Throughout everything I have read about history, mankind has always searched for that connection to his ancestors, and an understanding of how all things in the world came to be there. Long before humans built telescopes and microscopes, people wondered about the world around them incapable of comprehending knowledge that existed beyond the capacity of their senses. Humans have pondered the origins of things since a brain became self-aware. That awareness of self came with it the questions of origin and unification with the seemingly infinite earth that surrounded them. In this quest for understanding, whether through oral tradition, or written dialect many philosophies about the subject were propagated and embellished as time passed. The philosophies became accepted by the members of various groups and clans, and those societies who were strong and capable of spreading their political influence across a region spread with them their traditions and beliefs, collectively forming a religion or set of interrelated religions. The only explainations of things and events that mortal men could not replicate, became immortal forces of creation and destruction called gods. All the mysterious and supernatural forces that binded the reality of ancient people became manifestations of a divine influence and sublime power. The best way for men who created things with their hands and by labor to fathom the origin of all things, was creation, an unseen spontaneous force that acted as the catalyst to spring forth reality before any man was born. Spontaneous creation by a supreme or many supreme entities became the binding fact that diminished the uncertainty of existance. This state of thinking was accepted for centuries, even millennia until the passage of time and the knowledge of humans expanded, and minds, aided by invented tools and collaborative communication, questioned the irrationality of such thinking, making observations contradictory to the the established traditions. Science arose from age of enlightened thinking, and seemingly diverged from the established teachings of organized religion which had obtained a stronghold on societies across the planet by the time the emergence of methodic analysis was being implimented. Science impowered technology, and technology worked to aid science. With new tools humans were able to see what no one man or woman prior had ever seen, and discovered verifiable proofs and explanations of those once mysterious forces that baffled and scared human ancestry. Today, we live at the crossroads in human development between the world of what is old and what is new. Divine creationism still thrives in many individual humans' minds, however science and technology have shown much to support the fact that the events that exist beyond human capacity to sense them, like the formation of mountains and the orbit of an electron exist not because it was commanded to be so, rather these things are occurances based upon an interrelationship between elements and systems macrocosmic and microcosmic. The creator has been pushed further and further out the door of human origin, however verifiable proof and analytical observation has shown that there is a paradox between spontaneous action and evolutionary development. There may no longer be a humanlike caretaker that formed the world with his bare hands, however the true beginning of all events in time and beyond lies elusive, as evasive to scientists as fire was to a tribal citazen. The juxtaposition of reality is such where both events can and do exist simultanously. This critical analysis will endevor to investigate and compare these explanations of origin in a very logical concise manner.

According to archaeological evidence, humans of earliest organized civilization that used an early form of lasting physical communication depicted imagery of their lives in the form of crude renderings formed upon the walls of caves and eventually carved stone representations of concepts derived from their imaginations, portrayals of their daily lives and mythical creatures derived from oral tradition, story, and legend. In many instances in tribal groups it is the eldest member that becomes the carrier of history and heritage of the group, and thus the source of all knowledge of creation and thus this knowledge is passed generation to generation, slightly modified, embellished, and adjusted to the state of affairs at the time.

Among western culture monotheisic religion it is accepted that a creative force dubbed most commonly noted as, "God," thought reality, as humans perceive it, into existance. This account of creation is explained in a collective anthology of edited and reproduced ancient texts, called "The Holy Bible" or just, "The Bible." The Christian Bible borrows many of its early texts from Hebrew writings inscribed and reinscribed through periods of ancient Mesopotamian history. Much of what is written by Moses was in fact accepted traditional legend and folklore of the Mid-East that had been passed down from prior races like the Sumarians, and the Akkadians, groups of people proven to have existed prior to the Hebrews. The creation account in Genesis provides for a concise description of the origin of basic observed elements of reality. It was an abridged version of longer epics and verses carried by scribes of an earlier era.

Religions maintained people's understanding of origin for many centuries.

Charles Darwin traveling to the island of the Galapagos in (date), observed the biodiversity of nature and drafted his "Origin of Species" and brought about the theory of natural selection, a state of natural development where for a species to survive it must adapt to the environment and conditions and stresses forced upon it. To adapt it must evolve. Often referred to as "survival of the fittest," those species that mutate or grow a specific genetic trait or learn a new skill to provide an advantage over comparable members of the species are more likely to survive against predators and environmental stress. As long stretches of time pass, those stronger generations continue to proliferate and thus overtake the once inferior genes.

