Blowing Your Mind... Bible Style

The current belief held by most churches today seems to be that humans are essentially evil or totally depraved.  One of the verses used to support this is Genesis 6:5.  Below are the surrounding passages.

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.  So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.  Genesis 6:5-8

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.  God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.  So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth."  Genesis 6:11-13

Here, we have a story where God regrets creating humans, so he plans to just get rid of them.  However, Noah finds favor with God, so God tells Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people because they have all  become evil and awful and are making the world a truly horrible place.  Oh, but not you.  You're not part of all people."

How does this seeming contradiction affect our theology?  Also, what does it mean that the amount of wickedness done by humans changes?  Does that mean that we are sometimes more evil than others?  Does being more evil imply that at some point there was more good?

I might write a post in the future regarding my current personal stance on Humanity: All Suck or Just Some Suck?, but I figured that it'd be fun to give the few of you who read this a chance to think about it yourself first so that you can tell me where you think I'm wrong. ;)

Happy thinking!