If you knew stories about the lake, wouldn't you try to get away from it? And by the pictures away <==> up in most cases. Also, I feel like at least my flight instinct prefers higher ground.
Not saying the 8 survivors didn't know what's up, but stuff like this is definitely how religious stories get formed in general.
You don't want to be very close to a tree that is falling over because of the way the roots tear up the ground. Or, if the tree has been cut down and its direction of fall is not clear of obstructions, the cut end of the trunk could fly around in unexpected ways. Best to be well clear on the far side of the direction of fall.
I don't think you'd necessarily have to know a lot about chemistry, just some observation of volcanism. The ancient Grecian knew that ground vents & volcanoes produced noxious fumes (e.g. hydrogen sulfide), and that volcanoes can explode and kill people in fairly obvious ways.
Not to say you could have figured out the carbon dioxide part, but you could have developed an understanding deeper than "god" or "spirits".
It's easy to say so with the benefit of hindsight and centuries of accumulated scientific knowledge, but I'd say it's pretty understandable to pin such an odd and eerie event on an "evil spirit" or something similar.
I'm sure humans in several hundred years will be able to take a similarly hindsighted stance on the things that we don't have explanations for today.
"I mean, you don't have to know about quantum mechanics, but honestly thinking that there's some magic invisible energy causing the universe to expand? I mean seriously, I think I probably could have come up with some kind of explanation better than 'Dark Energy.'"
His name is James, James Cameron
The bravest pioneer
No budget too steep, no sea too deep
Who's that?
It's him, James Cameron
James, James Cameron explorer of the sea
With a dying thirst to be the first
Could it be? Yeah that's him!
James Cameron
--credit: South Park
The Tigris/Euphrates basin (Mesopotamia) was flooded regularly, and given that it was a cradle of our agricultural civilization 5-10K years ago i, being an atheist who sees Jesus story as an alien visit record, read the Noah story almost as just a real ship's log :)
Most alien stories have all the hallmarks of theism: the whole appeal to superior intelligence/technology, that they are interested in human kind, they intervene in human affairs per an undefined (to us) metric, non-believers are just ignoring the revealed truth/facts i.e. it's their fault, not the fault of weak or non-existence facts, and so on.
If aliens are visiting earth then it seems to me they're like E.T. (the movie): botanists who could give two shits about humans other than not getting caught. Or entomologists, geologist, what have you. There's a lot more interesting stuff happening on the planet than humans. But humans are full of self-importance and gods and aliens play a role in reemphasizing that self-importance.
>I've never heard or read anybody say anything like this before.
that would be strange. A lot of science fiction contains a notion of an alien(s) perceived as a God(s) by native people of the planet being visited.
In case of Jesus we have all the typical stuff - medical nanobots and food replicators, alien species in the "skies" who conquered space and time, and we have pretty clear message (well, we have millions of pages of philosophy written about it, so it is my brief short take on it) - take control over and minimize your violence and develop empathy, and that would speed up (or remove the main obstacles to) the development of your civilization to be able to join the others. Tightly managed, if not abolished, violence and high communication capabilities (direct mind to mind like) are what we think as among the characteristics of developed civilizations. May be it is not the result, may be it is the tool to get there?
Anyway, such attempts to help the development of native civilizations is known to be futile (again, well explored in science fiction) and Jesus obviously was an inexperienced eager to help and frustrated by what he observed observer who went rogue. And thus we have the "Cup of Wrath", the communication with the Mission Command when the Command orders that to minimize consequences of the perpetrated Prime Directive violation the "god scenario" would proceed to completion (which probably didn't include real or full death, yet it was obviously something that one would be happy to avoid - may be something like real death with upload moments before, again going along science fiction lines one can interpret that way the communication with "God" during the crucifixion as well as obvious initial weakness/discomfort with the the new body ("don't touch") when Jesus met Mary after the resurrection (also the 2 angels [dressed] in white busy with some chores right there in the cave after Jesus was resurrected) while some time later he gets used to the body and lets Tomas to inspect it). There is a lot in the story that can be clearly interpreted in the science fiction style, and between God and aliens i bet on aliens :)
Now, here is the really fun part - an idea that we probably do have sample of the Jesus' alien DNA somewhere around (despite the aliens' precautions taken like the hard ultra-violet cleaning of all the biological material in the cave tomb of Jesus) - the "Holy Grail" whatever it is, like say the Dan Brown's child/ancestors of Jesus. Would you like to sequence that DNA? And according to the legends the medical nanobots were still on/with the Holy Grail and still functioning.
I think, in this scenario, Heaven and Hell are psychological tools invented by an alien race to condition society for colonization. So, hypothetically speaking, no.
