The First Argument:

How did I get here?

See this? This is the actual body of a child that died in AD 79 in Pompeii. It looks to be about 6 or 7 years old. What are your first reactions to this? Be honest. My first reaction was, Geez, what a horrible way to spend eternity. But my next reaction was horror, sorrow, empathy, etc. I’m sure you had the same reaction. Somewhere in that thought process you probably had the wish that this didn’t happen. That this child survived. I can tell you that for an absolute fact, if this child did not die, in fact if this child did not die at exactly this point in time, in this way, that YOU would not exist! I say that knowing full well that anyone of the over 6 Billion people in the world may read this at some point in time. But that statement is true. Now I will prove it to you.

Let’s take a moment to review exactly how you or any human gets started. No this is not going to be instructional as the Internet appears to have been created primarily to provide just such instructional videos. But rather this is a re-hash of what you were taught, or should have been taught in grade school. Humans are conceived by a single sperm entering a single egg and fertilizing it. For most of us, that’s where that thought ends. But what you don’t consider is this, how did that particular sperm out swim all the others? How did that particular egg get there in the first place? What about all the other sperms and eggs?

Let’s begin with the egg. Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. They do not make them, they are born with them. Think about that for a moment. If women do not make them, then where did they come from? From your maternal grandmother that’s where. Kinda creepy but true. From the time of menstruation women lose about 1 egg every cycle. Usually about a month or so. So, this means that the particular egg that became you was only in place for a few weeks at most. There are many things that can throw this off. Disease, poor diet, excessive exercise, etc. All things that would have resulted in a different egg being used at the time of conception. It may be obvious, but it’s worth stating that a different egg does NOT result in you being you. It would result in you being your sibling. Let’s also consider what could have happened before your mother was even born. If your maternal grandmother had a different diet, either better OR worse, it the circumstances of her pregnancy with your mother had been different at all, that would have affected the characteristics of each particular egg passed down to your mother. So not only did that particular egg have to be your egg, it had to have the right characteristics to be fertilized. Fertilized by that particular sperm in fact.

Now let’s take a look at your dad. His part of the bargain, the sperm, was probably made the day before conception. That means that pretty much anything could have affected it. What he ate, how he dressed, boxers or briefs, whether or not he got in a fight, ouch! Any of those could change the characteristics of the sperm he produced. Not only that, at the moment that those sperm began their particular journey, there were over one billion of them. Only one of which was you. So, what happens next? Well they have to swim towards the egg. Now this is just like any other obstacle course in that there are roadblocks and hazards along the way. There are deposits of mucus and other fluids that sometimes help and sometimes hinder the journey. There is PH to contend with. Is the environment acidic or not? That can be affected by diet and other things. There is also gravity involved. What position are they in? What happens if they move differently than they did?

Now let’s not forget time. If the journey started before or after it should have, then that means the initial positions of the sperms have changed. So, if someone delayed either your mother or your father or both by any means at all, the odds of that sperm that became you ever reaching its destination are significantly changed. And don’t forget, any other sperm is not you! It is your brother or sister!

Remember that old story about the time traveler who goes back in the past and accidentally kills his grandfather and thus is not born? Well that’s completely unnecessary. All he would have to have done is delay your mother or your father by a minute or so, or change their diet, or pretty much do anything and the odds of him being born almost vanish completely!

The point I am making here is that in order for you to have been conceived at all, everything that happened before that point had to have happened exactly as it did. This is a very important point with profound philosophical implications. A point almost everyone overlooks completely all the time.

So, now that we have established that mom and dad had to do the deed exactly as they did for you to be here, guess what? The same applies for their mom and dad. Hey! Grandpa gets kicked in the nuts on his way home to grandma and poof! Your mom becomes your Aunt and you don’t exist.

