terrible tsunamis now recalled as the Flood. On the one hand, theycited numerous ancient accounts of ‘seven invading stars’, ranging fromthe ‘great burning mountains’ of the Jewish prophet Henoch to the ‘fierysons of Muspels’ in Icelandic saga, which they interpreted as contempo-raneous with flood legends. On the other hand, they presented ‘geologi-cal proof’ in the form of tektites (glassy impact ejecta) ‘with an age ofnearly ten thousand years’ from Australia and Vietnam, as well as thesmall Kofels impact crater in the Austrian Tyrol—caused, they said, by a‘splinter’ of the Noachian comet.112110Sara Genuth, ‘Newton and the Ongoing Teleological Role of Comets’, in Thrower,Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, pp. 302–3. Halley’s assertion—with which Newtonapparently concurred—that the earth was ‘the wreck of a former world’ caused consterna-tion in Church of England circles and led to his loss of the Savilian chair in astronomy atOxford. See Kubrin, in ibid., pp. 64–6.111Lewis, Rain of Iron and Ice, p. 157. 112Edith Kristan–Tollmann and Alexander Tollmann, ‘The Youngest Big Impact onEarth Deduced from Geological and Historical Evidence’, Terra Nova, no. 6, 1994, pp.209–17.
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77Although the Tollmans created a predictable stir in the popular media,they were punctually massacred in the scientific press. In one review, ateam of eminent meteoriticists, including R.A.F. Grieve, dismissed their‘evidence’ as ‘sheer fantasy’ and characterized their approach as ‘pseudo-science in the tradition of Donnelly and Velikovsky’. The critics system-atically demolished their tektite dating as well as their exaggeratedclaims for the Kofels structure.113Of course, this is hardly the first case where the self-proclaimed confir-mation for biblical or mythical events has turned into a fiasco. The wholeintellectual terrain of archaeological and historical catastrophism hasbeen polluted by far too many bizarre hypotheses and spurious discover-ies. Rare or unique astronomical phenomena have become the staple dietof a burgeoning genre of fringe-science, mega-disaster books.114Yet, atthe risk of ridicule, cometary astronomers—led by Victor Clube atOxford and William Napier at Edinburgh—have persevered in arguinga scientific case for cosmic intervention in human history. They claim, infact, that some ancient societies almost surely experienced the shatteringequivalent of nuclear warfare. In an important restatement of the theory that they have been develop-ing over the last twenty years, Clube and Napier—together with DavidAsher and Duncan Steel from the Anglo-Australian Observatory—con-trast two different interpretations of impact tectonics. ‘Stochastic cata-strophism’, as they call it, is concerned with the extra-terrestrialinfluence upon the geological longue durée. It relies on averaged crateringrates, derived from known terrestrial structures and from the impactrecords of the Moon and inner planets. The history of small, but morefrequent impactors (less than one kilometre in diameter) is discriminatedagainst in this approach because they do not individually produce globalconsequences, and because terrestrial erosion more quickly erases theirfootprints.115Moreover, the data set is too coarse-grained to resolve tem-poral heterogeneities—clustered events, for instance—within frequen-cies of less than one million years. As a result, it cannot differentiatewhat Clube and Napier call the ‘microstructure of terrestrial cata-strophism’ within the time periods relevant to human evolution.116‘Coherent catastrophism’, on the other hand, contends that ‘the overalleffect of giant comets on terrestrial evolution is far more complex thanthat of single giant impacts.’ Impact events operate on all time-scales,and punctuational crises are ‘hierarchically nested in the overall mannerof glacial-interglacials’. To visualize this entire spectrum of phenomena,especially the influence of small-body impacts, Clube and Napier haveaugmented cratering data and near-Earth-object censuses with a wealth113Alexander Deutsch et al., ‘The Impact-Flood Connection: Does It Exist?’, Terra Nova,no. 6, pp. 644–50. Ignatius Donnelly was the apocalyptic American populist, whoseRagnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel, was a sensation of the 1880s; while Immanuel Veli-kovsky, of course, is the notorious author of Worlds in Collision, 1950.114For a recent example, see D. Allan and J. Declair, When the Earth Nearly Died: Compel-ling Evidence of a Catastrophic World Change—9,5000 BC, Bath 1995.115For a discussion of the dependence of the ‘decay constant’ on crater size, see S. Yabu-shita, ‘Are Periodicities in Crater Formations and Mass Extinctions Related?’, Earth, Moonand Planets, no. 64, 1994, pp. 209–10.116D. Asher, S. Clube, W. Napier and D. Steel, ‘Coherent Catastrophism’, Vistas inAstronomy, no. 38, 1994, pp. 5, 20–1.
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78of historical data, including medieval European records and Chineseastronomical archives.117While other researchers, moreover, have been absorbed in the search for cat-astrophic celebrities, like billion-megaton exterminator bolides, they havebeen focused on the study of the more prosaic population of communitionproducts—small Apollo asteroids, meteoroidal swarms, zodiacal dust—resulting from the break-up of giant comets. Although the comets onlyarrive in Earth-crossing orbits at 100,000–year-or-so intervals, their debris‘interact catastrophically with the Earth on relatively short time-scales:102–105years’. Clube, in fact, has argued that because of the frequency ofsmall-body impacts, terrestrial catastrophism may be ‘uniformitarian’ at alltime-scales greater than a millennium. Thus, a ‘new world view, embracingthe effects of the full range of “small bodies” in the Solar System...hasbecome one of the outstanding imperatives of our time’.

