Our lives are so short when measured against the sweep of human history, and when we come into contact with that history, it can be awe-inspiring.

One day in July 1977, I walked around a corner of a block in Rome and saw, right in front of me, the Colosseum. The Roman Colosseum. The <a title="Colosseum" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum" target="_self">Flavian Amphitheatre</a>, built in the first century A.D. and completed around the year 80.

It literally gave me chills.

On a lesser scale, I had a similar reaction once while watching a movie, Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves." In the latter part of the movie, Costner's character is sitting inside a lodge with a Native American chief who takes out a relic the tribe has been carrying with it for the past several centuries. It was a Spanish conquistador's helmet.

Again, chills.

[caption id="attachment_977" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Lascaux"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/france-lascaux.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-977" title="france lascaux" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/france-lascaux.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="236" /></a>[/caption]

The scope of human history doesn't go back all that far -- maybe 2-3 million years -- when compared to how long the Earth has been around, but some people have trouble even coping with that number. So-called <a title="Young Earth Creationism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism" target="_self">"Young Earth Creationists"</a> suggest that God created the universe within the last 10,000 years, completely disregarding things like carbon dating and the fossil record.

According to a 2008 Gallup Poll, nearly half of all American adults (44 percent) hold that belief, which essentially means they don't believe in science. When they're asked how to explain the records showing dinosaurs existed more than 65 million years ago, they either deny the accuracy of the record or say God could make the record look like anything he wanted.

The late comedian Bill Hicks explained dinosaurs from a young earth perspective by saying, "God put them there to test our faith."

Of course that begs the question of <em>why</em> God would have his little joke.

Since I <em>do</em> believe in science and in things like carbon dating, I tend to laugh at people who believe the universe is only 10,000 years old. In fact, according to carbon dating, I have stood somewhere and seen works of man that are older than that.

In the summer of 2001, when my wife and I visited Europe, we spent an afternoon at the caves in <a title="Lascaux" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux" target="_self">Lascaux</a>, France.

Talk about chills.

The cave paintings there date back 17,300 years and are perhaps the oldest surviving artworks in the world. Most are paintings of prehistoric animals, although there has been some speculation that there might be prehistoric star charts as well.

If there's one thing annoying about a lot of people who dismiss science, it's that many of them are highly limited in their own personal experiences. Only a small percentage of Americans even bother to get passports, so it's a safe assumption that few of the young earthers have ever been to places like Lascaux.

Travel really does broaden you.