If evolution is true, at what point did a man develope a soul?

Question

I personally believe in creation rather than evolution but if evolution is to be the case, when did man get a soul, or spirit? And if you believe in evolution do you believe in man having a soul or spirit?

Answer 1

By the time you can prove the soul's existence, I'll be able to prove when it developed.

Answer 2

I'll bite.  Opinion only.  I too, believe in creationism, but if you eliminate the "survival of the fittest" theory often used interchangeably with evolution (although not the same) I find that evolution does still exsist with the way mankind and animals have adapted to the environment, etc. over the years.  As for the soul part.   I know  there are  a lot of believers out there that believe in variations of creationsim, but I think the bottom line is that if we believe we were created by God to begin with that we have had the soul from the start as well.

Answer 3

I agree with lecee. "soul" is a human concept that probably arose with the fear of death and non-existence.

Answer 4

This is actually more of a philosophical question... but there is no actual quantifiable evidence of the existance of a soul/spirit.  If self-awareness is applied as a resiquite for having a soul, then chimpanzees would have a soul.  When chimpanzees were placed in front of a mirror, they attacked their mirrored image.  Eventually, they made the connection that the image was them and they started checking areas they had never seen, like the top of their heads or their teeth, just like people.  That shows that these chimps had a sense of self-awareness that I believe other animals possess as well.  If that's your idea of a soul, then as long as we had brains, we've had a "soul".

Answer 5

Firstly, humans are just smart animals. Very little of what we do is unique in the animal kingdom, we are just smarter and better with tools. Why should we be unique in possessing a soul? That's one of the good things about evolution, it makes you see we are different only in degree, not in kind. It allows you to see the similarity in other lifeforms behavior, and to recognize that they have emotions to.

If you take the position that all creatures have some spark of eternity in them (spiritualist stance) then it won't be an issue. If you take the atheist position, then none of them have any kind of soul, and no issue. Creationists believe they are just animals, and again no contradiction.

I've talked to people who've heard dead pets and seen ghost animals. I don't think humans are unique if there is an after.

Answer 6

;)

Someone please hook 'em up with the etymology behind 'soul'.

Now as for Spirit, that's a different story.

Answer 7

"Develop a soul?"

Did you not hear the story that God created the Creation?

And, after creating it, he put Souls into the Creation... that is, in the Causal and Astral regions of

Creation.  The physical plane did not at the time have physical life within it.  In order for  the Souls to operate within the Creation [which was not the Pure Spiritual Energy of the Souls] they had to take-on MINDs, which God also projected into the Creation.

As the physical plane cooled, God introduced Souls into microorganisms as plant life.  Then slightly higher forms of life  emerged via evolution.  It was many millions of years before Souls inhabited forms resembling Man.

The Soul is the initiator of life and this is sustained by God.

Peace

Answer 8

It is simple Evolution is a farce and has no basis of evidence or observation.Darwin himself admitted that his sole purpose for his theory THEORY was his refusal to believe in creation.There is no scientific proof or observation to support the THEORY of evolution

Answer 9

Man never developed a soul .there has never been a soul.we are just the side effects of the elements around us.basic rule of the universe every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Answer 10

There is no soul, there is no spirit, there is no God.

ebs187

Answer 11

its very questionable wether certain ppl i no hve souls... jk, but since I'm religious i cant answer that, but its a great question ;)

Answer 12

All i can say something happened when we became someting so specail which gave us this "i think therefore I am" a mind like no other...we are animals but we have a third eye giving us a spirit, soul, etc..

Answer 13

I personally am not religious, and so I do not believe in creation.  Consequently neither do I believe in the existence of a soul in the same way that I am sure you do.  However, if you are referring to some special human quality that differentiates us from animals I might suggest some kind of consciousness of self, and the ability the reflect on this intelligence (i.e. be self-aware).

The first sure evidence of this in human evolution is probably roughly 28,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age at the start of the Upper Palaeolithic when humankind began to create artworks both as paintings on the walls of caves as well as on small portable items.  An idea of beauty, or aesthetic, I believe to be an essential human quality, one that I explain from scientific evolution, and that you believe to be god-given.  Either way it is an interesting question.

Answer 14

Evolution has nothing to do with Creationism and I'm sick of the comparison.  Evolution is solely involved with genetic inheritance and the fact that those genes regularly mutate.  That's it.  The Theory of Evolution (Natural Selection) takes it one step further to explain how different species came to be because of it.  It CANNOT EXPLAIN where your soul comes from--that is not found in your genetic material.  Your soul would not part of your physical anatomy and so science cannot account for or disprove it.

Answer 15

Well, I don't believe in Evolution because the data infers that all life emerged via a "polybiological explosion" in contemporaneous unison just as the Ancient Egyptians so accurately identified from inherited data transferred to them from a pre-Dynastic global technoculture that formerly thrived upon the Earth, and had already figured out the quantum equations of our origins before their extinction in about 10,000 B.C., precipitated from a transterrestrial cosmocataclysm.

This data was recorded into the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Hermetica, and specifically conveys the generation of the molecular producing quad-distinct organic polymers (carbohydrates, oils, nucleic acids [DNA], and proteins) from irradiation of the Edenic “primordial sea” by the UV rays of our “paternal star” Sirius B when it was originally a B-1 class Blue Supergiant (not our Sun, which is too small of a G-2 class star to have accomplished this feat, and did not exist at that time).  This combination of stimulated elements produced a “quantum leap” (polybiological explosion) where the multifarious genetic species pool, the “Polybiocorpus”, SUDDENLY emerged as “the brood of living creatures”.  

With that said, I think what you really and properly mean is “Spirit” (Pneuma), not “Soul” (Psyche), which is the cognitive Mind.  Modern Intellectuals have erroneous reconciled the two attributes into a singular attribute where the two are synonymous and interchangeable terms.  This is inaccurate.

Both Plato and Saint Paul recognized the Human Condition is composed of an integration of the “Tripartite Attributes of Human Wholeness” being foremost the Spirit (Pneuma) followed by the two lesser attributes of Soul (Psyche) and Body (Soma), thus being the pneumalogical (spiritual), psychological (mental), and physiological (physical) divisions of the Human Condition, which includes the neurological physiology of the Mind.  Most in the conventional scientific communities acknowledge only the two lesser attributes, though the fringe science of “metaphysical sciences” produce a plethora of hypotheses regarding the state of the Spirit, the tangible and quantitative disciplines are severely lacking as far as conventional science is concerned.

“….However, there is an approach to science that is adequate to the task of studying the human spirit. The essence of this approach is an integration of complementary scientific approaches, a "methodological pluralism." This approach challenges the limiting assumptions and practices of conventional science without rejecting its deepest values, including valuing truth over dogma and careful, critical analysis over bias. Similarly, it challenges the notion that spiritual experience is completely beyond empirical analysis. Scientists and spiritual seekers can come together, and the outcome will be better information on which to base decisions and actions, including counseling, psychotherapy, and healing…."

SEE: An Integrated Approach to Scientific Research Methods: Psychological Research on the Human Spirit, Part One - John Davis, Ph.D., Metropolitan State College of Denver, Department of Psychology: http://clem.mscd.edu/~davisj/prm2/integ2...

Answer 16

Humans evolved very large and complex brains.  With our intelligence we thought up the concept of "the soul."  There is no evidence proving that we have one.  We do have incredible brains that allow us to think deeply about issues such as you describe.