@ - Fulltimestudent - Thanks for posting that information, it is quite appropriate. Brilliant observation, and that you remembered it.
I always LOVED the story of Noah, and not from the perspective of the 2 by 2 animals, and the 8 saved people, and all that, but from a totally different perspective.
If we were to beleive it was true, then think about the fantasy world that existed before the flood. It would have been like Dungeons and Dragons, meets Lord of the rings, meets Genesis. If "demons" could come down to earth,in the form of a sexually viable man, then why not as the form of a dragon, or a centaur, or ANY form their hearts desired. They would have been the "mighty ones" of old. There offspring would have been all manner of creature, and beast, and perfection of mind and body. A "fantasy" world indeed. Then the struggle of the survival of the "pure" line of Seth, and the proliferation of the "polluted" line of Cain. Its the makings of the greatest fantasy, sci fi,book or movie, EVER.
I have been "studying" the old stories of ancient cultures, and always with the "twist" of pre-deluvian. I am even writing, and have been for years now, a fantasy, sci fi, book, that takes place in this "world". So, i am into this big time.
With this being said, the WTS has been saying, and continues to say, that it NEVER rained before the flood. This is 100 percent part of their "dogma", and logic. The ONLY precipitation, according to WTS, was the "mists and early morning dew", that would water the vegetation. As others above have said, they also beleive in the "water canopy" theory, and that it was the cause of the "flood rains", and that water also came up from the "springs" under the ground.
I know this for a 100 percent fact, as i have used the WTS, and MANY, MANY, other sources, as "study" material for my book, especially and usually only when dealing with "Noahs flood".
The funny thing is that in trying to write my book, set in the pre-flood world, and wanting to prove that it could have really happened, i wound up proving that it, indeed, COULD NOT have happened, or at least NOT on a GLOBAL scale. This changed the "tone" of my book, from a historical/fantasy perspective, to a STRICTLY fantasy perspective, because of it.
The above info, showing how "rain patterns", are found in rocks that are OVER a BILLION years old, is just the start of the abundance of "proof" that it could NOT have been on a global scale. From the water canopys "pressure" on earth, to vegetation NOT being able to survive under water, to the HUGE variety of animal life NEVER have been able to fit on the ark, or evolve in such few generations from the flood to what we have today variaty wise, and many other points.