I was reading a newsvine article today about the struggles that come with wanting to accept the god concept, and it got me thinking about how important it is to begin such theorizing with a realistic view of the scientifically accepted timeline of existence.   It is widely accepted that the moment of singularity (or the Big Bang) occurred about 13.7 billion years ago.  Current estimates of how old the planet earth is run about 4.5 billion years.  Anatomically modern humans are currently believed to be roughly 200,000 years in the making, with full behavioral modernity arriving some 50,000 years ago.  Obviously, in the last 50,000 years the human has developed tremendously into the current thinking organism that we are today.  These estimates are based on scientific postulations, and have nothing to do with biblical claims that are so wildly at odds with what science has revealed, that no reasonable amount of “plus or minus” could reconcile the two as being relevant to one another.

Now consider “evolution” as being the process that has been going on for billions of years on this planet, involving every fauna, flora and microbial organism that has ever existed.  The human species has only been around for a blink of an eye in relation to the process of evolution.  Comprehending how such a complex organism as a human could evolve, or even a house fly for that matter, is nearly impossible without viewing our place on the timeline, and realizing that if the timeline of earth’s existence were a mile long, we would be represented by a pin prick at the end of it.  If you step back and view these parameters from this angle, it is easy to see how the concept of evolution is dismissed by those who don’t take this step back.  In other words, thinking that humans have occupied a much larger piece of existence than they really have, causes some to expect to be able to see some semblance of evolution happening in real time, if it were to be true.  But the fact remains, for humans to see evidence of evolution, we must be very clever and look for the most minute examples that have been preserved in sediments, or observed in very unique and isolated circumstances, such as Darwin did.

Consider that everything organic has carbon as part of its genetic makeup, and carbon is plainly abundant in our world since its earliest beginnings.  With enough time, of which the universe, and our particular planet, has had plenty to draw from, and under the right atmospheric conditions, carbon deposits have weathered and undergone transformations into various molecular combinations, that gradually evolved into cells of organic matter, and further into organisms.  Further transformations pushed evolution into more and more complex arrangements.  The process is not guided, it is just inevitable.  It doesn't stop because it can't be stopped.  It is as inevitable as the passage of time, and as death itself, and death need not be feared any more than continuous evolution should be feared.

In my own opinion, the ability to accept the god concept is predicated, at least partly, on an unwillingness to view existence in the parameters and terms expressed above.  Once the god concept has hooked itself into you, and you find some measure of comfort with it, then you are even less willing to expose yourself to the actual timeline for which you and existence are a part of.  It is no secret that religion seeks to focus adherents on only the human portion of the timeline.  In the case of Christianity, existence prior to man’s arrival (Adam) is written to have only encompassed a few days, rather than billions of years.  This is the epitome of not seeing the forest through the trees.