Why is the Flood story so common across the World

[Old Koreelah]

The sea rose hundreds of feet very quickly drowning places like Bass Strait and Doggerland. It would be surprising if this was not remembered in myth and legend.

 

Which why most relics of really ancient cultures are still to be found: they are under the sea. Miles out to sea off our coast.

 

 

[Bruce]

OME, the flood story just doesn't pass the arithmetic test. Mount Ararat is over 15,000 ft, and according to the Noah story that is where he beached the ark.

 

Australia would have been covered by kilometers deep water. Bass strait flooding is tiny in comparison.

 

The biblical version is obvious nonsense. Gosh, how would the Aborigines have survived?  

 

Of course flood stories are common in prehistory. People lived near rivers, and they attributed just about any unexplained event   ( like thunder )  to gods.  

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Flood myths are a fascinating and widespread aspect of human cultures and I bet they’re based on real events; perhaps the cataclysms of the Younger-Dryas era. 

 

The real entertainment comes from the US Bible Belt.

 

When this Australian bloke convinced loads of pious Christians to fund his Noah’s Ark extravaganza, he did a better job than any atheist to debunk the narrow minded literal reading of the Genesis account.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_Encounter

 

 

[old man emu]

the flood story just doesn't pass the arithmetic test. Mount Ararat is over 15,000 ft, and according to the Noah story that is where he beached the ark.

 

Too true! Although the translation of the early writings might be incorrect by nominating that particular mountain. It is thought that the correct translation is "mountains of Ararat" which is more of a regional description and could include river valleys. Whatever the case, the Ararat area is well up-stream from the and Baghdad is only about 120 feet AMSL.

 

List of Flood stories in ancient cultures: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths

 

Gosh, how would the Aborigines have survived?

 

It is very unusual that the Modern Aborigines (from 5000 BC to Present) don't seem to have a flood story, although there are stories that can be related to the known global rise in sea levels about 10,000 years ago. Perhaps the rise in sea level cause by the glacial melt in the Northern Hemisphere wasn't so much of a flood, but a seepage in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

In regard to rock paintings and carvings, the present day Aborigines seem to have a belief that there were other unrelated peoples (who we class as Ancient Aborigines) who made a lot of the markings that the present day Aborigines don't know the meaning of. We know that humans were on the continent at least 40,000 years ago. Perhaps the originals were decimated by the end of the last Ice Age.

 

 

[willedoo]

Which why most relics of really ancient cultures are still to be found: they are under the sea. Miles out to sea off our coast.

 

Reg Sprigg of Beach Petroleum and Arkaroola fame was a pioneer of marine seismic exploration. Back in the early days he worked out a way to do seismic recordings on the sea bed of St. Vincent Gulf off Adelaide, using hooker diving to get to the bottom. They were at quite a depth in the gulf and came across numerous grindstones and artifacts on the sea bed.

 

 

[old man emu]

using hooker diving

 

Did they muff it?

 

 

[willedoo]

Apologies; the mind boggles. Make that hookah.

 

 

[Yenn]

Of course the artifacts were on the sea bed, you wold hardly expect to find them on the surface.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

We are entering a Renaissance era for human history; at long last, the tired old story is being challenged:

 

 

 

 

[nomadpete]

"Let's Start an Argument"

 

 

[onetrack]

Could it rain for 45 days straight? The answer is a resounding, Yes! ?

 

https://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/texas-rain.htm

 

 

[old man emu]

Could it rain for 45 days straight?

 

I suppose that the next step in the quest is to find evidence of an extended rain period whose date would align somewhat with the Flood story. 

 

I'm starting to question the theory that the Flood was the result of release of glacial melt water. All the Flood stories refer to extensive rain. Rain is definitely different from rising flood water. If the flood water came from rain upstream, the search should be conducted in the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

 

 

[Bruce]

That global rise in sea levels 10,000 years ago  might have some connection to the terrible Kangaroo Island fires. Aborigines who had lived on KI died out about 10,000 years ago and were not replaced by new ones. They died out as a result of selenium deficiency. Remember they used fire to help them hunt.

 

A bad result of this is that KI has dense undergrowth, such that you couldn't walk through it, but a fire sure would burn better.

 

 

[old man emu]

What a way to die - galloping alopecia and no Head and Shoulders 

 

 

An active ingredient in Head & Shoulders is selenium disulfide 

 

Selenium deficiency is also associated with male infertility, amongst other things, so this could have been a cause of of the Aborigines on King Island being unproductive.

 

 

[Bruce]

Nope OME, the active ingredient in head n shoulders is zinc pyrithione. There is another anti-dandruff shampoo that uses the selenium stuff.

 

I think they first found selenium by spectroscopy of moonlight.

 

Sorry to be pedantic.

 

 

[old man emu]

Nope

 

You must be using the woosey Head and Shoulders because Powerfully effective against severe dandruff, selenium sulphide is the active ingredient in the Head & Shoulders Clinically Proven Solutions range.

 

 

[spacesailor]

WHAT IF.

 

IN the beginning of Earth's time !.

 

There was TWO Earths, binery planets,  gently spinning around each other,

 

No a care in their universe, 

 

Then one of those "near Earth" astoiroids Didn't Miss.

 

One planet took a big hit & lost a third out into space,

 

With another third colliding into the binery planet.

 

The damaged planet would have remolded itseft into a nice Moon for the OUR world.

 

The lump that landed on a water planet  (like Saturn's Titon ) would  have made a great Gonwawanaland ( or whatever the new name is ),

 

spacesailor

 

 

[spacesailor]

Lots of meteor strikes over the mileniums, some landed in the seas & would have thrown lots of moisture into the sky.

 

How much rain would ensue could have given us that 49days of rain, easily.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[onetrack]

Sorry to introduce another round of pedantry - Selenium was discovered in 1817 by the Swedish scientists, Jons Jacob Berzelius and Johan Gottlieb Gahn, long before spectroscopy was even thought of (it was first used in 1859).

 

http://publications.iupac.org/ci/2011/3305/5_trofast.html

 

What is even more fascinating, is that Selenium is toxic in large quantities, but important for physiological activity and good health, in both humans and animals, in trace quantities.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Selenium was used to rectify the power in battery chargers.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[old man emu]

Selenium – from Ancient Greek σελήνη (selḗnē) "Moon" – was discovered in 1817 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who noted the similarity of the new element to the previously discovered tellurium (named for the Earth).

 

Selenium has been found to be efficacious in destroying certain alien life forms  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(2001_film)