Global Warming

[DrBubbaLove]

My point of view concerning the flood is from a non-literal interpretation of the event, as well as what the context of the word "world" would mean to the people of that time. I am looking at it as a description of Noah's "world", not the entire earth. And as I mentioned earlier, the 8200 event rising global sea level by about 2 meters due to the Lake Agassiz outbreak breaching the St. of Bosphorus increasing the size of the Black Sea by more than a third and encroaching a portion of the mountains of Ararat satisfies both the biblical and scientific descriptions.


A supernatural event does not have to be sudden.


Again, there are both literal and non-literal views of the flood event by Christians.


Again, literal vs. non-literal.

Am familiar with the concept of literal vs non-literal renderings of Biblical stories. Usually non-literal messages are given for our edification. I see no value or edification for imagining this story originates from even a Katrina level event. At best I guess one could say God was really miffed at all of mankind, so He allowed this apparently legendary local flood of Noah's valley to demonstrate His Wrath as a demonstration of ---what? The power of nature?

Why wouldn't everyone hearing this legend smack their heads and ask why God did not just tell Noah to move his family to safety?
Why make him spend all the time building a boat he did not need when a wagon and Two Men would have been sufficient?

I guess I do not see the value of making a legendary supernatural event into something very ordinary. Why would that flood be recorded and not some other bad flooding?

 

[RickG]

The proper question would be why should we think He has too?
Even if He did caused it alla naturale, why should we think He could not and would not want to cover His tracks?

I would hardly think that placing a rainbow in the sky so the event would never be forgotten is covering His tracks.

 

[RickG]

Am familiar with the concept of literal vs non-literal renderings of Biblical stories. Usually non-literal messages are given for our edification. I see no value or edification for imagining this story originates from even a Katrina level event. At best I guess one could say God was really miffed at all of mankind, so He allowed this apparently legendary local flood of Noah's valley to demonstrate His Wrath as a demonstration of ---what? The power of nature?

I think you seem to be misunderstanding what I am describing. I am not suggesting a local flood, I am describing a very large regional flood triggered by a quite large and rapid global sea level rise.

Why wouldn't everyone hearing this legend smack their heads and ask why God did not just tell Noah to move his family to safety?
Why make him spend all the time building a boat he did not need when a wagon and Two Men would have been sufficient?

Let's keep in mind that this is a Physical and Life Science forum. What I am trying to do is explain the event with supporting scientific evidence. The only way this can be done is through a non-literal interpretation of the description of the event. Thus again, I suggest that the word "world" does not mean the entire physical earth. Conversely, if I view the event through a strict literal interpretation including the entire physical earth, the scientific evidence not only does not support it, but shows that no global flood of any kind covering the entire earth ever happened. Floods leave a very recognizable layer of sediments and debris. Such an event would leave a layer of sediments and debris world wide. No such layer exists, and yes, this layer has been searched for extensively, beginning with naturalist and clergymen looking for the physical evidence of Noah's flood. In fact, it was from this search that the field of Geology emerged.

I guess I do not see the value of making a legendary supernatural event into something very ordinary. Why would that flood be recorded and not some other bad flooding?

I prefer to describe the flood as a Divine Event, rather than a supernatural one.

 

[Kenny'sID]

So again, if Global Warming is going to cause the level of the ocean to rise, and given these other facts, why is a global flood of Biblical proportions so unbelievable?

Maybe more often than not, it has nothing to do with the possibility or not, but more with just another way of attacking something Biblical in order to disprove the Bible, and in turn...disprove God.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

I think you seem to be misunderstanding what I am describing. I am not suggesting a local flood, I am describing a very large regional flood triggered by a quite large and rapid global sea level rise.


Let's keep in mind that this is a Physical and Life Science forum. What I am trying to do is explain the event with supporting scientific evidence. The only way this can be done is through a non-literal interpretation of the description of the event. Thus again, I suggest that the word "world" does not mean the entire physical earth. Conversely, if I view the event through a strict literal interpretation including the entire physical earth, the scientific evidence not only does not support it, but shows that no global flood of any kind covering the entire earth ever happened. Floods leave a very recognizable layer of sediments and debris. Such an event would leave a layer of sediments and debris world wide. No such layer exists, and yes, this layer has been searched for extensively, beginning with naturalist and clergymen looking for the physical evidence of Noah's flood. In fact, it was from this search that the field of Geology emerged.


