But not when or why......
It's not that we don't want to believe; some people do want to believe, but we can't because of all the counter-evidence against these myths being true. It is better to believe in something based on hard, verified evidence than simply wanting to.
What would it take to convince you Riverwolf?
The Bible is specific as to the Floods being global. There is nothing in its record to limit the Flood to a particular area. Neither is there any indication that others besides Noah and his family survived.
Explaining the universal magnitude of the Flood, the Bible says: The waters overwhelmed the earth so greatly that all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered. Up to fifteen cubits the waters overwhelmed them and the mountains became covered. (Gen. 7:19, 20) And, recording the effect upon all life, the account continues: Thus [God] wiped out every existing thing that was on the surface of the ground, from man to beast, to moving animal and to flying creature of the heavens, and they were wiped off the earth; and only Noah and those who were with him in the ark kept on surviving. (Gen. 7:23.)
Obviously the source of the floodwaters was not the moisture that is ordinarily found in the atmosphere today because it has been estimated that if all the atmospheric water were suddenly released as rain, it would cover the earths surface only to an average depth of less than two inches. There must be another explanation, then, for all this water, and the Bible gives it.
In its brief account of creation the Bible says regarding the forming of earths atmosphere: And God went on to say: Let an expanse come to be in between the waters and let a dividing occur between the waters and the waters. Then God proceeded to make the expanse and to make a division between the waters that should be beneath the expanse and the waters that should be above the expanse.Gen. 1:6, 7.
The waters beneath the atmospheric expanse were the waters on the surface of the earth. Whereas, the waters . . . above the expanse were vast quantities of moisture suspended high above the earth, evidently in the form of a heavy vapor. These waters surrounded our earth in its earlier history.
The book The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb, Jr., and Henry M. Morris, makes this observation:
The region above about 80 miles is very hot, over 100° F and possibly rising to 3000° F, and is in fact called the thermosphere for this reason. High temperature, of course, is the chief requisite for retaining a large quantity of water vapor. Furthermore, it is known that water vapor is substantially lighter than air and most of the other gases making up the atmosphere. There is thus nothing physically impossible about the concept of a vast thermal vapor blanket once existing in the upper atmosphere.
It was to these suspended waters that the Christian apostle Peter referred when writing about the Noachian flood. He explains that there was an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water, and that by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water. (2 Pet. 3:5, 6.)
Such a canopy of water suspended above the earth would greatly affect earths climate. The light and heat rays from the sun would be diffused by the vapor canopy, while this vast canopy would prevent heat from escaping. Such a greenhouse effect would thus produce a milder, more uniform climate earth wide. That earths climate was uniformly warm at one time is commonly recognized.
Of the now-frigid Antarctic continent an article in the French magazine Science et Vie, said:
This inhuman land, this desert of ice, was once a green land where streams flowed among flowers, where birds sang in the trees.
Around the Arctic Ocean there is a great swath of permanently frozen land, the greater part of which is covered with a frozen muck composed of sand, silt and earth. In an article entitled Riddle of the Frozen Giants, The Saturday Evening Post made this observation:
The list of animals that have been thawed out of this mess would cover several pages. . . . They are all in the muck. These facts indicated water as the agency which engulfed the creatures. . . . many of these animals were perfectly fresh, whole and undamaged, and still either standing or at least kneeling upright. . . .
Vast herds of enormous, well-fed beasts not specifically designed for extreme cold, placidly feeding in sunny pastures, delicately plucking flowering buttercups at a temperature in which we would probably not even have needed a coat. Suddenly they were all killed without any visible sign of violence and before they could so much as swallow a last mouthful of food, and then were quick-frozen so rapidly that every cell of their bodies is perfectly preserved, despite their great bulk and their high temperature."
If God had used the insulating watery canopy as part of the floodwaters, the polar regions would suddenly be plunged into a deep freeze, trapping animals that then lived far north of their present habitat. The proof that this was a sudden event, and not something that occurred over a long period of time, is the fact that even the green grass they were eating was quickly deepfrozen in their mouths and stomachs, where it has been discovered in modern times. How consistent this evidence is with what the Bible says about the flood! :yes:
There is an explanation as to "when" and "why" too if you're interested....?
Deeje
