Answering: Evolution Removes the Need and Existence of Jesus
There once was an atheist who lived in a twitter hole…
I wish this story was one that I looked forward to. If you spend enough time on twitter you’ll find that atheist create claims and arguments without reading any scholarship, without cross testing or peer reviewing their ideas. That is the basis of this public forum, apparently.
This claim comes from an atheist who posits that if Evolution be true, Jesus is not. Seems outlandish, I know but his argument rested upon the idea that if Natural Selection is true then Adam and Eve cannot exist which eliminates the need for original sin and a savior. So, quickly it actually has nothing to do with the existence of Jesus but rather the claim that He is the LORD or Savior of humanity. This claim also states that Adam and Even could not have existed, which you’ll see why it is false even granting that Natural Selection (NS) is valid.
Adam and Eve: The Only Created Beings?
There are various claims and papers on the existence of humans or proto-humans prior to Adam and Eve but that is not the case I’m arguing for, against or even making. The case I’m looking at is the possibility that God created Adam and Even for headship of the human race, which aligns with Original Sin, but also created others subsequent to their creation. However, Genesis being a polemic makes little to no claims on scientific matters. It also includes much more than the Adam and Eve story which we have to look at in order to get a full picture of Genesis.
Within the Bible, some of the more vague verses in the chapters to follow begin to make much more sense if the region was already populated after Adam was created (some posit beforehand). Like the unnamed "others" that Cain expressed concern about in chapter 4. The concern God is validated by somehow "marking" him to protect him from harm.
Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear.
Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
But the Lord said to him, “Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over. ” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. (Genesis 4:13-15)
It also puts into view the idea that in the first few verses of chapter 6, those which talk about the "sons of God" finding the "daughters of humans" beautiful and having children by them. This comes right in the middle of its explanation for why the flood was necessary. It even goes on to explain that humans are mortal and live less than a hundred and twenty years, contrary to the hundreds of years it says Adam and his descendants lived in chapter 5.
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took for themselves wives of all whom they chose.
And the Lord said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for he also is flesh; yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." (Genesis 6:1-3)
We know that in the progression theory of Homo genus, there were large leaps forward from one species to the next. However, if an even more advanced species did actually appear just a few thousand years ago, they're certainly not here anymore. Of course, according to the story, they were all washed away by a large flood. Mass extinctions play a crucial role throughout the evolutionary history of life. In that context, the flood was merely the last of many edits that shaped life as we know it today. This is one view that the flood occurred and it eradicated varying species. While I’m uncertain that I wish to hold this view, I know that on the most basic level it’s plausible to infer that others were created during the time of Adam and Even in order to fulfill their purposes from God, as shown above.
What about Natural Selection and Procreation?
The next claim by these atheist was that if a literal Adam and Eve were the ONLY two humans available at the time to populate the earth then Natural Selection would kick in and mutations would occur from their direct descendants procreating. However, this is a lofty and unscientific claim because it does not backtrack evolution, whatsoever. We know that natural selection has changed and operated differently under varying conditions, time frames and areas around the globe. We also know that food, which directly affects ones DNA [see references] was vastly different than it is now. In fact, so different that the first humans could have lived a very long time and lived without all the disease we have now which is heavily based on environment progression [ ie., urbanization actually kills] and general decay theory which shows DNA decaying over time, earth’s substances decaying over time and much more. It’s almost like something dark entered our world and started this decaying process (maybe sin?). Therefore, it’s not correct to post the same conditions we have now onto the possible Adam and Eve or first humans.
What does this mean for Jesus?
If in the fact others were created under the headship of Adam and Eve, we still have the original sin and need for a savior. The atheist would have to conclusively prove that Adam and Eve (and others) did not exist BUT ALSO they would need to show that the first conscious and able humans (whether created or evolved over time ie., this theory or strictly evolution) had no interaction with God at all. Therefore, even showing that Natural Selection be true, Darwinian evolution to be true and so forth cannot and does not eliminate the need for Jesus as Savior. This is the view of Theistic Evolutionist who make the claim that evolution is wholly valid but the first able humans were conducted by God, thus those first able humans were Adam and Eve.
This article is shorter than others because I believe this objection to be rather ill-willed toward academia and current scholarship but also not fully fleshed out by said atheist with a full understanding of evolution, Genesis polemic, etc.
See references below:
DNA AND FOOD:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25484259
https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.3527.epdf?referrer_access_token=yKuz6422FUxwGQ3HjnjKGNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NoOWKD-c4YRZOPVbs2YqhgAql3tWZwyad24f-qLH7UdftdzYmSBs8K0RDR4Nz_XidBc8ield4RR3NFjSS4bBCy1MxbjrYC4OwNnbRjVtp3LTVvqFSF-nlwvQbDVH0QuBsfKs6g4GZLa
https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(16)32671-3/abstract
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2137135/
Early NS Conditions and Global Change:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20620050?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/selection/selection.html
Urbanization and Mortality Decay
https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/4/10-010410/en/
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2435.12477
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749112005064/