Comment of the Week Evolution vs Christianity

Many devout Christians refuse to accept the reality of evolution, believing that evolution conflicts with their religion. Many other Christians don't have a problem with evolution, seeing no conflict. Either one group is mistaken, or Christianity is so meaningless that it can be interpreted to mean anything. Which is it?

I tend to think the former, that one group is mistaken...

OZ Atheist writes:

I cannot see how a belief in Christianity can be compatible with acceptance of the theory of evolution. The stumbling block is the thorny question of ; "when was the first soul?" and consequentially when the "original sin" was committed, and by whom.

Possession of a soul is the thing that distinguishes humans from animals, Christians believe, so if both evolved from a common source, at some point along the path of development God must have decided, "OK this man looks enough like me now so he gets a soul", and then selects a woman resembling his female side who gets one as well. This original soul-equipped couple then go and eat apples, or have sex, so original sin is committed and things are right on track.

There are problems with this idea though. It would have been very difficult for this first soul equipped couple to relate to their soulless families and friends and their children would have to find partners from people without souls also.

Another explanation could be that God handed out souls to a whole community that had progressed far enough along the evolutionary path. This seems a more reasonable strategy but it leaves us with the question of "who committed the original sin?".

It is a pivotal and defining belief for Christians, that we are all miserable sinners tainted with original sin from infancy. If we are not then we do not need to be saved, and there was no need for Jesus Christ to come along and do his thing.

[original post]

Traditional, orthodox Christianity requires that humans have a supernatural soul which we should want to go to heaven after we die. It also requires some sort of "original sin" that causes bad things which Jesus can save you from if you believe in him (I'm obviously trying to be very general here, so as to cover as many different possible doctrines as I can). Without all that, Christianity is -- at best -- reduced to little more than a minor philosophy with a few catchy aphorisms.

I don't think you can preserve Christianity as a robust, complex, and even interesting religion without also preserving those basic doctrines (in some form). Unfortunately for Christianity, though, natural evolution undermines those doctrines to one extent or another.