The Bible is the literal and inerrant word of God

First, I'd like to remind my opponent that he cannot argue in the last round because we each got 2 rounds for arguments. He should just post "thanks for the debate." == Definitions == My opponent cites a definition that he says allows him to argue that the Bible is metaphorical. However, his definition says that "literal" means "upholding the *exact* or primary meaning of words." A metaphor is not a primary meaning. For example, if I say, "I just saw an ant. And by ant I mean a tiny person" -- that is *not* the primary meaning of the word ant. It is metaphorical. == Young Earth Creationism == My opponent"s response is to agree that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, but to say that each day with the Lord is like a thousand years. However, the *primary* or *exact* meaning of "day" is "a period of twenty-four hours." [1] Even under my opponent's definition, the "literal" meaning of the word "day" cannot be "1000 years." In addition, reading 2 Peter 3:8 literally, each day is like 1000 years, so in Genesis -- at most -- it took 7000 years to create the Earth, which makes the Earth 13,000 years old. This still doesn't result in an accurate Earth-age or age for the Universe. It"s not even close. == Evolution disproves Genesis == My opponent says I shouldn't treat theory as fact, but most of us treat gravity as a fact every day. A theory is treated as fact until it is disproven. My opponent claims evolution is false unless I observe a species evolving into another species. However, the time scale necessary to observe this is longer than a human life span. We *can* observe genetic mutations leading to variation within species, like with the breeding of dogs. We can *also* observe all the fossils that prove there are extinct intermediate species. In addition, under the same logic, God is false unless we observe Him with our own eyes. My opponent claims that because heliocentrism was disproven that all theories are presumptively false. However, that"s not how science works. Theories are presumed true until disproven. Heliocentrism was disproven by subsequent observations. Evolution has not been disproven. The experiments my opponent cites are unexplained inside the debate, so you can't vote on them. Regardless, they are pretty laughable [they claim that because a fish was found with human-like teeth and because fruit flies haven"t evolved into a new species, evolution is false]. Lastly, my opponent claims that because humans are smaller and weaker today than in the past, evolution is false. My opponent is falsely assuming that evolution is always in the direction of making a species stronger, but this is only true if this trait is *selected* for because it increases survival chances. Today, humans don't need to be as strong to survive [because we no longer have to capture our own food or fight off wild animals]. If anything, this proves natural selection true because the absence of selection has resulted in an un-selected for trait [strength] becoming less common. My opponent never responds to the fact that there are intermediate hominid species and that we have dated humans as being at least 200,000 years old. Genesis' version of creation cannot be true. == Conflicting Genealogies of Matthew and Luke == My opponent states that one genealogy traces Mary's parentage and the other traces Joseph's. There are two problems with this: (1) it doesn't explain the wide disparity in the number of generations [unless Joseph lived hundreds of years before Mary], and (2) genealogies are supposed to trace genetic descent ["blood lines"] and both Matthew and Luke claim that Jesus was born of a virgin. There would be no reason to trace the genealogy of Joseph because Jesus was in no way related to Joseph. The goal of the genealogies was to show that Jesus was the Jewish messiah, which required proving that he was a blood relative of Abraham and David. == Unicorns don't exist == My opponent claims we just haven't discovered one yet, but we've investigated all of the known Earth [except the deep oceans]. Unicorns would live on land, so we should have found one by now. == Archaeological evidence == My opponent's only complains about my source, which is a summary of the findings in an archaeology book. If my opponent wants to peruse all the archaeological digs, he can read the book. The most damning evidence is that the Biblical account of the conquest of Canaan has to be wrong because those regions were uninhabited at the time. It is also suspect that no Egyptian or Mesopotamian text mentions the Exodus, the plagues of Egypt, or the uber-wealthy and powerful King David. == Contradiction of free will == My opponent drops this point, saying it is irrelevant to the debate. However, the Bible claims both that humans have free will and that God is omniscient. Yet both things cannot be true. I win on this dropped point alone. == Problem of Evil == My opponent claims the Bible never calls God omnibenevolent, but this is obviously false. The Psalm passage says God is "kind in all his works." Yet Isaiah 45:7 says that all good and bad things that happen on Earth are caused by God ["I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things"]. Creating "calamity" means doing un-kind "works." The Bible contradicts itself on God"s omnibenevolence, which means it is not inerrant. == Near non-adoption of Revelations == I"m glad that my opponent agrees with me that this is my strongest point, since my opponent drops it entirely. The "Bible" is composed of whatever the early Catholic Church regarded as canon and could easily have contained a few additional works or could have had some included works (like Revelations) be *excluded* instead. The fact that Martin Luther could essentially un-canonize Revelations proves that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God. My opponent's own first round proves this by admitting that different sects of Christianity worship different versions of the Bible. Non-universal adoption also proves the Bible is not inerrant. [1] Google "define day"