I frequently get asked the following questions with regard to the theory and processes of evolution. I hope my addressing of these questions will settle your confusions.
Question 1: Are humans evolved from apes? If so, why aren't we more alike?
Humans are members of the great ape family - along with gorillas, bonobos, orangutans and chimpanzees.
Imagine a family tree - you have one broad line with five finer lines emanating from it. To that broad line we give the name of 'our nearest common ancestor' - we're not related to other great apes; all great apes have evolved independently and separately from our nearest common ancestor (which lived in Africa millions of years ago).
It's no coincidence that we share over 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. A recent study, however, has also shown we could be much more closely related to orangutans. Creationists will jump on that study to try to give credence to the 'falsity' of evolution - as we all know, we came out of Africa some 70,000 years ago. Orangutans live in Indonesia, obviously, so it seems like too much of a co-incidence that our DNA is so similar. However, the study I mentioned has not been verified or repeated to a satisfying degree yet, and it has received extreme scrutiny and contempt from the scientific community because of its said flaws.
(Bear in mind that, over geological time, the features of this planet have changed - oceans rise and fall cyclically as the poles' ice grows and depletes, and vegetation cover is dynamic - newly exposed land is usually colonised by plants, insects and birds within about 60-100 years of its being exposed. I'm not a biologist, but I doubt severely that there isn't a simple explanation for the fantastical findings of said recent study.)
Question 2: Where did cells come from?
People forget that there are two types of cells - eukaryotes (animal cells are all eukaryotes as these have 'membrane-bound' nuclei which bear DNA); and prokaryotes (single-celled organisms like bacteria and protozoa are examples of prokaryotes - prokaryotes all have loose RNA within their cells and lack nuclei).
Mitochondria are the energy factories of our cells and play a big part in the Krebs cycle (which creates ADP). They are actually the remnants of a billion-year-old species of bacterium that bonded with one of our far-off common ancestors. Mammals have been around a little less longer than reptiles, and only really struck it lucky when the dinosaurs became almost completely extinct 65 million years ago.
As for cells, it's thought that the first cells came about some 3.9 billion years ago. The early Earth was a tumultuous place. Volcanoes scarred its surface and belched out gas and water vapour. The vapour formed the first primordial oceans - which were full of amino acids and proteins. Lightning storms and the immense heat of underwater volcanic columns caused the first simple life to be created out of this soup of nutrients and complex molecules.
Somehow, these early 'organisms' were able to chemically reproduce and so became more advanced. Over time, these first organisms became more complex. Bacteria are not self-aware. I cannot say that for certain, of course, but it's very reasonable - and rational - to say that they're not able to think: they're tiny, basic organisms and have no nervous systems or brains (and thus cannot have any sense of the world in which they live). Mutations in DNA caused these organisms to change in slight ways. They eventually evolved into invertebrates like jellyfish and sea polyps - and finally fish and other marine organisms.
Eventually, life became land-dwelling around 500 million years ago when a reptile-like organism (descended from a species of fish, of course) ventured onto land. Organisms developed, eventually becoming more advanced, intelligent and competitive - and even self-aware. By the phrase 'self-aware' I don't mean a simple sense of knowing their basis in reality (like an organism looking at its reflection in water) but the human sense of consciousness. As we can never know how 'complex' the minds of other animals are, it's pretty certain that we are the 'smartest' species on the planet - disregarding the fact that we're currently destroying our planet and have been doing so for millennia.
So, the evolution of our species is intertwined with the evolution of other species - the world in which we live truly is a thriving, complex tree of life (hence the expression 'tree of life').
Question number 3: Is there any purpose or meaning to evolution?
As Richard Dawkins said in The Selfish Gene, evolution has no aims - it's blind. Things happen by way of accident (mutations in species' DNA) and adaption, and aren't guided by purpose.
Lucky organisms that adapt survive, passing on their genes to their progeny. Life has been evolving for so long and is so complex that it gives the appearance - especially to simple-minded, superstitious people - of being designed by some divine hand.
Question number 4: Where did modern religious people come from?
People have often sought to express the meaning of life through simplistic spiritualistic, polytheistic models (the oldest and most 'primitive' of religious models) - i.e. deifying the Sun and stars and Earth and Moon and seas and flora and fauna and what not - but people who worship monotheistic gods haven't been around for very long.
It appears that they first came about around 3,500 years ago after the writing of a religious text called the Old Testament. Ever since, religious people have been regressing to a sub-species-like state, becoming separate from their non-religious counterparts (and thus Homo Sapiens as a species). I like to call this new sub-species of human 'Christianus Degeneratum'. (Variants on this name include 'Islamicus Explosivae' and 'Judaicus Delusivus'.)
For some weird reason, these dumb, god-bothering mother fuckers are still barely intelligent enough to compete with non-religious types. It's only a matter of time before they're out-moded and out-competed, and will be cast aside as yet another of evolution's many cul-de-sacs. When the last Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or Jew dies praying for his cancer to be cured by the hands of God, the many billions of non-believers will finally become truly happy. (However, atheists are still quite a minority group - hated and misunderstood by millions of people everywhere.)
It seems many religious people just want to die to go to be with their martyrs in paradise. Do yourselves, and humanity, a favour: kill yourselves. If I've offended any Christians (or any other people of different religious leanings), you'll have to forgive me. Hahahaha! Turn the other cheek! Hahahaha! As if!
Here's a final thought: atheism isn't a religious system, per se (in the true sense of the word 'religion'); it is, rather, the rejection of all religious systems as being fanciful, fake, misleading, dangerous, hateful, regressive, spiteful and unbefitting of the 21st century.
Good night!
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