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Ol' Man Mose

From above:
Lemme guess....the Mayans (...Tarheel for "man"?) and Injuns defiantly depicted the God from their Great Flood stories anthropomorphically - despite our global Jewish God’s "dire consequence" directive to them to portray him as a racially supremacist, pig and pussy-hating Mesopotamian psychopath, that His Hebrew pink-eyes kept imprisoned in a wooden crate?? (Still, I suppose that's a bit better than the book the poor bastard is locked up in today! )

That would also explain the strikingly Semitic profile of the Mayan and Injun Gods...

Infinite_Loser

*Sigh*

Could you at least attempt to respond to my posts without resorting to extreme sarcasm? It's said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, after all.

A great flood in the Mediterranean region doesn't explain why both Mayan and many Native American beliefs mirror that of Christianity. It's plausible to believe that all beliefs regarding the flood stem from a single occurrence; It's implausible to believe that each belief regarding the flood came to mirror each other in lieu of a lack of communication between the religions (Even greater so when you see flood myths in areas which aren't predisposed to flooding).

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roachboy

why do you want to believe that these "mythologies"--which i assume are understood here as the colonial worldview would have them understood, as kind of childish warm-up exercises for the Real Business of european-style religion, which is what Adults do---are all talking about the same thing via these flood narratives?

i think the op is addressing an aesthetic question: there is self-evidently no way to know whether there is or is not a common reference point. so it is a matter of preference, what seems pleasing to you, what feels right.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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KnifeMissile

It depends on what you mean by "mirror" the great flood of Christianity. I don't know what all these other flood myths are so I can't say anything about them. The only similarity you've mentioned is that they share a flood. While this is an unmistakable similarity, it's also a superficial one...

All these flood myths can be explained by a singular flood, multiple floods, human imagination, or some combination thereof. Disregarding all other factors, I'd be inclined to agree with you and it was probably a single flood.

However, there are many other factors to consider. Why aren't all the flood myths the same? Why don't literally all cultures have flood myths? Do all cultures assert them as more than myths? How would such a flood happen? Where did all the water come from and where did it all go? If a great flood wiped out all the Mayans, for example, why were there still Mayans?

In light of many other factors besides the existence of flood myths, the other explanations that would, otherwise, seem less likely, seem much more plausible. Context is everything...

Ol' Man Mose

DaveOrion

Damn its hard to read that blue text! Is it me or what???

