It's worth pointing out that fundamentally, humans like to live ... and live more successfully ... in places where their needs are met. That generally means ample food - plants and animals - and ample fresh water.
These generally co-occur in water rich areas, such as low-lying coastal regions or flat, regularly inundated river plains. Thus, flooding in relatively populated early centers of civilization is likely to be a common experience across human cultures, purely by the geographical reality of proximity to water.
Furthermore, recording such events is natural in a literate civilization since the destruction a nontrivial event might cause against food, shelter and population would affect all echelons of society.
AFAIK the Epic of Gilgamesh does not include the "fountains of the deep" aspect of the Noah story that's relevant here, and also there aren't a lot of Sumerian creationists around.
I was simply pointing out that there are many flood stories in many cultures. I added another link for more references. I just know that Gilgamesh is one of the oldest. Many cultures, including the some Indians in North America, have incorporated it into their mythology.
> I was simply pointing out that there are many flood stories in many cultures
Being in many cultures isn't evidence against the story, as it seems you are trying to imply.
It could simply mean there was one huge flood and lots of cultures recorded it.
I am aware there is no scientific mechanism to cause a worldwide flood, this is explicitly about divine intervention. (i.e. a miracle, not creationism pseudo science).
Everything that happens on a geological scale leaves geological evidence. There is no such evidence for a global flood. It's not just the mechanism for causing the flood that's missing, but any sign of it whatsoever. I grew up learning about and believing in a global flood, and confronting the hard truth that there is no evidence for a flood was an important part of my intellectual development.
However, since there are reasons other than reason and evidence for people to believe in a flood, no amount of reasoning or evidence will change those beliefs, so I propose we focus on the tantalizing science fiction implications instead.
There is, however, plenty of evidence for a huge, huge flood at about the correct time. About 1/3 of the Black Sea was dry land until about 6000 BC [1]. The theory goes that it went from essentially dry land with forests and cities and ... to open sea in as little as 2 months, which can't have been a pleasant experience for the inhabitants.
Also note that floods don't simply go in a straight line from A->B. In practice because towns are built on the more stable land, what you'd see happen is pretty much the worst possible scenario : the water would surround cities, first making most roads unusable (non hardened ones because they become mud, hardened ones because some parts of them collapse). Then the water level would rise until nothing remains above the water level. (I've got some experience living in Northwest Europe, and every 20 years or so you get introduced to this problem firsthand)
Of course, even though the affected area was huge, it was still a local phenomenon.
It is indeed fascinating to study possible true origins of flood myths and other myths, but it's important to remember that finding a possibly true local origin doesn't provide evidence for a miraculous flood, whether global or local.
The absence of evidence is not proof of the contrary. I am an atheist and I laud your dedication to evidence based reason, but don't go overboard and ignore things many people believe are true, often they do for a reason.
That said, if there never was such a flood there would likely be evidence that it never happened.
I'm curious what you think "evidence that it never happened" would look like, except for looking like the absence of evidence?
What would evidence that there was never a global flood look like? One example might be "lack of a global species disruption in the fossil layer". But that's just absence of evidence again.
You're talking about the idea of the Genesis flood, occurring some 4500 years ago, drastically rearranging the recently-created Earth's geology, wiping out every living thing except for the few that survived on a boat that landed on a single mountain in what is modern-day Turkey?
I think there are some predictions you could make there. However every single one of them is just so far divorced from what we observe that they aren't even worth enumerating.
Absence of evidence is not "proof" of the contrary, but it is evidence of the contrary.
"Proof" is a complicated word. People typically take it to mean "slam-dunk, 100%, without-a-doubt proves the case." But little in science ever works like that. Math, sure, where you can prove things analytically. But when trying to "prove" things about the universe, you have to collect bodies of evidence, and see how well that evidence matches expectations.
So, when you go out looking for something, and despite your best efforts, cannot find it, then that may not "prove" that something did not happen, but it is good evidence in support that it did not.
Despite centuries of scientists looking hard for evidence of it (and knowing what kind of evidence they are looking for, adn being able to get it), they've been unable to get any. That's as strong evidence of the inexistence of a phenomenun as you can get.
