The Genesis account of creation is not mythical

Thanks Pro. Pro’s Burden Pro needs to both positively demonstrate the narrative of Genesis to be non-mythical, and one of the qualifiers for something to be mythical is to be falsehood (as I defined in the first round), Pro in fact agreed to this in the rules round: “I will argue that the account in Genesis is not mythical unlike it's neighbours, but that it's based on fact and demonstrates that Yahweh is the only one true God.” Hence me demonstrating that Genesis is either false, or cannot be demonstrated to be ‘not-false’ will negate the resolution. I believe that I have demonstrated large portions of the narrative to be false, and most of the remainder to be ‘unprovably not-false’, indeed Pro has not addressed any of my objections regarding the ordering of events within the narrative (which even his day-period points do not help him reconcile). Venusian Space-Dogs Pro ignores my analogy with Venusian Space-Dogs, which when applying Pro’s methods of argumentation would make such a theory just as valid and ‘non-mythical’ as Genesis. We can see in Pro’s argumentation such as for the interpretation of what a ‘day’means, or what the ‘light’ means that Pro is performing the texas sharpshooter fallacy.[1] He is coming up with answers and then choosing the best one that fits the facts, however this is a fallacious method of reasoning, because it ignores that BECAUSE there is such a broad range of interpretations that Pro simply cannot affirm that the original narrative was written with the ‘true’ (based on scientific fact) interpretation in mind. When the cursory reading of the text yields tremendously contradicting statements of fact, and that only specific, rare interpretations can form a semblance of reconciliation, it is quite apparent that Pro is no longer affirming that ‘Genesis is not mythical’, and rather only affirming the much weaker ‘Genesis is possibly not mythical’ resolution. Pro objections to ‘possibility’ by making a false comparison to science and possibility being extant, this is true but within science and investigation we seek to maximize the probabilities of those possibilities towards being likely truth. The same cannot be applied to Pro’s strategy of attempting to reconcile Genesis with the facts. If Pro provides positive scholarly arguments for accepting alternative interpretations of the words seen then he is correctly arguing positively that Genesis is not mythical, however he has not done this. Virtually anything can be made "consistent" with science given enough ad hoc reasoning (as I have shown with Venusian Space Dogs), but we are no longer objectively seeking to see whether or not the original statement is true and hence ‘not mythical’. God is Unnessesary Pro seems to misunderstand this argument, the entire genesis creation narrative is about God creating stuff, however I am demonstrating that God did not play any part in what the creation narrative attempts to explain. If the universe naturally produces the things that Genesis attempts to explain anyway, then what the heck was God doing? God didn’t create anything, he just sat by and watched (assuming he even exists). Genesis’ Purpose Pro asserted in his second round that Genesis is a book of poetry, but provided nothing to substantiate his claim. As such it is appropriate to apply Hitchen’s Razor to this claim. Even if Genesis was poetry, then it would seem that it would easily classify as a Myth anyway, since it is a falsehood whilst seeking to explain facts of reality or “explaining a natural or social phenomenon”. However I will go a step farther, since Pro seems to think that if Genesis is poetry that it would discount it from being qualified as myth based primarily on its truth value. There are several reasons to think that Genesis is indeed written intended as a form of historical narrative, for example Genesis 12-50 is clearly intended as historical, given it gives very complete genealogies, also describes the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Isaac through to Noah.[2,3] These stories set the foundation of many tenets in other books of the bible, moreover these people as well as those within the first 12 chapters of Genesis are later referenced. The first twelve chapters of Genesis refer to people that are regarded as real, and not allegorical/parable within the rest of the Bible (Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah).[3,4] Given that Genesis 12-50 is clearly intended as historical, we would expect to see a clear distinction in writing style of these chapters to the earlier chapters, but such a distinction is absent, they are written in the same style. There is no poetry/liturgy barrier within the narrative.[5] In Hebrew Scholarship, the overwhelming consensus is the entire narrative is intended to be a historical one. Prof. James Barr states: “Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: 1. Creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience 2. The figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story “[6] Lastly, if Genesis was poetic, or non-historical then we would expect it not to contain much geneological, geographical or cultural detail. However we have the genealogies of Cain, Seth, Shem (Gen 4,5 & 11), the description of Eden and a total of 64 geographical terms, 88 personal names and >21 cultural items.[4,7] Pro also attempts to defend the purpose of Genesis, and what the original meaning was with the following: “I mean to say that because modern interpretations have distorted what the Bible originally said, now that we have discovered what ancients believed, no contradictions are found.” I would like Pro to actually substantiate this bald assertion. Given that Genesis is meant to be a narrative of creation that is non-mythological, then they would presumably have believed what they wrote was true. Hence the narrative was written, intended to be a true account. Since the narrative is far divorced from the facts of reality, then it follows that it is a myth, like stories of the like. “Appeal to Nature” I don’t believe Pro actually understands what the ‘appeal to nature logical fallacy’ is, which I quote from his source: “You argued that because something is 'natural' it is therefore valid, justified, inevitable, good or ideal. Many 'natural' things are also considered 'good', and this can bias our thinking; but naturalness itself doesn't make something good or bad. For instance murder could be seen as very natural, but that doesn't mean it's good or justifiable. Appeals to nature are generally used in food/drug products or on moral issues, however my argument is that the events described (star accretion, galaxy accretion, Earth’s formation, water, trees, humans) would have occurred naturally anyway, so what was God’s purpose in the narrative? SummaryPro has pretty much dropped this debate on every single definition of 'myth', and need to substantiate several assertions, beack to Pro for his closing. References 1. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com... 2. Joüon, P. and Muraoka, T., 1991. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew: Part Three: Syntax, p. 390, P ontifical Biblical Institute, Rome 3.http://www.apologeticspress.org... 4. Barton (ed.), New Perspectives on the Old Testament, Word Books, Waco, TX, p. 305. Scaer, David P., 1977, “The problems of inerrancy and historicity in connection with Genesis 1-3”, Concordia Theological Quarterly, 41:21-25. 5. Berkhof, L., 1941, Systematic Theology, 4th Edition, Eerdman’s, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 784. 6. http://creation.com... 7. https://www.jashow.org...