Here's some questions I have about the soul and afterlife.

If we assume that the theory of evolution is true, then at some point we must have all been singular celled organisms. Now let's jump forward 4.5 billion years to me writing this message on this forum as a human. Now here's the bit I don't understand when people talk about the soul and afterlife; at what point did we gain these? If it's true we have a soul or the ability to live after death, then we must have had this as a singular cell. Humans came about gradually through a series of changes, so does this mean the soul also developed at such a gradual pace? Does this mean we must have also had a primitive after life that actually evolved as humans evolved?

Many religions assume the after life is similar to our life on Earth; language, visions of earthly connections, etc...but would primitive man have had the same experiences as modern man before language and the environment evolved? Would the after life only reflect our most recent time on Earth? If so, then 'heaven' must also evolve at the same rate as Earth, otherwise the deceased would be very confused to enter a place that reflected earth thousands of years into the future or past. To me this sounds too ridiculous and is a strong argument against any theory of life after death.

A similar argument can be cased against the notion of a soul. Again, at what point did we gain a soul? If we have one now then we must have had one when we were singular cells, which also means the apples you eat also have a soul as we came from the same descendant, which of course sounds absurd because otherwise we wouldn't eat them. We didn't just change into humans over night, and as such the soul could not have just come into being, it must have also evolved.

Anyway, there's my thoughts. I'd love to hear what you guys think as I've been pondering on this for days now.

Cheers,

Pete.