A Brief History of History

In the beginning, there was nothing. Out of nothing came everything. According to people who study such things for lifetimes, this is the apparent summation of the nearly uncountable epochs of existence. It was all rather mechanical, and in an infinite, unquantifiable way, perhaps even predictable. A massive explosion from a infinitesimal singularity, unimaginable heat, rapid expansion, the creation of matter and anti-matter from enormous globs of energy, and the subsequent rise of the various particles, elements and forces that we now recognize in the universe.

Stars formed from gaseous clouds, then clustered into galaxies. Planets formed from the scattered remnants of stars that died, and then clustered into solar systems. In a random, chaotic, unscripted way, everything in the universe found an order, and behaved according to some simple laws. In this way, the universe grew and expanded, with a lifeless, perhaps even programmed, progression toward disorder.

Things were going along smoothly, until a blue green planet coalesced somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy. This planet initially conformed to the mindless, entropic rules of the universe, until a strange confluence of chaos, chemicals, heat, and voltaic energy created self replicating carbon compounds that gradually morphed into bizarre single-celled organisms that painstakingly evolved into multi-celled organisms, which then transformed into many species of complex organisms. Two things happened next. First, these organisms began to care whether they existed or not. Then the highest level species began to wonder what it all meant. From these two things came the notions of good and bad and right and wrong, which were codified into isms and religions.  And then all hell broke loose....