Was the Flood global?

[Neil D]

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So we have (a) local floods (think Bangladesh, not your local creek), ( the Black Sea and similar events, © migration/trade/evangelism

But this doesn't explain some of the flood stories...For example, the pacific Islands should have stories of 'flash floods" or tsumaumis, but not stories where people rode out the flood by raft. And yet, some culture do. Or while people along the Nile river saw it flood, they should not have stories where the water was so vast that it covered the land...yet they do...IOWs, by your description, cultures created myths dependant upon thier experience....Yet some of these cultures describe floods that was beyond thier experiences to that particulare region...

Thus, it follows that there was a universal flood, that affected and left an impression on many a culture.

[bevin]

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For example, the pacific Islands should have stories of 'flash floods" or tsumaumis, but not stories where people rode out the flood by raft

That is exactly why I pointed to the Wikipedia page on human migration.

(a) The Pacific Islands are obviously a place where myths from the continents could have been carried by the initial inhabitants when they migrated there

( They are also a place where sailors from Europe have been dropping in and talking since Magellan in the 1500's. Stories that the sailors told then could have got into the local myths

So there are two plausible non-global-flood explanations for how such events could have made it into the Polynesian mythology.

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Pacific

The islands of the Pacific were the last region on Earth to be populated by humans, as recently as 15 to 12 millennia ago.

With the art of open-sea navigation involving the most confident and courageous use of the available technologies of boat-building, combined with the most sophisticated understanding of currents and prevailing winds, the Polynesians, starting with the Lapita culture, have proven to be the most successful in the art of navigation, if the permanent spread of culture is taken into account, for the Norse adventurers in the North Atlantic and the Arab traders in the Indian Ocean did not create permanent settlements. The Lapita people, who got their name from the archaeological site in Lapita, New Caledonia, where their characteristic pottery was first discovered, came from Austronesia, probably New Guinea. Their navigation skills took them to the Solomon Islands, around 1600 BC, and later to Fiji and Tonga. By the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, most of Polynesia was a loose web of thriving cultures who settled on the islands' coasts and lived off the sea. By 500 BC Micronesia was completely colonized; the last region of Polynesia to be reached was New Zealand in around AD 1000.

Polynesian migration patterns also have been studied by linguistic analysis, and recently by analyzing characteristic genetic alleles of today's inhabitants. Both methods resulted in supporting the original archaeological findings.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Most of the time the most likely explanation is where the truth lies. Of course there are exceptions. In most cases if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck and looks like a duck, it really is a duck. Now in some cases it may be a dwarfed goose but most of the time it is a duck.

The simplest and most likely explanation for universal flood stories being found in culturals from around the world is that there actually was a universal flood and as the survivers' decendants spread accross the globe, they carried the story with them. Of course there are other complexed, plausible explanations but they are not as likely as the simplest explanation.

[bevin]

Why is that the simplest solution?

If you use that solution, you have to explain an awful lot of evidence that goes the other way.

You have to explain how the DNA of 8 humans 4000 years ago can produce the diversity we see today.

You have to explain the diversity of the rest of the land lifeforms.

You have to explain the C-14 datings and the thermoluminscent dating that go much older than 2000BC.

You have to explain the history of Egypt including the orientation of the great pyramid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza which apparently was started circa 2500BC.

...

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

The simplest and most likely explanation for universal flood stories being found in culturals from around the world is that there actually was a universal flood and as the survivers' decendants spread accross the globe, they carried the story with them.

Now we are asked to believe that the animal that walks, sounds and looks like a duck is actually a dwarfed goose with a cold. Because of other evidence.

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You have to explain how the DNA of 8 humans 4000 years ago can produce the diversity we see today.

Easy. It was changed at the same time the languages were changed at the Tower of Bable. Remember, we are dealing with God. He wanted people to disperse. Just changing the language would not likely result in that. Actually changing people races (i.e. DNA) would have a much greater effect.

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You have to explain the diversity of the rest of the land lifeforms.

Easy. Microevolution. GRI says "We do not know how much change is required to explain present biodiversity, because we do not know the starting point. Scientists have learned that species can change very rapidly, especially during periods of environmental stress. Most observed changes are minor, such as might distinguish species or genera. These changes were driven by natural processes. If changes have been driven by intelligent agents, the results are difficult to predict."

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You have to explain the C-14 datings and the thermoluminscent dating that go much older than 2000BC.

Carbon dating is based on the belief that "all things continue the same". GRI says, "The flood would drastically change the concentration of C-14. This is because the pre-flood C-14 would be greatly diluted by large amounts of C-12 which are now buried in coal and oil. This would greatly reduce the concentration of C-14 before the flood, making the sample appear much older than it really is. According to this interpretation, if plants living before the flood were C-14 dated using today's standard, they would appear to be very ancient even while alive. This means that those who believe in a worldwide flood would expect to see very old dates for material that was alive before the flood. The same would apply to plants and animals that lived shortly after the flood, before the new C-14 concentration level was established."

[bevin]

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Most observed changes are minor, such as might distinguish species or genera. These changes were driven by natural processes. If changes have been driven by intelligent agents, the results are difficult to predict.

The diversification appears in the fossil record, which universal flood people postulate was created by the flood, and so the mutations can't have been done to the limited animal population after the ark lands because those descendents do not make up a significant portion of the fossil record.

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This is because the pre-flood C-14 would be greatly diluted by large amounts of C-12 which are now buried in coal and oil

Did the GRI explain how the burial process separated out the C-12 from the C-14?

It is practically impossible to separate isotopes using chemical methods, and so they would have been buried in the same ratio that they occurred in the substances before burial.

Furthermore thermoluminesence is a completely different method, using completely different processes - and it yields dates consistent with the standard Carbon dating - and inconsistent with this Flood model you are proposing.

Then there are the tree rings and the ice cores, which also back up the other methods

Then there are the rock paintings in caves and the alignment of the pyramids

/Bevin