__________________
Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Ol' Man Mose

And...

Was “The Flood” truly universal or confined to planet Earth? Did God just “spit the dummy” with his terrestrial kids, or did he drown ALL extra-terrestrials sinners too? (Surely He wouldn't leave himself open to being accused of being Jewish and planet prejudiced. )

If it’s the latter, what did he use to sadistically asphyxiate his wicked kids on parched planets. I mean, why would a “God” need water, or any other physical medium for that matter, to rid himself of his delinquent kids?

If His clearly psychotic personality compelled Him to drown mankind like so many unwanted kittens in a sack, why, like his comparatively compassionate creation, Adolf Hitler, couldn’t He have snuffed them painlessly with a global whiff of Zyklon B, if he needed a mortal medium?

It seems to me that Hitler was far more humane than the Jewish God whose people this kindly killer compassionately Holocausted!

Indeed, I have a daughter who is a drug addicted prostitute. According to God’s commandments and His own biblical example, I should have her stoned to death or drowned! In spite of this, I can’t even bring myself to hate her enough to self-righteously “rebuke” her for her “evil” lifestyle.

Does this mean I am more tolerant, merciful and loving, and consequently, if Christian’s claims for loving Him are to be believed, more worshipful than God?

Jesus Henderson…it does have a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?

Ourcrazymodern?

This will be hard.

"Universal flood"?
We are ugly bags of mostly water.
(No such tools at his disposal, since we created them in labs)
Hitler was one of those charismatic idiots you often hear about.
Sorry about your daughter-truly.
No.
So does: "the language
so strangely arranged
that it sings."

Take care and be well sirs,
& please stop worrying about things you can't control.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

DaveOrion

Close enough

__________________
Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Ourcrazymodern?

it seems to work, & thankyou.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

pai mei

This one contains a possible explanation :

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

Charlatan

Tsunami brought on by asteroids?

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Ol' Man Mose

A Rusty Brown Spectacled Ibis God, eh? I suppose that's just as plausible as a misogynistic, genocidal Jewish ogre in the sky. Or my own German Shepherd-headed Anubis, who speaks in a thick Aussie accent and couldn't give a rancid rats arse what his human pups do!

Infinite_Loser

I'd encourage you to read this then. It's only a rough outline, but it'll give you something to research if you so desire.

The fact that individual flood myths differ from each other is, in itself, perfectly normal. Wasn't it you who referenced the telephone game? As time passes each culture is invariably going to have a different interpretation of the flood.

I don't know. All cultures don't need to reference a great flood for it to be true. A better question would be "Why do most cultures have one?"

I don't know of any religion which doesn't claim to be the absolute truth, so I guess the answer to your question would have to be 'yes'.

...Because God caused it to happen (As most religions say). I don't quite understand the purpose of your question...

I've always been taught that the ocean levels before the great flood were lower than what they are now (Which would explain where the water went).

Because it didn't wipe them all out.

Well, then, would you kindly name them? All I've seen in this thread are people saying "There must be more explanations!" but, as yet, I've only seen one (Maybe two) other explanations put forth.

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Ourcrazymodern?

Drowning is said to be relatively painless, but we highly fear it. As a species, we were around, thinking, before the end of the last ice age. Not advocating belief in past lives, a lot of "us" might have drowned, once upon a time.
Myths, with apologies to the scientists, are part of what we use to try to explain what we cannot understand. Sciences are their better half.
I don't believe that the land, since it formed, has ever been all covered at once, although large parts of it have gone under for long periods of time and will probably do so again, before and after us arguing.
Noah's ark, et al are exaggerations at best, lies at worst, and a struggling to believe in between. More power to us!

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

ProfessorMayhem

I drowned once. Trust me, it's anything but "painless."

In regard to flood mythology, the only common factor with flood myths from various cultures is the actual inclusion of some sort of flood. When you get right down to the details, it becomes evident that the various flood myths from around the world have little in common beyond that. Cultures from around the world have different dates, different origins, and vastly different accounts.

