The garden of Eden exist

I would like to begin by reiterating that Pro is not trying to prove that the garden of Eden existed, but rather that the garden of Eden as described in the book of Genesis existed. By my reading of the book of Genesis the garden is VERY mystical. Even if he does prove that there was a place called Eden which had gardens (which isn't hard, given that I live right next to a suburb called Eden with lots of gardens), that does not show the garden of Eden as described in Genesis existed.Secondly, my opponent tries to show where the garden might have been. As I showed last round, just because the story matches up to a geographical location does not make the story any more or less reliable, or good evidence. Nevertheless, his geographic argument is flawed on a number of levels. First he asserts that "the Earths main geographical features have stayed relatively the same," and then continues by claiming that the Persian Gulf did not exist back then, along with several changes to major rivers. As it so happens, the Persian Gulf is pretty big - 251,000km squared [1]. I would call that a "main geographical feature." You can't make a claim that the Earth was more or less the same and then use that to prove that it wasn't more or less the same. I contend that the main geographical features do change, and the Persian Gulf was once a big swamp plain that did house agriculture. So was the Black Sea, and numerous other places - we call this the Holocene Glacial Retreat [2]. That does nothing to show that any of these places was the Garden of Eden, because many places were once fertile that are not fertile today. My opponent needs to show why this one is the "Garden" of the book of Genesis. He does so by looking at the rivers which he assumes have not changed (which is actually more or less scientifically correct, although in contradiction to his source which ignores science and uses the bible as evidence). A simple look on a map will further tell you that the Tigris and Euphrates rivers do not flow into one river, unless you count the Persian Gulf as a river (which it blatantly is too big for - you might as well call the Red Sea a river) - but even so, that would mean the Persian Gulf EXISTED at the time of the garden, when my opponent's whole theory relies on it not existing. The hypothesis about the other rivers is indeed a hypothesis, but should not be taken as anything more than speculation - without convincing evidence you should not accept these assertions. My opponent has done nothing to back up this barrage of geological assertions that are contradictory, nonsensical and don't do anything to support the "Garden of Eden" fable anyway.Besides all this, the story my opponent presents is in fact not the story of the garden of Eden, it is the story of Noah's Ark. In the Garden narrative, God leads the only two humans out of a garden. In the Noah narrative, Noah leads his family out of the flood (which, by the way, covered the whole world, not just some gulf). You can't say the gulf was both for the Noah and Garden narrative because one flows on to the other - the Noah narrative has to be after the Eden narrative, not at the same time.Next he claimed that people migrated from Iraq to all the rest of the world 5,500 years ago. That's firstly an assertion, and secondly a false one, because the Bering land bridge closed 18,000 years ago [4] and civilisation in Mesopotamia only began 7,000 years ago [3], yet people were blatantly living in America when Columbus popped over.Last round my opponent promised to rebut my arguments. I gave him an argument to rebut. I explained how the pre-civilisation-Eden theory is incompatible with the hunter-gatherer-society theory espoused by archaeologists. His only reply (which didn't actually address my argument, but rather attempted to evade it) was that he's not here to debate the fantastical elements of the story. Great. In doing so he has conceded that the story according to Genesis is deeply flawed and contains no truths. Why? Because the whole story is fantastical. How do we know this? Well ... magical garden, magical trees, talking snakes, self-moving flaming swords, and the icing on the cake, there's a magical God who roams around. These are things which are clearly fantastical. If my opponent wishes to win this debate, he must show why the story of Eden given in genesis is true, and what he has admitted is that it's false except for the fact that there was once a piece of fertile land that isn't there any more. As I told you, firstly, that's not the legend, that's the legend of Noah, and secondly, there is no evidence linking this particular part of fertile land to the garden of Eden other than skewed and false geography, and third, even if all of that were not true, it still doesn't account for the garden as described in Genesis, which is clearly fantastical.My opponent has examined lots of possibilities (but not relevant possibilities) and no arguments evidencing that the Genesis description is true. I look forward to his closing statements.Sources1 - http://en.wikipedia.org...2 - http://en.wikipedia.org...3 - http://en.wikipedia.org...4 - http://en.wikipedia.org...5 - http://en.wikipedia.org...