"But, I mean," said Elliot. "If there is no God then what is the purpose for life, and how did we get here in the first place?"
E.T. smiled. This was the question he had been waiting for. "Well, I can't tell you all the details, so you'll just have to see for yourself. Look there!"
Elliot turned his head along with E.T.'s and looked towards an open space of black sky amidst the stars.
"Look harder," urged E.T.
Elliot looked harder, his eyes focusing in on the empty black space.
"Harder!" E.T. urged.
Elliot looked harder with his eyes widening.
"Harder!" E.T. urged.
Elliot strained himself to concentrate on the dark expanse of space only... and then it happened.
He saw a tiny white light grow and expand until it filled the whole sky and then it seemed to explode itself in a bang so big and loud it could not be heard and massive streaks of blue and white light covered everything and the light kept stretching out and enlarging into huge waves of energy and matter which kept colliding together over and over. Elliot felt like he was sitting up in the very front most seat of the biggest movie screen as he watched what looked like a giant pinball game of red and white streaks and dots of light and after a few minutes it settled down, decreased in size, and turned to dark blue.
Then he seemed to be in the center of what looked like thick, foamy, transparent blue and green and red clouds of hydrogen. He watched as they began to condense over time and were being pulled together by their own gravity and turned from purple to violet to blue to turquoise to aqua to green to yellow to orange and then it became brighter and brighter until it seemed to explode in light and radiation, and when it calmed it left a huge glowing ball which looked like a star, and then it occurred to Elliot it was also a sun. The sun remained the same for a time and then it began growing darker and darker, turning orange and then red and then it seemed to swell larger and larger and then it burst like an overblown balloon, sending red and yellow dust particles everywhere like a cosmic dust storm.
The dust kept scattering around and then it seemed to be drawing back as if being sucked in by a vacuum. Pulled in by gravity the dust swirled around and formed a disc with a bright red center. As the pressure built up the temperature rose and as more mass and energy was added to it it became solid and changed to orange to yellow. It was a brand-new star, and soon Elliot realized it was none other than the star at the center of his own solar system. Then he watched as leftover dust particles scattered away from the sun and began coming together and forming small rocks floating in space. These rocks began colliding with each other and formed into bigger rocks and as the rocks grew so did the collisions. Some rocks that hit head on broke apart while others stuck together and the more they grew the stronger was the gravity pulling them.
Eventually, the gravity shaped them into small round planets, just a few miles across. They began growing from car sized, to house sized, to mountain sized, to the size of the moon, and a few of the bigger ones collided with others and then formed the three planets orbiting closest to the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Elliot zoomed in like the lens of a movie camera on the third planet which was his Earthly home, except it looked very different from the one he knew.
The Earth was nothing more than a fiery rock covered with lava. Volcanoes were erupting everywhere sending vast amounts of steam into the atmosphere which was causing heavy downfalls of acid rain. The newborn Earth was so full of energy as it was vigorously recycling and melting its materials over and over so constantly Elliot seemed to be watching a tape on fast forward.
He watched as an asteroid, or a meteorite from outer space fell out of the red sky and crashed into the red liquid layers of rocks. Quickly, more meteorites began crashing down, generating waves of intense heat into the atmosphere. The combined effect was catastrophic and the planet became a raging furnace. As the temperatures reached thousands of degrees dense metal in the Earth's rocky surface such as iron and nickel melted and became a liquid rock ocean hundreds of kilometers thick.
The melted iron sank into the Earth's center where it formed a molten core which gave the Earth a magnetic field that protected it from the harm of the solar wind. Still the Earth was a hostile and inhabitable planet with no oxygen and no water. Then suddenly another massive rock about the size of Mars crashed into the Earth. The impact was so great it melted both it's and the Earth's outer layers resulting in a new and bigger Earth. At the same time the collision threw vast amounts of molten rock into space which came together and formed the Earth's moon.
The moon was at first about two-hundred thousand feet closer to the Earth than it is today and the Earth was spinning much faster making each day only six hours long, and with the moon so close its gravitational pull on the Earth was enormous and the land rose and fell about two-hundred feet during the moon's phases. Then as the moon began to slowly drift away the Earth's rotation slowed down and it's molten lava layers cooled to form it's crust.