A point of contention between scientists and Judeochristian creationists is the usage of Radiocarbon Dating to ascertain the age of an artifact, fossil, or rock. Many factions of Christianity believe that the age of Earth and the universe is no less than approximately 6000 years. Some biblical scholars have placed the date of creation at 4004 BC. This theory has been derived from (insert scripture) where it was indicated that a millenia is as a day in the eyes of God, and then this particular scripture is referanced to an unrelated scripture in Genesis, regarding the six creative days. Now the way I see it, even without the knowledge of Radiocarbon Dating common sense would dictate that such an uneducated assumption is inherantly false. We know that Earth processes take a LONG time to occur. You can't weather down an entire mountain in 6000 years let alone 60,000 years, and lifeforms that have since vanished off the surface of the planet don't simply just disappear mysteriously within such short lifespans. If this were the case then life as it were would be going extinct before our very eyes. Sorry but you can't form natural diamonds without pressure, heat, and a lot of time. These basic observations aside, Radiocarbon Dating is not always 100% accurate however it does provide for a very good estimate of an object's age to within even a hundred years. Radiocarbon Dating works on the principle that isotopes of the element Carbon, or Carbon14, decay, or break down over time at a regular interval. Carbon 14 can be found in living things, and things that were once living. Radioactive decay is measured in half-lives, or points at which the amount of radioactivity is reduced by half and so on. For instance over time, Carbon14 will decay by a factor of 1/2, and then half of that is 1/4, and half of that is 1/8, and so on and so on, until the amount of Carbon 14 in the original sample is so miniscule it can't be detected anymore. This always works the same, no matter what Carbon14 isotope you find it will always lose the same radioactivity no matter when and where you find the sample. It stands to reason that if a sample or artifact is determined to have 1/32 the Carbon 14 of a control sample, something from today, then it has been shown that the object is

The origin of humanity has baffled many scholars for thousands of years, and only recently has it been thoroughly investigated and strong evidence proving the origin of humanity has been layed bare. In the (need year) Lewis Leakey and his team of archaeologists unearthed from the deserts of Africa and partial skeleton of a very old and simian looking human. The skull was nothing like a standard chimpanzee or gorrilla, however the brain casing was significantly smaller than an average human's. The proto-human's jaw protruded from it's head very similar to a primates. (need more supporting facts, evidence, examples, and data about human anthrolopolgical history)

The evidence that history of just planet Earth stretches far beyond the very brief ember of human civilization can be observed in the formation of rock and the movement of Earth's crust. The entire planet's surface rides on a core of molten mixtures and compounds, containing heavy elements that make Earth's surface favorable for life unlike the outer planets in this solar system that were not dense enough and became "gas giants." It has been shown and proven through radioactive dating that rocks on the surface of Earth show age in excess of 4 billion years, or at least to the beginning of the solar system. The outer shell of the molten materials make up what is known as the crust. Scientist have found conclusive evidence showing that rocks on the surface move, very, very slowly over millions of years. This action of Earth's crust is called Plate Tectonics. The globe is actually fractured like a cracked egg where molten lava from the interior seeps through to the surface at various cracks, these large chunks of non molten rock are called Plates. There was once a time when you could walk from New York to France without ever touching water, however this has not been the case for a couple hundred million years. At one time all the continents of the Earth were grouped very closely together. Skeptics may claim that they are only guessing, but I'm sorry to say, but a small excercise will prove the point that Plate Tectonics is a active condition on this planet. Simply take a paper representation of the continent of Africa and then a continent of South America and place both of the two contenents right up against each other. Notice that both of these continents almost fit like a glove. So there you have it, the simpliest proof that plates do move, and do take millions of years to do so. If that wasn't enough for you, then lets head to the Pacific where if you look at Hawaii, you will notice that you have a large Island with a tail of progressively smaller islands following it. Underneath the Pacific Plate in that region there is an upwelling of interior Earth forces that has remained in the same spot for millions of years, however the large chunk of rock that makes up the bottom of the Pacific, has moved, thus leaving behind a trail of islands. Furthermore, if you could drain all the water on the planet, you would find this ridge in the middle of the Atlantic ocean that makes roughtly the same shape as the coastlines of North America/South America to Europe/Africa. If you still don't believe me, then you'll have to talk to the scientists that found the same rocks on the coast of Canada and the United States, as they found on the coast of Europe. They might have a thing or two to say about Plate Tectonics. Here's an interesting equation if you like math. It has been shown that the continents of Europe and North America are moving away from each other at about 1 and a half to 3 inches a year. If you divide that amount times the number of miles between the continents you may encounter a staggering figure. This is the age of time in which they were separated, give or take several million years.

