Atheists, rationally speaking was there a first human?

Populations of animals evolve. It happens slowly. No, there was no "first" human; who would he (or she) have mated with?

Wait I'm not a...oh I see that's sarcasm right? You had me their for a minute.

I ask because atheists laugh at the idea of a first human, such as adam and eve, but surely in the chain of evolution, at SOME point it had to be a human when it previously wasn't right?

1. it is almost always a bad idea to say that all atheists do or agree on something. Atheists can, and do, have views that are very different from each other. We really only agree on one thing and this is not it.

2. As someone stated It is not specific individuals who evolve but rather populations. How would have that first human have passed on his genes?

The issue is with being able to point to a creature and claim it as family while discarding it's parents as unrelated. I laugh at the idea that there is a singular being that we can look to. Consider family history. I could trace a line back 20 generations and then follow a different path up to the future...would I have any appreciable characteristics similar to my fellow human? Of course we are both human, but I find that even branching away to my third cousins is far enough to not be a family tie. In the same way, I don't feel a tie with the biblical adam or the evolutionary milestone that produced humanity. There is likely to have been a time when what we consider human was finally fully established, but there would have been many generations of humaniods, and hominids, and creatures that aren't totally human but close enough to mate with.

It's not a sharp change, where suddenly an proto-ape gives birth to a human. At some point, an early human that is still different enough from us that it would not be able to breed with us gave birth to a human just enough like us that it could breed with modern humans. In that sense, sure, there was a first human.

The issue isn't with naming conventions, it's with the story of the Garden of Eden, which is patently ridiculous in a hundred ways.

At what wavelength of light does blue stop and green begin? It's like that. For a species like humans, the concept of "first generation" doesn't make sense. Except in the case of hybrids, there isn't really a discrete moment of change. And you seem to be forgetting that evolution operates on populations, not individuals. So no, it isn't an issue with the name "adam" at all.

Oh, and evolution isn't a chain. It's a tree, generally.

"yeah i just cited wikipedia what of it"

You may have cited wikipedia, but the article doesn't support what you said.

The problem is in regards to the idea of a human suddenly popping out of the womb of a monkey or a monkey growing into a human, it just doesn't happen... A retrovirus rewriting DNA, or instead adaptation causing certain traits to be favored whilst others were unfavorable, these things cause a slow mutation from one species to another... The serious disconnect is that many religious think it's sudden, when scientifically speaking, it can take MANY years...

Sure. Of course.Assuming you can pick one person and say "This is a human" and then take their parents and say "This is almost a human". If not, then single celled organisms might be considered human. It's a problem with definition. Is the issue with the name 'Adam' ? No. The issue is with creation in 6 days, perfect garden (except for booby trapped trees), talking snakes, omnipotent entities who love us, etc, etc... pretty much Genesis and the baloney that fills the Bible (or Koran for that matter).

Bzzzzt! Sorry, but you can't use evolution to justify Christian beliefs of Adam. Please try again.

You obviously don't know anything about evolution. It's not like you have two monkeys that have sex, then when the mother gives birth it's a full fledged human. It doesn't work like that. It is a GRADUAL thing.

I assume so. But I must be one of those rare atheist who don't claim to be all knowing in Evolution....... >_>

Yes it is in the name. The names of the first humans were Ask and Embla............Then the only two surviving humans after Ragnarok that repopulated the world were Líf and Lífþrasir.

There had to be a first "atom" (har har har)

Yes, technically there would have to be one individual that would have first crossed the threshold from human ancestor to human, but it would still be a very thin, thin cross. And, this first human would probably still have been able to breed with its immediate ancestors, just not whatever other species its ancestors had evolved into

Its proven that Evolution is not real its not possible Scientist did not want to continue with Evolution cause they were embarrased to believe in it really you can look for it in the Internet

They say that a cat came out from Evolution its to much coincidence then a female cat came out from Evolution please look for a better one that is to ridiculous Could all the creation just come from Evolution if it was not God who did all the things then Who was that smart person?