Why are there so many flood myths worldwide that pretty much all go the same way
>god angry
>flood Earth
>only a few chosen survive
Flood stories are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into prehistory the globe over.
certainly this isn't just coincidence, right? Might there have been a global flood at some point in the past couple thousand years?
I suspect that it's more than one flood.
Floods aren't uncommon natural disasters, and without writing to nail down the dates, oral tradition is the way that'd survive in a culture.
Meltwater pulse 1A occurred in a period of rising sea level and rapid climate change, known as Termination I, when the retreat of continental ice sheets was going on during the end of the last ice age. Several researchers have narrowed the period of the pulse to between 13,500 and 14,700 calendar years ago with its peak at about 13,800 calendar years ago
during which global sea level rose between 16 meters (52 ft) and 25 meters (82 ft) in about >400–500 years
this is interesting, but it still doesn't tell you if a lot happened all at once during that time frame.
Also interesting to look into are the Missoula Floods
these cataclysmic floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age.
>>411988
>Might there have been a global flood at some point in the past couple thousand years
No, literally no evidence supports this
One interesting idea related to the biblical flood story is that it refers to the black sea joining with the Mediterranean, obviously exaggerated to a global flood after being passed down through oral traditions, but potentially this scenario could have been one hell of a flood in the eastern Mediterranean
>>411988
Why are there so many farming stories worldwide that pretty much all go the same way
>plant seeds
>wait
>harvest
Farm stories are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into prehistory the globe over.
certainly this isn't just coincidence, right? Might there have been a global farm at some point in the past couple thousand years?
It's almost like people living in a stone age river valley would perceive a major flood as apocalyptic
It's weird how people who live around diseased pigs would say eating them is evil
It's weird how a culture of misogynists would believe in a tribe of woman who ruin everything far away from male control
It's weird how people who frequently watch jackals dig up graves would associate them with underworld gods
It's weird how people who live on a dry grassland would consider the clear blue sky a deity
>>412072
except farming isn't a cataclysm, idiort.
>>411988
good question
salt levels in the ocean are less than 0.00001% of what they would be if the earth was as old as old-earth propositors claim (~1000 degree of salt per one degree of H20)
the old age of the earth is based on an unproven speculation of uniformitarianism, which unfortunately many people believe to be a fact and the only way for thinking about these things.
>>412843
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD221_1.html
It normally has to do eith abrahamic religions coming from around the nile, which was constantly flooded. But the fun answer is that it is allegorical the the lifting of the ice bergs 20k years ago and closing things like the russian alaskin straight
>>412123
There's also stories about lightning strikes, fires, volcanoes, earthquakes, plagues and so forth wherever you go but these don't seem to get as many iffy infographics. The fixation on flood myths is a peculiar holdover from the days when geology was popularly considered the challenger to christianity.
>>412918
>the Nile
Try Mesopotamia.
>>412953
Great, twice as many rivers
>>412885
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing here
>>412935
so you're saying that there are many stories about other natural disasters, so why does nobody try and prove them? good question, people should be investigating that. however, the reason the flood is prevalent is that all the stories are very similar.
again, all evolutionary old-earth "science" is based on the unproven assumption of uniformitarianism
>>411988
>Might there have been a global flood at some point in the past couple thousand years?
There was. It's a known fact.
One can assume that there were many thriving early civilizations along the coast of landmasses like this that were inundated.
>>412984
this area of the world has many tales of great floods destroying everything and leaving little survivors.
I can only imagine the west coast of India, where humans spread to in large numbers 70,000 years ago after leaving Africa might be hiding some sunken cities.
>>411988
Most early agricultural civilizations were formed along rivers.
Rivers flood a lot and this event can be very destructive to these early agricultural communities.
Therefore, many early agricultural communities came up with fables about how a great flood came along and wiped out their civilization.
That's really all there is to it.
>>412984
Reminds me of Sláine.
Because all early civilizations rose up in flood plains, egypt, mesopotamia, indus, yellow river and so on. So they all had big floods.
OP is using a näive version of epistemology. Note his scared quote in the word science. Uniformitarianism isn't and it never was considerated to be a "provable" assumption, it is argued among philosophers on a epistemological basis. Idiot.
*considered
>>412980
>the reason the flood is prevalent is that all the stories are very similar.
Yeah but I'm sure if you look so will the ones about, eg, fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_of_fire
Well actually that one does get lots of commentary from UFO people so maybe bad example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_mythology#Some_mythological_parallels
Lots of writing on the parallels between hero's journey stories, but does that lead to speculation that there was one original hero? Not really.
>>413009
>this area of the world has many tales of great floods destroying everything and leaving little survivors.
You mean a place that's tectonically unstable, experience extreme monsoon climates, and the occasional typhoon and cyclone have stories about massive climactic water based events?
That's strange.
