The Genesis account of creation is not mythical

Thanks Pro. I. Definitions & Outline I search in the Oxford Dictionary gives two definitions: 1. “A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events” 2. “A widely held but false belief or idea”[1] A search in Merriam Webster gives three definitions: 1. “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon” 2. “a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society” 3. “an unfounded or false notion”[2] I anticipate that searches in other dictionaries will yield similar results, and judging by Pro’s first round where he intends to show that “Genesis is not mythical unlike it's neighbors, but that it's based on fact and demonstrates that Yahweh is the only one true God.” that this debate is going to centre around the truth value of the Genesis story, which would discount it from qualifying as a myth under Merriam’s second, and Oxford dictionary’s first and third definitions. It seems rather obvious that Genesis would easily qualify under the first Oxford, and second definitions of Merriam Webster’s as a myth regardless of whether or not the story is true in fact, so I concentrate on attacking the truth value of the story of Genesis. II. Truth Value Genesis quite simply, is false in essentially every single account of creation as understood by science. Genesis depicts a six day creation story with the events in the following order:[3] Day 1: Heavens & Earth were created Light, Day & Night created Day 2: Water & Sky Day 3: Land, Ocean, Vegetation, Trees Day 4: Sun & Moon, Stars Day 5: Life, Birds Day 6: Reproduction, Man III. Timescales The first thing to mention are the timescales involved, which are quite simply absurd given what we know about physics. The Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago,[4] and the universe itself approximately 13.8 billion years ago.[5] No interpretation closes the fact that humans, animals or any living organism was formed within a week of Earth’s formation, as this is roughly 9 orders of magnitude of a discrepancy (!!). Moreover the text reads according to a spontaneous creation story, with homo sapiens, animals etc. created as-is spontaneously, however this goes against what is known in biology, given that we know that species had evolved over extended periods of time, and at no point did any species, and most definitively no ‘kind’ abruptly appear. At no point were there ever two ‘original humans’, as evolution occurs between populations and as such Adam and Eve, the original 2 humans could never have existed.[6] IV. Order of Events The most glaring discrepancy is the creation of the Sun after the creation of the Earth, which we know from modern physics to be completely false. Given that the Sun is over 10x the minimum mass for fusion to occur, the Sun would have certainly become a star long before the Earth ever accreted (given it only needs to be less than 1/10th of its current mass for fusion to begin), which even ignoring the contradiction in the Sun formation, would still invalidate even a cursory reading of Day 1.[7] Furthermore, the very first trees did not evolve until 400 million years ago, and forests did not appear until at least 100 million years later, allegedly these appeared on Day 3, before the Sun, the Moon, The Stars and lifeforms including fish etc appeared. However the Cambrian explosion which first occurred ~600 million years ago and predating fossils clearly contradict this, the Earth contained a massive quantity of life long before trees appeared.[8,9] Furthermore, the Moon was apparently created on Day 4, but this is quite frankly absurd, given that our leading theory of moon formation is the ‘Giant Impact Hypothesis’, which depicts a Mars-Sized body colliding with the Earth and throwing out the material which accreted into the moon.[10] Such a collision would have completely sterilized the Earth of any trace of life that existed on the Earth at the time and vaporized all the oceans . Moreover the Moon is measured at ~4.5 billion years old, which means that trees, and aquatic life are similarly old given they were made on the same ‘day’, but this is absurd for reasons already given. The stars were apparently created on Day 4, however the stars were originally necessary to generate the heavy elements from which the Earth is formed, since the heavy elements are only formed in the death throes of a supernova explosion (from which the Earth is largely formed), which means there is clearly an enormous discrepancy on the ordering of star formation. The stars should have appeared on Day 0, if anywhere at all![11] Another huge contradiction is the formation of the Sun, the Sun is required for there to be day and night on Earth, since ‘night’ is just a shadow of the Sun behind the Earth, so the Sun must have been formed on the first day, or day zero, yet clearly is describes as having been formed on day four (as it’s the greater ‘light’ that governs the day). V. Reproduction?! Reproduction is necessary for evolution to actually occur, without replication then none of Earth’s life would have formed as we see it. Why then is reproduction only motivated by God on day six?! This quite frankly is absurd, or at best an unnecessary confusing detail.[6] VI. God is Unnecessary None of what we know about star formation, planet formation or the formation and evolution of life actually mandates there to be a God doing these things, as there exist natural explanations for virtually all of this. At best ‘God’ in the Genesis text could only be a euphemism for ‘unguided natural processes’, God simply isn’t necessary for everything described within Genesis, and as such we should assume that God’s performing of these actions to be quite simply, false. VII. Rebuttals I actually don’t entirely know what Pro hopes to prove by comparing Genesis to other mythological stories. Genesis is thought by Scholars to have been composed roughly in the 7thto 5th century BCE, the Babylonium creation myth for example predates the composition of Genesis by at least 4 centuries, and likely up to a millennia before. The Genesis narrative borrows heavily from the babylonion myths and also Mesopotamian mythology with adaptions made to fit the monotheistic paradigm.[12-15] They share many of the traits regarded by other myths, such as supernatural creation of the Earth and animals, the ‘firmament’ and day/night. As such the motivations and types of beliefs that people held regarding the stories are going to be similar. They are held beliefs which are false, and hence qualify as a myth as defined.[12] VIII. Summary I ask my opponent to be precise in his rebuttals. 1. 1. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com... 2. http://www.merriam-webster.com... 3. https://www.biblegateway.com... 4. http://es.ucsc.edu... 5. http://science.nasa.gov... 6. Dawkins “The Greatest Show on Earth” C1&2 7. http://en.wikipedia.org... 8. http://www.pbs.org... 9. http://forestry.about.com... 10.https://www.princeton.edu... 11. http://aether.lbl.gov... 12. Sarna 1997, p. 50 13.Bernard Frank Batto, Slaying the dragon: mythmaking in the biblical tradition, Westminster John Knox Press, 1992, P35 14. Van Seters (1998), p.5 15. Davies (1998), p.37