The life of the universe is something like 13.7 billion years old. Whatever or whomever kick started it, it started then.
Miracle 1: At this point is that if the expansion of star matter happened at exactly the right rate -- if it had been slower, gravity would have kicked in and pulled all that hot glop back into where it came from and if it had been faster, the glop would have spread out and the energy would have dissipated without ever forming galaxies and stars. As it happened, galaxies and stars happened and we got hydrogen, helium and lithium -- which begat pretty much everything else.
The Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. By this time the universe had created lots with the hydrogen, helium and lithium building blocks -- things like carbon and acids and rocks and water.
Miracle 2: However Earth's position relative to the sun was determined, it was a good decision for life. If this planet were closer to the sun, it would have been too hot and any further away and it would have been too cold. If life had appeared on an Earth in a different position, it would be awesome but it wouldn't have gotten much further than slimes and such.
Life, such as it was, appeared a little less than 4 billion years ago. As far as I can understand, life started after compounds of water and acids and lipids started creating bubbles that separated what was on the inside from stuff on the outside. The stuff on the inside started "learning" how to grow and change and something happened and SHAZAM! -- there came life.
Miracle 3: Life!
Plants and animals (and bacteria and archaea) came along and did things that as far as we know have never happened anywhere else. Ever.
Miracle 4: Life keeps on happening; getting more varied and complex, creating ecosystems and communities that interact in new and novel ways. Life isn't easy -- it generally requires eating or supplanting other life, and trying not to be eaten. A given living being has a short span in which to go about eating and procreating before it just can't live any more. The story of life is the story of plants and animals and things somewhere in between learning more and more creative ways to live and to eat.
Humans came along around 325,000 years ago. If aliens came and looked at a human then, they might not have found it any different than other animals. But if those aliens watched humans interact with each other, the analysis would be different. Humans developed social networks and communication far more complex than that of any other animal or plant. Animals and plants think, believe it or not -- at least they do in the way cognitive scientists define think, which is that they choose action that is designed to support and promote life. But humans are different.
Miracle 5: Consciousness. From the beginning of time until consciousness developed in humans, there was no "I" to look at the universe and its creations. No creature found enough mental separation from the grind of staying alive to start wondering, "what else do I want?" and "what does it all mean?"
I like to think about the universe as a big bubble of energy and matter and life expanding from nothing, getting bigger and more complex and amazing and beautiful by the second. Then, after billions of years, something new started happening on the surface of a small planet that circles a sun -- life. At first life looked like just a new compound of chemicals and stuff, but it started spreading out into stupendous new forms. And then, all of the sudden this new bubble, or rather this collection of new bubbles, start popping up in the minds of these itty bitty little creatures.
In their minds! As endless are the variations possible in this amazing universe, the possibilities in the minds of these little creatures are even more endless.
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