One doesn't even have to venture into the complete lack of sound empirical evidence and various physical impossibilities associated with a worldwide flood to recognize the fact that flood mythology amounts to little more than the a cultural construct centered around retellings of bronze age tall tales. Myths about floods are common because....

Get ready....

Floods are common.

They have been throughout history, and they will continue to be for as long as this planet has a water cycle. There are other myths from various cultures that revolve around other themes that are far more common than floods, but you don't see many people trying to advocate a literal interpretation of these myths.

Ol' Man Mose

Those who attribute(d) the deluge to spiteful deities tell us more about their paranoid authoritarian personality than their gargoyle of a god(s)

In my considered opinion, that’s why a comparatively compassionate Jesus was introduced into the Mein Kampfish Old Testament, to capture the more perceptive Librul punter.

The more removed we become from our brutish past, the more urbane our gods become. (Check out Scientology.) With the exception of the authoritarian Abrahamic religions, of course, who still use fear to keep the irrational faithful conforming to their clearly absurd creeds.

Ourcrazymodern?

You mean there wasn't really a flood that covered all the land?

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

DaveOrion

I built a time machine and went back just to check. There was a flood but it was just localized, same for all the myths, just ice age meltwater and local floods. Some were even catastrophic, but that happens every now and then. No Biggie.

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Ol' Man Mose

Maybe in the ancient kingdom of Lalaland that most "believers" inhabit.

DaveOrion

Reality is for people who cant handle drugs.

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Ourcrazymodern?

You wouldn't believe how relieved I am. I love you.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Ol' Man Mose

Hey! Were all the animals, birds, and fish, aside from the (presumably married) decent pack values Christian pairs in the Ark, that El Shaddai sadistically drowned, sinners too?

Ourcrazymodern?

Uh-oh! What?

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Ol' Man Mose

You mean all this is real? N-O-O-O-o-o-o-o!!

DaveOrion

You cant see this but I'm blushing...

__________________
Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Ourcrazymodern?

The flood will come again.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

ProfessorMayhem

The prophecy hath been made.

eileenbunny

I find it interesting that the great flood of biblical history and a flood in Hopi legend apparently happened along the same time. I've been looking for the research I had to back that up, but I can't seem to locate it right now. I wrote a paper about it in college, so those notes are in a box in a closet somewhere. Obviously it could be just coincidental that both floods happened at the same but I thought it was interesting.

I also remember reading an article that suggested that a meteor hitting the earth could cause global flooding. We have no current evidence to show that such a thing happened though.

DaveOrion

In my previous post I found an article which describes a book written by the Tollmans. The great flood induced by an asteroid impact is expounded upon, but ridiculed by mainstreamers. This leads me to believe that its a possibility. All new theories are ridiculed, if they stand up to closer scrutiny, they may eventually be accepted.

__________________
Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Charlatan

As i suggested above, a great tsunami would be more likely. An asteroid impact wouldn't cause a flood of many days but it would make a lasting impression.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

SecretMethod70

I find the tsunami argument lacking. A tsunami strong enough to get that much coverage over the world would almost certainly leave no survivors - not only because of the tsunami, but because of the other effects an asteroid impact of that strength would likely have.

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Ourcrazymodern?

Thanks.

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Charlatan

I would argue that a tsunami need not cover the entire world as the Bible suggests. I am suggesting that a large asteroid impact would cause flooding on coastal areas. Dramatic and sudden flooding.

This would be something people would remember.

That said, an impact large enough to effect both sides of the Atlantic would have to be large enough to cause serious issues to the planet in other ways. I would suggest, as has been suggested above that flooding is a reasonably common thing and when it happens on a large scale it can be catastrophic (see Indonesia and Thailand).

Add to this the fact that many ur stories involve the world rising out of water (as I mentioned earlier) combined with the idea that water, while destructive is also cleansing.

Tons of symbolism right there. Is it any surprise that story tellers, shamen, holy men, whatever would latch on this in their legends and myths?

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke