Cosmology, the study of the development of the universe. This includes the "big bang" concept of the first few seconds of the universe's existence.
	Abiogenesis, the study of the development of the first living cell from non-living matter. This field of study is still in its infancy.

The theory of evolution is coupled with cosmology and abiogenesis and other "ologys" leads to a comprehensive model of origins: The universe started in a "big bang," -- a natural phenomenon, not involving God in any way. The coalescence of the earth, the development of its crust, the appearance of life and the development of new species through evolution are all viewed as having proceeded strictly by blind natural processes. A minority believe that species evolved more or less regularly over the past hundreds of millions of years. Most believe, on the basis of the fossil record, that species evolved through a process of "punctuated equilibrium". A given species continued to live for long periods of time with few changes. A new species evolved from the old very quickly in evolutionary time. They assume that there was no intervention by a God in any of these processes.

The term "atheistic evolution" is really a misnomer, because belief in evolution is not limited to theists. Christians, and other theists can and do believe in the existence of both a supreme being or beings and naturalistic evolution. One does not have to be an Atheist in order to believe in naturalistic evolution. An individual may believe in God, and simultaneously hold the belief that one or more supreme beings had no involvement in either driving or guiding evolution.

The philosophical foundation of naturalistic evolution is not Atheism, as many conservative Christians assert. Rather, it is the belief that the most productive scientific research results when scientists assume that all events in the universe happen as a result of perfectly natural forces. Another way of expressing this is that scientists assume that the events that they are studying did not occur as a result of miracles created by God. This is a sensible approach, because if God regularly interfered with natural processes and performed miracles, then there would be no processes that could be studied scientifically.