I prefer to describe the flood as a Divine Event, rather than a supernatural one.

I see. Science must be able to verify Supernatural events occurred naturally or else it did not happen. Where does the Bible non-literally (obviously) tell us God is limited to acting only within the natural order of things?

Again the effort described to "prepare" took considerable time. Much longer than it would to simply move. So the thought is still rather muddled in that it would have been far more efficient and easier to just tell Noah to move to safer higher ground. Rather negates the whole save the animals and just a handful of people as well. Also difficult to explain a rapid sea level rise accompanied by 40 days of rain, with water levels covering locals mountains followed by in comparison a painfully slow drain, what is it, a 150 days before mountains appear again. How would science explain a rapid rise followed by a slow drain?

Most of us tend to live near the oceans because life is generally better there, but those inland and all the animals with them would be spared and may not even notice the event. Am not sure why such a non-literal version of the story should be more appealing to Christians or understandable to science.

I realize this is a science forum, but why should Christians pretend that science would understand how something supernatural occurs and therefore able to tell us if it happened or not?

 

[RickG]

I see. Science must be able to verify Supernatural events occurred naturally or else it did not happen. Where does the Bible non-literally (obviously) tell us God is limited to acting only within the natural order of things?

I am making no such suggestion. Please try to understand, what I am suggesting is that there is no reason why God could not use the natural resources he created in his Divine Creation, the event encompassed an entire year.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

[Staff edit].

My point is we cannot say how or even what was done to create a global flood, or even what else may have occurred at same time unknown to us. Without knowing anything other than God causing a lot of water to appear as 40 days of global rain, I would think science incapable of telling us what that would or would look like in the form of evidence today.

As far a theories, I rather like my dad's book better than just imagining another, or rather the last of apparently many ocean level shifts that could have much easier been avoided by moving inland. My dad's concept was not an original thought. A giant thick global ice shield surrounding the earth had previously maintained relatively mild and constant global temperatures in a green house effect. Sunlight would be filtered by the shield such that night would be rather brighter twilight and days much hazier glow. Much less air movement than now due to relatively constant temps and participation primarily fog or dew driven. Land mass could be imagined relatively flat compared to now with warm shallow seas surrounding it. Not sure if his view went with the super-continent idea made popular back then but that doesn't really matter as land movement occurs either way. The global ice shield is broken in some manner that results in 40 days of rain raising waters globally over the lower lying land masses. Weight of water added above land masses gradually starts causing shifts in the upper surfaces of the earth, especially over thinner or weaker mass divisions, driving some of them under others and also causing uplifts in that movement. That movement creates vastly higher moments and deeper trenches created to slowly contain the water draining back into the deeper oceans formed.

No rainbows would have been present before the event as atmosphere was stable and sunlight too scattered from the ice shield to form them anyway. Believe he imagined the radiation levels accumulated in the waters from the shield, would confound and confuse the assumptions needed for carbon dating. In any case, the age of the earth and as well as the human race never seemed to be a big issue with my dad (as is not with many Catholics and other Christians).

 

[DrBubbaLove]

I am making no such suggestion. Please try to understand, what I am suggesting is that there is no reason why God could not use the natural resources he created in his Divine Creation, the event encompassed an entire year.

Agreed, but it did appear a preference for imagining it occurring naturally to nearly the exclusion that He is not so limited.
Sea levels have apparently risen and fallen multiple times and relative to people, apparently not always everywhere at the same time. Thus we have legends of entire civilizations vanishing under water while the rest of the world remains untouched. So whatever one imagines this event to be, it was globally catastrophic and I believe all the legends suggest very few humans at all survived it, certainly the Jewish version of it suggests as much.

Why God would have someone capable of moving and with plenty of notice to do it, several times even in case they forgot the keys or something, to spend that time to build a boat instead would baffle me in accepting a rapid rise in sea level. Or why they would even need a boat that size given animals would need no such protection to have most of them still exist today.

 

[RickG]

My point is we cannot say how or even what was done to create a global flood, or even what else may have occurred at same time unknown to us. Without knowing anything other than God causing a lot of water to appear as 40 days of global rain, I would think science incapable of telling us what that would or would look like in the form of evidence today.