Astronomers like naturalists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and geologists have looked toward observational evidence found beyond planet Earth, amidst the virtually limitless cosmos that surround our tiny planet to understand origin. Once thought, primarily emphasized by organized religion and human elitist beliefs, that the Earth was the absolute center of the universe, and all things revolved around it, this has in fact been proven false. Astronomers have used their telescopes to view many billions of stars, and billions of galaxies containing billions of stars homogenously distributed amisted the observable universe. One of the first revolutionaries who invented the Telescope, Galello Gallalei, observed that there was much to be seen that was very far away that proved our world was not the epicenter of reality, and this information became subversive to the established means of defining Earth's connection to the divine creator at the time. He was condemned by the Roman Catholic religious community in Italy, however his findings reverberated across the minds of many thinking men of the day. (skip ahead) It has been observed by many astronomers that newly condensed stars form accretion disks of material that spirils around the star's center of gravity like the moon does around earth. The superheated elements, carbon, hydrogen, helium, nitrates, silicates, etc. begin to cool and coagulate into clumps around the neighboring stars. These clumps grow heavyer, and gain stronger gravity the bigger they get, and the snowball effect begins, more gravity, more stuff pulled toward it until a tightly packed mass of material forms a planet. This over time cools, and surface hardens to form a crust on worlds with heavyer elements (more protons, neutrons, and electrons i.e. bigger numbers on the Periodic Table). Planets that contain mostly Hydrogen, Methane, and Carbon Dioxide gas simply form the most commonly observed extra solar planet in the modern era, a gas giant.

When we talk about the origin of the solar system, and the origin of the galaxy, we are talking about timeframes measured in "billions of years" Human perception of linear time is often blurred when things have a life span that dwarfs the average person's by such an immense number that it almost has no meaning. Few people can understand the magnatude of such vast figures. Older people may be able to remember 75 or even 100 years of changes, but this is a microscopic fraction of linear time compared to the age of the universe. This is even where scientists have trouble finding definite answers. We know that there are things that can be dated here on Earth that cap off at about 4.5 billion years old, nothing living mind you, but old material from the intersteller birth. Once beyond that we can only infer based upon evidence provided by the movement of entire galaxies of stars. An interesting technique for determining something's movement either toward you or away from you is (name of science). Red Shift is how far a particular object is moving away or toward you. You see in this (science) if an object is moving closer it's red shift becomes blue because the wavelengths of light are shortened, however if the object is moving away it is red in color because the wavelengths of light are moving farther apart. The deeper the red the faster it is moving away. It has been shown that the red shifts of many galaxies are in fact in the red, meaning that the distance between our galaxy, and the neighboring galaxy is growing. This observation seems to be pretty uniform, and one thing we know with this is that if these galaxies are getting farther apart then that means at one time they were closer together. Here's an example, draw two lines so that they form an angle, an approximate 45 degree angle will suffice. Now put a line between the widest point of the angle. In your mind think about what would happen if the two lines were two streets with cars driving on them. You see a guy in a car and he's moving away from you but you are still both moving forward at roughly the same speed. The further you drive the further he gets from you. You can infer that he's moving away from you at an angle, and that he began at a point that would cross your path...the center. Astronomers and astrophysicists look at thousands of streets with cars on them to make their determination and hypothesis about the birth of the universe, where, and when it happened. So what's at the center of the universe when we drag the galaxies back in time to the center? Here's where it gets blurry and only theory and conjecture roam. A majority of astronomers and astrophysicists believe that the universe started and one single point, a singularity of time and space where all that would ever be and ever was exists. They base this theory on the evidence collected supporting it. This theory has been dubbed, The Big Bang. I suppose this is a geeky word for it, but based upon what's been found this may be a valid description of events virtually unfathomable by human understanding otherwise. At the beginning of it all there exists a single point, an infinitly small point from where all that is became so. All was created here. The birth of the universe, the ascension of humans on planet Earth, my life, the sun burning out, and death of time, is all written here, in the beginning. I have arrived at the creator again, the force that enacted it's commandment upon reality at this origin.

Creation and Evolution are in fact the same thing. To create is to evolve, and to evolve is to create again. The universe destroys the old so it can make new, it assembles and reassembles, contructs, and takes apart. It is like a mind, a vast force, seemingly a super intelligence trying to understand itself. The paradox of discovering an origin, is the fact that it begs the question, so what started it, what originated the origin, and by whom did that originator's origin begin. The true origin of origin is perhaps forever elusive, and when terms like infinity, and infinite infinities come into play even logic breaks down. The irrational and the rational merge, choas and order unite in an eternal waltz of control where neather ever succumbs to the other. I have seen the face of God, and his face is my own. I am the manifestation of the universe's appeal to understand itself. Perhaps there will come a day billions of years from now when humans (or at least descendants of what was the human species) evolve to a state of consciousness so vast that our thoughts become universes.