As for things being real, things can be real without being eternal. Let me dive further into this. Take my consciousness for instance. That is something that truly is not eternal. It is an artifact created by the electrochemical processes of my brain. The instant those processes cease, so too does the existence of my consciousness. The material substance of my brain and body will still linger on, even to the end of the universe. The material substance of my body has always existed. It was forged in the beginning. It took 13.5 billion years, by current estimates, to coalesce into this form. After this body stops functioning, the matter that makes it up will gradually disperse. Even so, nothing will ever be lost, except the consciousness. The substance will continue.
You mentioned that you believe evolution is true. Consider this. If humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor, then there was a time in the past in which we were one. That means that we can take any human or chimp and draw a ancestral line connecting a human to a living chimp. You can do that just the same as I can draw a line of ancestry that connects my second cousin, or any other human for that matter, to me.
Now if we carry that further, we must consider the split from the common ancestor. Following that ancestral line back in time, I would find a period in which it was only a few years that had passed since that split. Let us pick a year. If you could look at the humans who existed 1000 years after the split, you might find that they and their chimp relatives behaved in like manner. Then as time passed, the less alike we acted.
That, again in my opinion, shows why humans have acted so barbarically all throughout their history. It is because we emerged from animalistic barbarism. The animal behaviour is our default position. That's why when logic and reason fail, physical force is employed. That is why spiritualism is a default position for a lot of humans. That is why as we diverge from our chimp relatives more people abandon the idea that physical force is a solution, and that spirits are real.
So how did humans ever come up with the idea of gods and spirits? I will use Scooby Doo as an example. He is ruled by his animalistic nature. He is as brave as they come too! Even so, there is something that will cause him to tremble in fear. That thing causes him to stay close to me seeking safety. It is the thunder and lightening. He has no idea at all what it is! All he knows is that it is scary. The ignorance made it scary. Our remote ancestors were also ignorant as to the nature of lightning and thunder. We were ignorant to everything, except for the basic things that kept us alive. They too trembled in fear. Then our intellect grew through evolution, and with that so to did our curiosity, and ability to understand. That lead us to seek to understanding. Thus the notion of gods and spirits were born. Our ancestors come up with a solution with the knowledge they had at the time. Then as time passed, and our understanding increased, we abandoned the notion of such entities as Thor the thunder god.
Even though I acknowledge that our species is a savage child, I do have hope. I have hope that we will continue to diverge from the animal thought processes that ruled us, and still rules many people today. I look at it like percentages. A few thousand years ago the percent of enlightened people were less than the percent of people ruled by animalistic barbarism. Today that percentage is higher, as evidenced by a global tide of humanitarianism, socialism and the rapid spread of Marxist theology.
It is like a tug of war between enlightened thought and animalistic thought. Right now, with the rise of Christian fundamentalism, Republicanism and Trump, the tug is slightly on the side of the animalistic. That calls for there to be a greater effort by the enlightened to shift that back to the side away from animalistic thought or we are in danger of a fall into barbarism.
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