>>412984
Looks like middle earth honestly.
>>413130
It's almost as if he based it upon the real world...
>>412984
so wait, what if there used to be full on civilizations with advanced technology in those areas, but they globalwarming-ed their civilization to death, and the only humans that survived were the ones in the extremely isolated mountains which didn't become submerged by rising sea levels
>>413142
>>413106
you sound like a lot of fun
>>413159
>global warming
>not comet/asteroid strike
Get out.
It's likely because floods are a fairly common global occurrence, cataclysms are a fairly common component of myths, and the similarities you pointed out are incredibly broad. This reminds me of folk who try to claim there was an ancient global society because various cultures all drew circles and stick figures.
>>413159
Where are you getting all that from?
>>413159
Yeah, it's also part of the Solutrean hypothesis. But it likely wasn't their doing.
Most early civilizations had to live incredibly close to water to be able to survive. For example, if you live in a river floodplain, you have access to both fresh water and fertile soil to farm with. Since you're an early civilization and you have yet to master nature, instead you try to appease it (in the form of gods or one god). When a flood happens (which is bound to the longer you live on a floodplain) you assume you fucked up big time appeasing the god(s) and through oral tradition the story becomes exaggerated into a worldwide flood.
Assuming that because many cultures had worldwide flood myths that a worldwide flood must have happened is like assuming that because many cultures had love goddesses, a love goddess must exist. Or that because pyramids exist in many cultures, there must have been some form of advanced comminicsion system/aliens, rather than the fact that pyramids happen to be the easiest way to build big structures with relatively simple tools. The similarities are there because all the cultures are made up of humans living in similar circumstances.
>>413159
>thousands of years from now, people living in the coastal metropolises of the Rocky Mountains will debate whether "New York" was real or just an ancient legend
>>413202
Look at this.
>>413213
>>413075
ah, I see. thanks for the info. it's interesting to know there's more similarity than just the flood
>>411988
I'm a fan of the idea that a lot of these ancient civilizations used "the world" in the context of all they knew of their own geography. That combined with the commonality of floods gives the illusions of a global flood that covered the earth.
>>412075
Wow, weird
>>413130
Gee, I wonder why....
>>413009
Vedic flood myths, however, consider the flood destruction to be a permanent, cyclical event in a universe. It is not a one time thing.
It is also not because God was angry. Deities in these tales are the protectors and guardians from the inevitable flood.
>>411988
Because floods are a common occurrence just about every where in the world? It's like asking why so many ancient cultures venerated the Sun.
I think it may just be as simple as civilization tended to develop along waterways and coasts, which are always subject to flooding. Serious flooding is always a major disaster, even today. Really serious shit like the Japanese tsunami a few years ago is certainly godlike in its scale and effects.
So if you're gonna write about a major disaster in order to teach a lesson or flesh out your creation myth, flooding is gonna leap right to mind.
>>412038
>but potentially this scenario could have been one hell of a flood in the eastern Mediterranean
This is what orthodox tradition also supports.
Here in Romania close to the center you can see rocks like the ones at the bottom of the ocean, a sign that there was either a flood that moved them long time ago or sign of ocean even longer time ago.
>>412029
I really want to see the Channelled Scablands. Old geology prof of mine saw the treatment of Bretz as one of the two black marks in the history of the USGS which he otherwise had boundless respect for,.
>>412075
>>It's weird how a culture of misogynists would believe in a tribe of woman who ruin everything far away from male control
>>414038
was he really treated badly? I know at first many people were extremely skeptical, but I didn't think he was ridiculed.
>>416490
Joseph Pardee was initially unconvinced, but came round and had evidence of glacial lake Missoula, but was told to lay off by his superiors at the USGS.
Not the USGS but the Geological Society of Washington D.C. basically organised an academic gang-rape for him, they organised for him to speak at a presentation of competing theories, it was basically him up against six senior academics which was probably an attempt to discredit him.
>>418642
I can't even understand why they would fight so hard to discredit something like this.
what was the motive?
>>411988
>so many flood myths worldwide
All of them which aren't appropriations of the colonial's culture by native mythmakers are from the ME, and that's becasue of the flood of the Black Sea, whish used to be entirely steppes.
>>412980
>I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing here
Sodium is lost to the formation of basalt.
>>420005
Bunch of stuffy old cunts, basically. Continental drift only took hold surprisingly late and Wegener was rejected with fervour, with only a few champions to consider his work seriously.
>>420018
And the flooding of the marshes that are now the gulf of Persia.
>>412038
>One interesting idea related to the biblical flood story is that it refers to the black sea joining with the Mediterranean
Source?
>>420103
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis
Looks like it's not as likely now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods
These are just in the recent hundred years and recent history of record history.
Throughout human history, floods happen every year and such, there will be myths about that.
>>412075
One of these is not like the other!
