“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.” — Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
Richard Dawkins and I agree on this. I think “unborn ghosts” is an interesting word choice for an atheist who, I assume, denies the existence of the soul, but that’s a quibble. He’s straight up right — human existence is so improbable as to be a miracle. Being is a miracle and a gift.
Turns out my God is Being itself (“ipsum esse,”) not the “Supreme Being” (“ens summum”) whose existence Dawkins denies. Not trying to be smug here. I am encouraged by the prospect that, if we were all to simply embrace a more mature definition of God, we might find more common ground even with atheists who deny God but nonetheless acknowledge the incredible gift of existence.
wellthereyougo 