Keeping in mind that we are discussing science. Yes, science and particularly the geological sciences, tell us a lot about the past. We know how different sediments are formed, under what conditions and the time line involved. We also know how marine sediments are able to be in mountains. Another thing is where did the water come from? Things affecting climate are called forcings and feedbacks. Rain is a feedback, that is it is a continuous cycle of evaporation, transport, and rain. The entire atmospheric content of the earth cycles completely every 7 - 10 days. Rain cannot cause such a dramatic sea level rise. In fact, even if all the atmospheric moisture on earth were to fall out as rain it would only cover the earth in 1 inch of water. From the fountains below? Sure, there is an enormous amount of water contained in the earths crust and even mantle, but not enough to cover the highest mountain.

As far a theories, I rather like my dad's book better than just imagining another, or rather the last of apparently many ocean level shifts that could have much easier been avoided by moving inland. My dad's concept was not an original thought. A giant thick global ice shield surrounding the earth had previously maintained relatively mild and constant global temperatures in a green house effect. Sunlight would be filtered by the shield such that night would be rather brighter twilight and days much hazier glow. Much less air movement than now due to relatively constant temps and participation primarily fog or dew driven. Land mass could be imagined relatively flat compared to now with warm shallow seas surrounding it. Not sure if his view went with the super-continent idea made popular back then but that doesn't really matter as land movement occurs either way. The global ice shield is broken in some manner that results in 40 days of rain raising waters globally over the lower lying land masses. Weight of water added above land masses gradually starts causing shifts in the upper surfaces of the earth, especially over thinner or weaker mass divisions, driving some of them under others and also causing uplifts in that movement. That movement creates vastly higher moments and deeper trenches created to slowly contain the water draining back into the deeper oceans formed.

Looking at a global ice shield, I gather that is a reference to the "snowball earth" concept. Yes, there have been a few such events, the last ending some 650 million years ago. But let's look at the ice caps now. If all the ice on earth melted it would only raise sea level a bit over 100 metres, that's no where near covering the highest mountain.

 

[The Barbarian]

95% of them describe a worldwide flood.

Show me your evidence for "95%." Since 83% of all internet statistics are made up, I'd just like to see the data.

A lot of cultures do describe a flood, but not all of them worldwide, and they wildly differ as to what happened in the flood they describe.

Which leads us to conclude that either people settle near rivers and have enountered big floods at some time in their history, or that myths are not very accurate ways to investigate pre-history.

Mostly, thought, I'd like to see the data for 95%.

Because we have evidence for sea level rises in the past, but no evidence for the entire Earth being covered by water just a few thousand years ago.

There was a flood of Biblical proportions in the Middle East back when there were people to see it. But not worldwide. Since the Bible doesn't say it's worldwide, that's really not a problem.

When two separate cultures have the same "myth" in their body of folklore, their ancestors must have either experienced the same event, or they both descended from a common ancestral source which itself experienced the event.

Or big floods have occurred more than once. One of those.

The only credible way to understand the widespread, similar flood legends is to recognize that all people living today, even though separated geographically, linguistically, and culturally, have descended from the few real people who survived a real global flood, on a real boat which eventually landed on a real mountain. Their descendants now fill the globe, never to forget the real event.

Or those other things. Evidence says "one of those other things."

What amazes me is that people believe in one, that being global warming (which I agree is true, just not man-caused),

Even the oil companies now agree it's man-made. Pretty hard, now that we're deep on a sunspot minimum, and the Earth is still warming up. Nature is working to cool it off and man is working to warm it up.

You say there's no world-wide flood layer, but who's to say where that layer would reside?

Somewhere between now and a few million years ago. And nothing.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Show me your evidence for "95%." Since 83% of all internet statistics are made up, I'd just like to see the data.

A lot of cultures do describe a flood, but not all of them worldwide, and they wildly differ as to what happened in the flood they describe.

Which leads us to conclude that either people settle near rivers and have enountered big floods at some time in their history, or that myths are not very accurate ways to investigate pre-history.

Mostly, thought, I'd like to see the data for 95%.



There was a flood of Biblical proportions in the Middle East back when there were people to see it. But not worldwide. Since the Bible doesn't say it's worldwide, that's really not a problem.



Or big floods have occurred more than once. One of those.



Or those other things. Evidence says "one of those other things."



Even the oil companies now agree it's man-made. Pretty hard, now that we're deep on a sunspot minimum, and the Earth is still warming up. Nature is working to cool it off and man is working to warm it up.



