*Back to the topic that started this thread*
Here\'s my 2 cents. I think that there was definately some mass destruction caused by God, it could have been a flood, maybe not. So many other religions have a similar story. For example, in Egyptian mythology, Ra got sick of man and decided to destroy man. Ra had Horobus blanket the earth in fire, but all the people in the shadows, unseen by the sun, we unharmed. So Ra went and sent his eye, in the form of Sextet(sp?) to burn the people in hiding with flaming sword. Before Sextet killed eveyone Ra was thinking he should keep some people alive, so he tricked Sextet into stopping by creating a pool of wine mixed with blood. When Sextet saw it she couldn\'t help but drink it all, and all those who remained were saved.
The point is, we can\'t fully understand what happened way back when, stories change, but the main message still remains. Almost every culture has a story of the earth being comsumed by something that killed off most of man.
I believe it happened, but I don\'t know how it happened. Or for that matter, who specifically survived.