So now back to the kid in the photo. As you know, you have two parents, and they have two parents each, and they in turn have two parents each and so one. There is a formula for this. It says that the number of ancestors you have is 2 to the nth power, where n is the number of generations back you want to look. So, I am writing this in 2020, 79 AD was 1941 years ago. If you allow about 20 years for each generation then there have been about 97 generations since then. That means I am related to 2 to the 97 th power of people who were alive then. That’s 1.58 with 29 zeros after it! That is actually much greater than the entire population of Europe at the time. So, it’s a pretty safe bet that anyone alive today who has ANY European blood anywhere in their family tree is related to this poor child in some way. Even if you’re not related, there is an almost certain chance that if this child lived, then one of his/her descendants would have interacted with one of your descendants in such a way as to change the outcome of a particular conception. So, while there is the slightest possibility that if you currently live on a remote island and all of your descendants also lived on that island and have had absolutely no contact with anyone of even the slightest European descent, then you may have come into being as you did. Of course, it’s equally likely that one of those unborn individuals could have come to your island during those 1941 years and killed everybody.

So there, proof.

In short, everything that happened before you were conceived had to happen exactly as it did in order for you to be here. And the further back in time you go, the more that is true because of the greater number of people involved. Sounds reasonable right? Then why do we behave as if it doesn’t?

There are countless instances of both individuals and especially groups literally trying and often succeeding in killing each other over things that happened before they were conceived. Events that were absolutely necessary for them to be born. Let’s look at a few;

The first example that pops into my head is the events of September 11, 2001. The United States actually went to war over this. I am NOT saying that the war was good or that it was (is) bad, just that it IS. Oddly though, any soldier currently fighting that is 19 years old or younger is fighting to avenge the very events that caused him/her to be born in the first place. They themselves would not be alive if Mohammed Atta had been stopped at the airport that day.

Next would be the JFK assassination. If he was not shot dead in Dallas then perhaps the US would not have escalated the war in Vietnam and the 55,000 Americans that died would not only be alive, so would all their progeny. Those conceived after November 1963 would however, not be here at all.

Next, and this is a tough one, no Jewish person born after 1945 would be here without the Holocaust. I know it’s extremely hard to consider that Hitler and his henchmen are somehow responsible for your being alive, but if you were conceived after 1945, and most of us were, then it is true.

Lastly it means that no African American would be here without slavery. Talk about horrible thoughts! But sadly, it is indeed true.

Not only did all these disturbing things have to happen, but all the twisted horrible subplots within each event had to happen as well.

These are all extremely disturbing thoughts. But they are all true.

Please note that I am not making a political or social commentary on these horrible events. I am simply stating the facts. It is perfectly fine to condemn these events and to try to “set things right” going forward. But to wish they never happened is to wish you were never born. That’s a fact.

Let me take a moment here to point a few less obvious things out here. How many of us have wondered what it would be like if we were born to rich parents? If we were like Bill Gates? Well this discussion proves that that is simply not possible. If your parents were anyone other than who they actually were, you would not exist. You could never have been anyone else. If your parents were drug addicts, you owe your existence to that fact as much as Bill Gates owes his existence to the fact that his parents were who they were.

Or how about this one? You were taught at a very early age to hate a group of people or a person because of what they did to your ancestors. Ok, but that hatred is also aimed at your existence. It’s pointless to engage in this sort of thing. Simply put, you are who you are because of what happened before you.

Last one; I’ve heard it time and again, you’re only American because of the accident of your birth or because of good fortune. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am American because of the things my ancestors did that caused me to be here. Both good things and bad things. No luck involved other than the aforementioned sperm/egg process.

So, you could use this knowledge to look forward. If you are in a situation that you wish had been better at your birth, you cannot do anything about that. But you can do everything about it for those who have yet to be born. You have absolute control over the fate of literally millions of people that will come after you. So, the next time you hop in the sack, keep in mind that you could be starting a process that delivers an Einstein or a Hitler, it’s totally up to you.

I like to say that “you play the hand you’re dealt”. The fact that you are even alive means that you have already won a lottery that had absolutely astounding odds against you even getting born in the first place. Think about that and consider how lucky you are. Don’t dwell on all the crap that went before you. Once you realize what a gift, and indeed it is a gift, you’ve been given you may want to consider what you are doing with it and how you can make the most of it.