Somewhere between now and a few million years ago. And nothing.

What is it with "proof". Science does even deal with a yardstick of "proof" that is being demanded here. Estimates vary from a hundred or more ancients legends to over 500 hundred or more accounts, and covering all the major land masses. I would think just one per major land area would suffice as something very odd at the very least if nothing of the sort every happened. It is apparently the widest spread myth of all myths in both occurrence and many similarities.
Cannot vouch for his credibility for the 95% figure, but apparently James Perloff is the source;
"About UK Essays - Find out more about UKEssays.com
"In 95 percent of the more than two hundred flood legends, the flood was worldwide; in 88 percent, a certain family was favored; in 70 percent, survival was by mean of a boat; in 67 percent, animal were also saved; in 66 percent, the flood was due to the wickedness of man; in 66 percent, the survivors have been forewarned; in 57 percent , they ended up on a mountain; in 35 percent, birds were sent out from the boat; and in 9 percent, exactly eight people were spared."
....
"Preserved in the myths and legend of almost every people on the face of the glove is the memory of the great catastrophe. While myths may not have any scientific value, yet they are significant in indicating the facts that an impression was left in the minds of the races of mankind that could not be erased."

We accept far less as "proof" for other things(Atlantis for just one of many examples).

South America -Aztecs have several legends similar to the story, one of CoxCox and his wife being the only human survivors of a global flood. Coxcox - Wikipedia
Mediterranean area - Greeks have the legend of Deucalion, and his wife Pyrrha, were warned of the impending disaster. This fortunate couple was placed in a large wooden chest by one of the immortals named Prometheus. Deucalion - Wikipedia
China - there are several legends of global flood, apparently, one being from a people known as Nosu. According to their legend, a messenger came to Earth to warn three brothers that a flood was coming. Only the youngest, Dum, listened.
Lost Ten Tribes / Ten Lost Tribes: Israelites in Eastern Asia: China...3
Irag area- Babylonian empire. The story of the Gilgamesh and a flood. Gilgamesh flood myth - Wikipedia
American Indians - Mexico area - to the ancient Toltecs legend, states that after men had multiplied following a great deluge, they erected a tall zacuali or tower[interesting connection to Tower of Babel from Genesis], to preserve themselves in the event of a second deluge. However, their languages were confounded and they went to separate parts of the earth.
North America - multiple tribes various myths -An Algonquin Story - the god Michabo was hunting one day when entire world flooded.
Flood Myth - An Algonquin Story
Australia - Aborigines - Only the highest mountain peaks were visible, like islands in the sea. Many men and animals were drowned.Some Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines: A Legend of the Great Flood

That is a quick grab. And sure one can say there are variations within the myths, but what culture wouldn't put their own spin on a legend? That is what makes story telling around camp fires fun. Such stories have some basis and the fact so many all over share a lot of common elements should be troubling to people that need only one story about Atlantis to buy it.

But this sums up what I have been saying about the flood and science's abilities from my first mention of the flood "evidence" in this thread.
Flood myth - Wikipedia
"A world-wide deluge, such as described in Genesis, is incompatible with modern understanding of natural history, especially geology and paleontology."

Nothing natural about this global flood myth.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Keeping in mind that we are discussing science. Yes, science and particularly the geological sciences, tell us a lot about the past. We know how different sediments are formed, under what conditions and the time line involved. We also know how marine sediments are able to be in mountains. Another thing is where did the water come from? Things affecting climate are called forcings and feedbacks. Rain is a feedback, that is it is a continuous cycle of evaporation, transport, and rain. The entire atmospheric content of the earth cycles completely every 7 - 10 days. Rain cannot cause such a dramatic sea level rise. In fact, even if all the atmospheric moisture on earth were to fall out as rain it would only cover the earth in 1 inch of water. From the fountains below? Sure, there is an enormous amount of water contained in the earths crust and even mantle, but not enough to cover the highest mountain.


Looking at a global ice shield, I gather that is a reference to the "snowball earth" concept. Yes, there have been a few such events, the last ending some 650 million years ago. But let's look at the ice caps now. If all the ice on earth melted it would only raise sea level a bit over 100 meters, that's no where near covering the highest mountain.

Science tells about evidence of natural events. As none of us have a clue what God did, am not sure how anyone could claim science can exclude it simply because they cannot see it. What would they base what they are looking for on?