Then numerous mountain sized comets began falling into the Earth, the impact melting the ice in them and creating thick clouds which poured down hot rain which lasted for years, forming first rivers and lakes, and then eventually almost all of the Earth was covered in water. Although the planet was still unsuitable for life with poisonous gases filling its atmosphere. Then gradually small plants began to grow in the soil and as they sprouted higher and higher above the surface they gave out oxygen to renew the atmosphere.
Elliot's attention was now on the surface of the ocean which had turned from green to blue and he saw dozens of tiny fish swimming in its waters. Then he watched as they grew fins and tails, and then teeth and limbs. He saw them crawling out of the water and onto the land now looking somewhere between a frog and a lizard. He watched them lay their eggs and watched as some of them hatched into much more lizard like creatures. The time seemed to be speeding up again as he watched the grow bigger and wider and form longer legs and sharper teeth. He watched these monstrous creatures hunt their prey and raise their young for a few moments before the scenery suddenly shifted again and became much dryer and barer and these enormous beasts seemed to be disappearing.
Then he watched the smaller reptiles grow and change like the ones before them and start a whole new race called dinosaurs. Then for about three and a half minutes he watched a Jurassic park of Brontosauruses, Triceratops, Brakosauruses, Allosauruses, Stegosauruses, and Pterodactyls roaming in herds and battling the dreaded Tyrannosaurus Rex. He watched the dinosaurs migrate when their climates began to change and watched them hatch young which grew into new kinds of dinosaurs over the millenniums. Then before his eyes the dinosaurs began disappearing as the land began drastically changing. Then he watched as suddenly a meteorite hit the Earth and the sky was blazing and filled dust and debris. The dinosaurs' reign was officially over.
Then he watched the land gradually redeem itself and he saw tiny mammals come out of their shelter. He watched how they grew as they adapted to their new environment and then suddenly the Earth was being dominated by mammals large and small who looked like the ancestors of elephants, giraffes, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and wild cats, and he also saw giant birds with giant beaks walking around. Once again carnivores and herbivores were roaming around preying on each other and trying to breed young.
There was one creature in particular that caught his attention. It was a family of monkeys jumping around on a tall tree nearby. He had never seen these kind of monkeys before and yet they seemed so familiar to him. After a moment one of the younger monkeys jumped down from a branch and began moving towards him. He was halfway to him when there was suddenly a bright flash and the scenery changed yet again and the monkey had changed as well for he was now walking erectly and had a different set of features making him look more related to a chimpanzee. Elliot stared at him for a long moment when it suddenly occurred to him that this peculiar kind of monkey looked like him in a much hairier state. Then suddenly the monkey heard its relatives calling for it and it scampered away from him.
Then the scenery shifted again and he saw another family of monkeys in a somewhat different place and the monkeys now looked almost human or at least halfway. He watched as they played together and scavenged for food together and took care of their young and when he saw a mother nursing a baby he was so struck by how much it nearly resembled a human infant. He watched the scenery shifting again as they began migrating as the climate was changing as did their prehistoric relatives.
With the new changing of time and place he saw another new family of whom he was now fully convinced were his own ancestors walking in a desert like place carrying large clubs and apparently hunting for beasts to kill for food and clothing. They looked just like humans except with apelike features and muscles. One of the leading cavemen let out a strange kind of yell and pointed to a large deer like creature ahead of them, and as they all rushed forward with their clubs and knives there came from ahead of them another tribe of human like creatures though they were hairier with seemingly much bigger bones and Elliot reckoned these must be the Neanderthals who he now saw were not his ancestors but rather the cousins of his ancestors. Then as it became apparent there was to be a fight over the feast the scenery began shifting all over again.