> Go check sedimentary layers in affrica / Arabia / golden triangle
1. Why only those? Isn't it global?
2. This comment has no value without an academic paper to reference. If nobody has studied it, this is just hot air. If someone has, you are expected to link to it in these lands.
IIRC, there is some evidence of a very large flood in...western Asia, I think?...caused by a highland sea breaking through a natural dam and emptying into a lowland area, right around the time that humans were starting to keep histories. It was big enough to affect multiple distinct cultures at the time. There's a theory that that's the origin of the ubiquitous Great Flood stories.
Also the Missoula Floods[0], though it's possible nobody was really around, and if there was, probably not many ( assuming humans started migrating ~18,000 years ago, it's possible some were there)
> also there aren't a lot of Sumerian creationists around
Given Christianity has roots in Judaism and Judaism probably has some roots in Sumerian religion, I'm not sure if you could say that. Religions evolve from other religions, and in a geographic area, are likely to have common ancestors.
Yes, but American protestant fundamentalists looking for something that superficially looks like it might theoretically maybe back up their literal interpretations of the Bible will care about this announcement in a way that most of the Babylonians won't. :P
Why would this be unreasonable? If I were to propose a scientific theory and a discovery were made that provided evidence that the theory were correct, we would call it good science. Why is it considered anything less to point out that the Bible made a statement that is strengthened by the same discovery?
Water trapped in crystals as hydroxide ions far underground do not exactly constitute a gushing source of floodwater. You'd need divine intervention to get a flood from this stuff -- and if you're already bringing the Hand of God into it, do you really need a geological mechanism to complete the story?
There have been quite a few times that science has confirmed accounts in the Tanakh and New Testament ... large portions of both are dedicated to conveying history regardless of whether you believe in the spiritual aspects described.
By "science has confirmed accounts", do you mean anything more than "has confirmed that some historical locations used for these stories actually existed"?
(by way of illustration: most of Robert Parker's Spencer novels are set in Boston. You could prove via archeological evidence that the buildings and streets mentioned in these stories exist - they weren't invented out of whole cloth - but this wouldn't prove Spencer himself ever existed much less did any of the things claimed about him in the stories.)
The first thing I thought of too. A massive earthquake with juust the right condition could squeeze some water in the ocean. Or tsunami like event for a simpler explanation. Or something just big enough to make a good splash in some sea.
The flood myth is very persistent but we need to have in mind that humanity was tiny back then. So even a 2011 Japanese like tsunami could be the flood.
There have been large tsunamis caused by underwater landslides - notably the Storegga Slide off Norway that inundated a lot of areas in what are now Scotland and Norway ~8000 years ago.
It's probably easier to bring three oceans worth of comets to rain on Earth than it would be to dig that deep and extract that water.
Eventually we will opt to dismantle the Earth to build more habitats, but it'll be more like peeling an onion layer by layer. By the time we are peeling 700 km, we'll encounter the water.
Who? Fundies assert that the world won't be flooded again (as per God's promise after the original flood). They are waiting for the world to be destroyed the second time by fire, not water.
well its neat they could be some basis for it. Granted they would never have known about this but if there were a chance the water could break surface, catastrophic earth quake or some such fun never experienced since that allowed this water to reach the surface, just imagine the outcome. After all you would not have water falling from the sky, it would just be there all around you.
I'm not sure why you think creationists are dumb people. Even scientists don't agree with all theories in the science books.
So yeah, maybe there was an event where fountains of the deep opened up. Some people believe dinosaurs were killed because after that a change in atmosphere provided less food. Others believe a comet killed them. There is and isn't proof for both theories so maybe there is truth in both.
Our creation / existence is one big riddle everyone tries to solve different.
Are you one of those people who think that "evolution is just a theory"? Creationists are dumb people. So are people believing in homoeopathy or astrology.
I am not saying that you are a creationist,but I am saying that everyone shouting "evolution is just a theory!!" is almost universally wrong.
>>But we also have no proof for evolution.
Then you must have missed a lot of pretty much everything going in science in the last ~300 years. If ancient bones are not "scientific" enough for you, look at bacteria, which evolve(yes,evolve, not magically change due to divine intervention) in a space of days,not millennia.