No, not a snowball theory. My dad was talking about a giant thick ice shield miles above and surrounding the whole earth. The shield filters sunlight so it is evenly disbursed creating globally mild and stable temperatures like a giant greenhouse. The earth would be lush with growth. The snowball theory I understood as a frozen earth, whereas dad had it a lush and green pole to pole, with only shallow seas around dry, relatively flat land. Very different scenario pre-flood than a giant frozen planet.

 

[The Barbarian]

So no data, just a nice round 95%?

That's kinda what I thought. Notice that the Bible wouldn't be in that 95%, since it doesn't say the flood was worldwide.

 

[The Barbarian]

No, not a snowball theory. My dad was talking about a giant thick ice shield miles above and surrounding the whole earth.

First, it wouldn't be up there. A solid shell of ice would just break up and fall to Earth. Roche limit, you know.
Roche Limit

The shield filters sunlight so it is evenly disbursed creating globally mild and stable temperatures like a giant greenhouse.

Wrong. It would just darken the Earth. Even a few dozen meters of ice makes a dark shadow.

The earth would be lush with growth.

Frozen, actually.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

So no data, just a nice round 95%?

That's kinda what I thought. Notice that the Bible wouldn't be in that 95%, since it doesn't say the flood was worldwide.

Given people willing to accept a rather singular tail/account in comparison about Atlantis to the point of great effort to "find" it, am not sure how we shrug off all the flood myths as nothing so easily. Is that scientific data as in hard evidence, no, but does point to something. Again, science has no means to postulate theory about what a Supernatural event from the past would look like to us now.

I can accept that everything we can see now appears to be understandable to us as occurring from natural processes over a very long time. What I cannot accept is someone insisting we can then conclude there is nothing there we could attribute to a supernatural event. Understandable does not even have to mean in science that we are certain. So how could it exclude something we cannot possibly understand, especially when our understanding is based on what is naturally observable?

 

[DrBubbaLove]

First, it wouldn't be up there. A solid shell of ice would just break up and fall to Earth. Roche limit, you know.
Roche Limit



Wrong. It would just darken the Earth. Even a few dozen meters of ice makes a dark shadow.

Frozen, actually.

Am not sure how to apply a limit put on single objects in orbit to a giant complete shell of ice. Actually not a fan of that ice canopy explanation, which is simply a human attempt at trying to explain a supernatural Global flood using a far flung concept that if accepted provides some basis for a more natural cause of the flood resulting from the destruction of said canopy. The ice shield itself presents some significant issues for having natural origins and proper thickness for flood volume without making the earth too hot. Interesting science with sufficient technology can imagine building a Dyson sphere to harness the energy of a star, but God cannot be imagined able to build an ice sphere to trap the proper amount of energy coming from a star to a planet.

The ice canopy idea my father expounded upon (not an original theory) is just a frozen version of the water canopy theory. That later theory also proposed for global flood support. The water canopy theory was discredited by science for several reasons including needing to be too thick for volume of water needed for 40 days of rain and that thickness would trap too much heat (am not sure they considered the contribution mentioned in the Bible from ground water movement). Note even there science talks about discrediting the water canopy theory not disproving, which is how science must talk about something proposed that has never been observed and no understandable means to fully match the results with what is observed or understand how it could naturally occur in the first place.

 

[The Barbarian]

Given people willing to accept a rather singular tail/account in comparison about Atlantis to the point of great effort to "find" it, am not sure how we shrug off all the flood myths as nothing so easily.

I'm sure almost all flood myths have something to do any of a very large number of huge floods that have happened. The Biblical account could easily be about the flooding of what is now the Black Sea basin. Or maybe not. Those who focus on the possible historical details are missing then entire point of Noah and the Flood.

Is that scientific data as in hard evidence, no, but does point to something.

Of course. It's not surprising that Akkadian and Sumerian myths tell of horrible destructive floods, since the The Tigris and Euphrates valleys often had such floods. The Nile merely overflowed predictably on an annual basis,and so Egyptian flood myths don't have a world-covering flood that killed all people.

Again, science has no means to postulate theory about what a Supernatural event from the past would look like to us now.

One can make any myth plausible by thinking up enough non-scriptural miracles to cover the flaws in the story.

I can accept that everything we can see now appears to be understandable to us as occurring from natural processes over a very long time. What I cannot accept is someone insisting we can then conclude there is nothing there we could attribute to a supernatural event.