He now saw before a family of homo sapiens that looked almost exactly like the human beings he was familiar with in his own time gathered around a campfire and roasting fresh meat and feeding each other, while at the same time attempting to nurse the wounds of one of their kin who was laying in the arms of an older female who was likely his mother. As the darkness turned to daylight it became apparent the wounded one wouldn't survive and the rest of them got up and left his lifeless body behind them. This seemed an abhorrent thing to do to Elliot but he reckoned these ancestors just hadn't yet developed their consciousness to mourn their deceased.
As he saw the landscape changing, becoming hotter and dryer, he saw his ancestors changed with it. They became thinner with lesser hair and their skin turned a very dark shade of brown. He watched them learn to save food and water as they migrated from their inhospitable climate. He saw them make their way to the continent that would later be called Europe, and as he watched them adapt to their new environment he watched them change gradually over the centuries with their skin becoming lighter and lighter. He watched how they developed their language skills and invent writing and officiate names and then last names including the name Taylor.
Then he watched how his ancestors came from England to the new American colonies around the time of the Mayflower Voyage. He watched them become Americans and then watched them attend the reception of the new Constitution and help get George Washington elected. Then he watched some of them participate in, and a few die in the Civil War and the first and second World War.
He saw that overall and with rare exceptions all of his ancestors had been good and honest people and they had fought against slavery, racism, bigotry, the great depression, and homelessness. He had relatives who were policemen, firemen, archaeologists, astronomers, and watchmakers. He watched the history of his bloodline up until the moment he and his siblings were born, and when the film roll had run out the beam of light from the beginning repeated itself in reverse and then the sky became its normal self again.
"Wow!" exclaimed Elliot when he had somewhat recovered from his thrill ride through time. "That was quite an experience I won't ever forget! So that was how it all began?"
"Yes," said E.T. confidently. "What you have just seen is the knowledge my ancestors have saved up since the very beginning. You went through exactly four-billion years in fifteen minutes."
"Wow! Just like home movies!" Elliot said breathlessly. "But are you positive that the birth of the planet and the evolution of species I just saw was of my own?"
For just one moment E.T. looked offended, though the look quickly passed and he replied very calmly, "Yes, indeed. My ancestors knew about your ancestors from their birth and also many other civilizations of other species and we have the technology to keep track of what we see and learn which your race has been lacking for such a long time."
"Well, it was certainly more awesome and inspiring than any made-up creation story I've ever heard," said Elliot matter of factually. "And it also makes a lot more sense even though I'd never have been able to understand it if I hadn't seen it like I just did."
"Yes, I know," said E.T. solemnly. "Your ancestor's brains developed so much slower than ours did that since they had no way of understanding how they came to be they did the only thing they knew how to do and that was imagine how they came to be. The imagination that your kind has is both a wonderful and a terrible thing for it has advanced you in every way for the past thousand years and has helped you to survive through hardships, yet it also causes many of you to become seriously deluded and to start wars and invent dogmas which you have no need for. Now you have just been given a special gift of insight into your species history of how they came to be and how the thrived, evolved, and advanced over seven-million years. So now what do you think the answer to your question is? What is the purpose of living?"
"Well," said Elliot thoughtfully. "I think the purpose of living, of being here, is to try to make the world a better place for all its creatures to live on, and to leave behind new knowledge or wisdom for the people of the future so that we will continue to grow and be in harmony with all the other lifeforms there are out there."
"Very good!" said E.T. like a teacher praising his student. "I was hoping that's what you would decide, because that is what I think it is also."
"I really do appreciate the gift you've given me and all, E.T.," said Elliot more somberly. "But I think that now if I tell those I meet what I now know as truth and am honest about myself they won't believe it and will think I am a freak or something."
"I know," said E.T. gently. "Because they are used to what they think they know already. But you won't find too much trouble with it in the future because within the next twenty years your kind will begin to understand people who know different things than most, and you will become a champion in the new century to come of understanding truth and evolution and other living organisms. It is my, as you will call it, Christmas gift to you, Elliot Taylor."
"E.T., thank you! You're the best friend anyone could have in the whole Universe!" exclaimed Elliot as he threw his arms around E.T. and gave him the biggest hug this side of the Milky Way.
"I know you are, but what am I?" asked E.T.
