It is only a matter of time before someone makes the claim that you just made. I've heard this many many many many times before.
Let us start with this.
Peg writes:
the story of a worldwide flood is not unique to the bible... there are hundreds of very similar stories told by different nations around the world
Can you provide some kind of reference(s) for this claim? While it is true that there are various "world wide" flood myths found in various cultures around the world, they are only a hand full, NOT hundreds.
almost every nation and religion on earth teach it to some degree
Um, no. Most of the nations and religions that have ever existed never had a flood myth. Again, YOU make the positive claim. YOU give the support.
i agree with you that some things in the bible are not literal but figurative... but i dont think the flood is one of them
I want to discuss a little about the possible and more simple explanation for the hand full of various cultures who have had some kind of "world wide" flood myth. Can you think of a single other disaster that (1) could destroy an entire civilization (or at least bring it to its knees) and (2) happens more than just a few times in a generation? Where I'm from, I read about floodings every year on the news.
To the people of ancient times, the land where they grew up was literally the entire world TO THEM. If they lived in an area that had the potential for regular disastrous floodings, it does not take the imagination far to come up with a "world wide" flood that wiped out everything.
If what I just said didn't stick, try to think of it this way. How come major ancient cultures like the Greek, Chinese, Mongolian, etc. never had a "world wide" flood myth? All of these cultures' histories pre-date the biblical flood myth. You'd think that someone would have noticed about a flood that covered the highest of mountains.
The closest single historical events I can think of that were almost universally recorded by ancient cultures all around the world were great volcanic eruptions. For example, the santorini eruption happened in the Mediterranian but it affected areas as far as China and its effects recorded by various cultures all around the northern hemisphere.