Did Noah's Flood Occur as Depicted in Genesis

To begin, I think you're merely playing semantics. You agreed to argue for a worldwide flood, not a local one. This may suit some other debate, but not this one, making me win on merits sake.Whether or not I was clear on the matter, global and worldwide are synonyms for each other. The very first synonym for worldwide in Oxford Dictionary is global, and the first synonym for global is worldwide. Some dictionaries make local as an antonym of worldwide. Either way, if this was merely a local flood, how does this fit into your theology? The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. (NIV Genesis 6:5-8)If the flood was local. how was God's attempt to remove the great wickedness of the human race from the face of the Earth and start anew with Noah effective? He left all the Chinese and Egyptians and the Native Americans. Genesis didn't say that they found favor in God's eyes. A localized flood in the Iraqi floodplain isn't the whole world. And in Genesis 7:23 says that only those on the ark survived, and every living thing on the face of the Earth.RebuttalsMy opponent has not covered several topics due to him arguing for a debate that he isn't in. Either way, my arguments from meteorology and biology still stand. The engineering arguments were at least partially debated against with his gopher wood arguments.Genetics and ArchaeologyI don't understand why this adds anything to the discussion, being complete non sequiturs. Science has said we have descended from Africa for yearsMythologyMy opponent says that almost all cultures and religions have flood myths. Of course, there are thousands of flood myths, why do you think yours is true. Why not the Sumerian, Babylonian, Persian, Zoroastrian, Egyptian, and Assyrian flood myths or perhaps the Islamic version of your same story. Either way, what is more likely, a flood engulfing the entirety of Earth, or pre dark age people making mistakes. It isn't like all the stories generally agree upon what happened, nor are all of them global. Celtic myths say the Earth was flooded by blood and a pair survived on a boat made by a titan. Transylvanian myths say man lived in a paradise with meat trees and wine rivers, yet the world flooded when someone broke a promise. Scandinavian myths say that giants survived by clinging to logs to later begat a race of ogres. Even if his argument was valid, without additional argument to show it was Noah's Flood and not others, this is just a broken compass argument. Positive claims require positive evidence, and he has yet to provide any.Even if we take the presumption that this argument was true, would not earlier flood myths be true? Perhaps the Epic of Gilgamesh, a far older text than the Genesis story, that includes their God being angry at man, but warns a single man of future terrors, causing him to build a boat loaded with all living things. When the flood was almost over, the man sent out birds to see if the waters subsided, and when they did he sacrificed animals. Sound similar?http://www.ancient-literature.com...http://www.talkorigins.org...Gopher WoodIt is correct that we really have no idea what species of tree this gopher wood is, if it ever even existed. But either way, wood is wood. Wood bends and eventually snaps under pressure. And no matter what species it is, trees are primarily carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, all nonmetals. If a tree was to be without this you couldn't create cellulose in the tree. Without the advent of nanotechnology and atomic theory, we typically can't make malleable nonmetal material stronger than most of it's metal counterparts. The few nonmetals that rival or surpass metal strength are gems and crystals, with the most famous of whom being diamond. Diamond isn't malleable, nor could you build a boat out of it. If the Ark ever existed, it would be more than half the size of the Titanic, and be a considerable portion of an aircraft carrier. To be similar to modern ships, the Ark would require metal like properties such as that of steel, iron, and aluminium so that it wouldn't twist and turn in every direction. However, if a tree was to be primary metal, it would die due to it's lack of ability to create polymers such as cellulose. And how would he cut down these trees if they were made of these materials.Gopher trees could very well still exist, but be under another name. People gave all sorts of names to things that didn't stick, and we don't have perfect archaeological records. If the flood was local, the trees could just be in Northern Africa or in other parts of Asia Minor. But why does this even matter? Why did the wood have to be special? It could just very well be a harder hardwood than most other trees in the area. It didn't have to be magical.