If God wanted us to believe a world-wide flood, He would have told us there was one. And He certainly wouldn't have faked evidence showing there wasn't one, if He had done it.

Understandable does not even have to mean in science that we are certain. So how could it exclude something we cannot possibly understand, especially when our understanding is based on what is naturally observable?

True, but in the absence of scriptural support for a worldwide flood, it seems pointless to argue that there was one.

 

[RickG]

Science tells about evidence of natural events. As none of us have a clue what God did, am not sure how anyone could claim science can exclude it simply because they cannot see it. What would they base what they are looking for on?

The science I am speaking of does not address the biblical flood at all, it is science specific to post glaciation and sea level rise events. I am not trying to exclude anything as to what God did or did not do. Keep in mind that I am addressing this from two perspectives, that as both of a Christian and a scientist. I know from my academic background in the earth sciences and experience as a professional scientist that there has never been a flood on the earth coming anywhere near covering the highest mountain. Thus, the reason I consider both a non-literal interpretation of the story as well as the context (meaning) of the word "world", not intended to mean the entire physical earth as we know it today, rather the world known to Noah.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

The science I am speaking of does not address the biblical flood at all, it is science specific to post glaciation and sea level rise events. I am not trying to exclude anything as to what God did or did not do. Keep in mind that I am addressing this from two perspectives, that as both of a Christian and a scientist. I know from my academic background in the earth sciences and experience as a professional scientist that there has never been a flood on the earth coming anywhere near covering the highest mountain. Thus, the reason I consider both a non-literal interpretation of the story as well as the context (meaning) of the word "world", not intended to mean the entire physical earth as we know it today, rather the world known to Noah.

The myth appears to be "known" by a lot more people than Noah, and that not reasonably explainable from a major local flood.

Am not a young earth proponent by the way, so the 5-7K BC date (or whatever they think it must be) of said flood need not bother my understanding of the Bible.
I get it. We have some very smart people in the human race and you are an educated man in this regard. I accept that. However science can only do so much. Theories are proposed, then over time either rejected by being discredited or even proven false or until a better theory comes along. Sometimes competing theories exist for long periods until one or even both fall by the wayside. But principally and in this case, science is limited in considering only naturally observable causes because we lack both the understanding of and ability to "observe" supernatural causes. We cannot postulate much at all about what we do not understand and cannot observe.

We can indeed say with some degree of confidence that everything we observe appears to be the understandable results of very long periods of naturally occurring events. We insert "natural" in such proclamations for a reason. Even there we often can not even say we are 100% correct in every particular in the "natural" explanation of it. I think the first time I mentioned this, I kept emphasizing and acknowledging that there is no evidence of a 'naturally' occurring global flood. Science would not even know where to look or what to look for in an "unnatural" event, except to say it would not be limited to what we presently know naturally occurs.

Consider some rather smart folks proposing things we observe having extraterrestrial origin precisely for the same sort of reasons, the existence of some presently perceived discontinuity in what would otherwise be a naturally explainable event. That some would need postulate external forces for lack of acceptable (maybe just to them) natural explanations is a similar thought to supernatural events. No am not a alien conspiracist, though it does seem a lot of wasted space for no one else being out there.

My only point is lacking anything approaching 100% certainty that everything we see in rocks/nature is naturally explainable; how then can we say, with anything approaching certainty, that we know something that is not possibly naturally observable or understandable to us has never occurred?

 

[RickG]

My only point is lacking anything approaching 100% certainty that everything we see in rocks/nature is naturally explainable; how then can we say, with anything approaching certainty, that we know something that is not possibly naturally observable or understandable to us has never occurred?

Just to point out a few things I think you will agree with, there are no proofs in science, proofs are exclusive to mathematics. However, science does contain many facts we know to be true. As for theories, in the scientific world a theory is as good as it gets. A scientific theory is completely different from the general dictionary or layman's perspective of a theory, which to them is a guess or idea. In science a theory has a testable hypothesis, and facts to support it. In addition a theory contains predictions based on known facts. If the predictions are falsified, then so is the theory, but if they are found to be correct, then the theory is reinforced. And you are right about the 100% certainty. Scientific predictions are based on statistical reliability. Science is always open to being wrong when new contradictory information comes into the picture. As for a flood that has covered the entire earth, especially within the past 10,000, there is zero physical evidence to support it.