For some time I’ve been wondering why religious nutjobs (a.k.a. Young Earthers and other religious literalists) are so dead-set against evolution. For a long time I thought it was just because they are stupid. Well, although their belief certainly is stupid, it turns out that they have no other choice.

You see, ‘Original Sin’ is an important concept of Christianity. It means that all humans are automatically guilty of sin, and need to believe in God/Jesus to be saved. According to Genesis, Adam & Eve rebelled against God, making everyone who descends from them a sinner. And the Bible teaches that all humans descend from Adam and Eve.

Now, modern evolution estimates that 60’000 years ago, when modern humans emerged, the population was around 2’500 individuals of mixed ancestry. This means that humanity does not descend from a single couple, but a much larger pool of individuals.

So? Is it of any importance if there was one or one thousand Eves?

Yes.

The concept of original sin only makes sense if all adams and all eves disobeyed god – at the same time.

Nevermind, a pragmatist may say – so Original Sin is out, lose it. We good?

Nope. That’s where the nutjobs run into a problem: Jesus allegedly died to save us from Original Sin. If we drop it, his death was rather pointless, if not downright stupid.

If you ask me, that may be the reason he returned three days later.