...when there've been so many accounts by ancient peoples all over the world as to its veracity?
Because there aren't "so many accounts" that verify an old dude building a big boat and loading all the animals into it to escape a big flood that covered the tallest mountains.
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Why try to refute the flood story when the sedimentary rock layers all over the world prove that theworld was at one time covered in water?
Sure, the whole world was covered with water. Different places
at different times.
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Why try to refute the flood story when bones of hippos and sea animals have been found in places like Nebraska?
Why would hippos in Nebraska be evidence of a flood? Hippos supposedly drowned during the flood wherever they were living. If there were hippos in Nebraska, then it is because they were
living in Nebraska, flood or no flood. You're not thinking very deeply about this.
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The answer is simple; to try to make God go away.
No, because that's what the evidence indicates.
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The only problem with that, is that one has to invent even more bizarre and impossible stories such as the notion ....
No, there is no need to invent anything. There was no single global flood within the past few thousand years. That is what the evidence indicates. Period. Nothing else is relevant to this.
I've done everything the Bible says, even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff! -- Ned Flanders