Was there a worldwide flood?

Just a quick question.I'm prepared to give you the whole 'it was a local flood' thing. Interpretation, blah blah blah. But, and this seems a bit important, the whole point of the flood was to cleanse sin or some crap from the earth, right? Hence why the Christian god gets all uppity and says he's gonna wipe everything out and start again.So - this just about makes sense if it was a global flood. Kinda logically hangs together - god gets angry, destroys world, but gives one good man plus his family plus his pets the chance to survive and rebuild and all that, leaving aside the fact that it sounds like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum.But if it was a local flood? "Hey Noah," says God, "I'm afraid I have to wipe out everything because you're all pissing me off. But it's ok, because I'm not really. There's dry land over there. And, y'know, more animals and stuff." Either he's trying to fool Noah into thinking it's a global flood when it's not, which makes him a vindictive liar, or he *gasp* dosen't know it's not a global flood, which makes him not the all-powerful deity y'all say he is.Tell us which it is, or present to us your latest and greatest cognitive dissonance that you use to internally resolve this particular problem. (Or rant about how it's not really a problem. Or about how your bible doesn't really mean what it says. I'm not choosy really, go nuts.)