Genesis 7-9 and all the rabbit trails

I'm not sure what got us onto the discussion of whether a Christian should use force to protect him/herself and his/her family, but we went there. It was probably 9:6-7, the curse God brings against people who shed human blood... Regardless of the curse, our discussion lead us to thinking about whether a Christian should defend themselves from murderers. Some of us thought that to defend our family a Christian has the right to use any means necessary. Some of us thought we should defend our family, but not kill. I don't think we'll come to a definitive answer anytime soon. One thing we did agree on is that killing another human does something to your soul, and you are never the same again.

I found it interesting that God brings up murder after the flood. It's almost as if the whole flood thing was to wipe out the murdering line of Cain. I wonder if God felt like he didn't take a hard enough line with Cain, letting him produce murdering progeny...

We also pondered the idea that it hadn't rained prior to the flood, that somehow all the water of the world was contained in two domes, one in the sky and one under the ground. I imagine when water started falling from the sky, it must have seemed quite ominous to Noah's generation, similar to what the people of Chernobyl felt like when the sky dropped black rain on them.

We also puzzled over what Noah being the most righteous in his generation meant. Was he just a moral fellow? Why then did he get so hopelessly drunk? If Jesus was the most righteous man who ever lived, we get a very different idea of what Righteousness was: here is a guy who was known as a glutton and a drunkard, who constantly mocked authority, turned the most sacred building in the country upside down, and even told one of his disciples to get away from him because he reminded him of Satan... Righteousness is more than not doing bad things!

We're just unsure of what more it is.