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Souls cannot coexist with evoloution

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Entropic Muffin:
Evolution is accepted by the current pope, and the current view he has is that the soul was "injected" into us humans at a particular stage in our evolution. Despite the fact that this is what the pope believes and preaches, a large percentage of Christians ignore this and simply refuse to believe in evolution. Evolution is a scientific theory, as is general relativity, etc; its is accepted as a fact by the scientific community.

Now on to my argument on how you can't believes in souls if evolution is valid. This is how my argument goes, and I get different answers all the time, despite the fact that as a religion they should all believe the same things.

If you believe in souls ask yourself this; Do all apes have souls? Do dogs and cats have souls? Do ants have souls? Do microorganisms have souls? Does space dust have a soul? Do particles have souls?

If the person believes that only humans have souls then you must ask the questions, at what point did an ape become a human? Was there one particular ape that did something spectacular and so all its descendants were blessed with souls? What about this special apes family, would they and their children not have souls but only the special ape and its children? What about the soulless partner that this special ape mates with, will the special ape still reproduce soul filled humans or does it need to mate with another soul filled ape? Wouldn't the rest of the soulless apes still evolve into humans regardless of whether they have souls or not? If so then you can have soulless humans and soul filled humans who share the special ape as a common ancestor, the only difference being ancestry. As you can see this idea is filled with holes (that I challenge any evolution accepting theist to fill),hence why there are so many creationists despite the incredible lack of evidence for it and the incredible evidence for evolution.

If the person says that humans, cats, dogs, wombats, dinosaurs, etc, then their definition of a soul is a creature with free will and the ability to think. If so then its not a soul that these creatures have gained, but a brain capable of making decisions, nothing spiritual about that. This philosophy contradicts the theists holy book.

If the person says that humans, cats, dogs, wombats, dinosaurs, ants, etc then their definition of a creature with a soul is simply any form of animal. Anything that is capable of thought process is classified as having a soul. It is not a soul these creatures have, but a brain, nothing spiritual about that. This philosophy contradicts the theists holy book.

If the person says that humans, cats, dogs, wombats, dinosaurs, ants, microorganisms, etc have souls then they are ultimately giving DNA a different name and a poorly thought out special meaning.

My conclusion is that souls and evolution cannot coexist, and seeing as how evolution is a scientific theory whereas souls are unprovable immaterial brains that stick to our material bodies and control our brains. This along with the philosophical and logical reasoning against religion as well as the massive scientific evidence against theism is the reason I am atheist. However evolution does not disprove a god, so religion is still fine except that if religious followers knew they had no life after death, I doubt they would believe in a god at all. Pose any questions or arguments you like, thanks for reading.

Sadistic:
I bet all of our cells go to heaven individually!

Entropic Muffin:

--- Quote from: Sadistic on January 21, 2010, 09:58:54 PM ---I bet all of our cells go to heaven individually!

--- End quote ---
lol ;), hmmmmmm ok any serious answers...
They really should have separated philosophy from politics instead of lumping them altogether in this one section.

Mykael:

--- Quote from: Entropic Muffin on January 21, 2010, 09:52:42 PM ---This along with the philosophical and logical reasoning against religion as well as the massive scientific evidence against theism is the reason I am atheist.

--- End quote ---
Technically, there isn't any scientific evidence against theism. Most versions of theism are by definition unfalsifiable.

Other than that, nice job. Well written, and it points out an interesting problem with that particular view of human history. I personally subscribe to the idea of consciousness, as opposed to a metaphysical soul. Having a soul is a binary condition, but there are different degrees of consciousness (it could evolve).

Entropic Muffin:
Its pretty lame how know matter what you do, you cannot truly disprove god. All you can do is provide this kind of logic, which most theists don't buy/understand. Oh well...

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