If I have one. I'd really like to know if what I'm saying is not supported by reason, leaving emotion out of it. I can't actually leave emotion out of the argument, because I'm going to talk about the Tim Tebow bullshit again, and it pisses me off to no end that public policy in this country is being influenced by one group's religious beliefs, when supposedly there's a separation of church and state built into the whole concept of America. (See that? I'm foaming at the mouth already.) Be that as it may, all y'all who are way smarter than I am can tell me where exactly my logic runs out.
I gather the gist of Mr Tebow's commercial is that if his mother hadn't gone against medical advice and continued her pregnancy with him, he wouldn't have been born and grown up to win a Heisman trophy, and that makes him sad, 'cause he's happy to have been born and had a wonderful life full of things like Heisman trophies. And we're supposed to be sad over his possible abortion too, because, y'know, America needs quarterbacks! (See? Sarcastic as hell already.)
You know what I think? Imagine if his parents hadn't had sex the night he was conceived. Imagine if his mother had had a headache or his father was too involved in some project or other to be interested in booty or one of the other kids was sick and climbing in bed with mom and dad. Imagine if his dad just couldn't get it up. There'd be no Tim Tebow.
You know what else I think? Imagine if one of his father's sperm had swum a little bit faster than the sperm that made Tim Tebow. The Tebows would have had a whole different child. Maybe that one would have been a violin virtuoso or maybe it would have been just solidly average at everything or maybe it would have been a sociopath. Hell, if the faster swimmer was carrying an X chromosome, it would have been a girl. There'd be no Tim Tebow.
You know another thing I think? Imagine if none of the sperm made it to the egg that night or that month. Imagine if Mrs Tebow didn't conceive until the following month. Whole different egg as well as a whole different sperm. Once again, totally different kid. There'd be no Tim Tebow.
You know the fourth thing I think? Imagine if Tim Tebow's parents had never met. Imagine if they'd disliked each other. Imagine if they'd liked each other but they'd had some horrible misunderstanding before the wedding and broken up. There'd be no Tim Tebow.
You know yet another thing I think? Imagine if his mother's doctors had been right. Imagine if her placenta had abrupted completely. There'd be no Tim Tebow. (And perhaps no Mrs Tebow.)
You know the final thing I think? There are a lot of occurrences that have to happen and others that need to not happen for any one of us to be born and to be *us*. Whether it's god or fate or karma or just chance, if we're here and we're us, we were meant to be here and us. The whole infinite number of other people who could have been born and lived instead of us weren't meant to be here. (Maybe they're alive in some parallel universe. I don't know my quantum physics but I'm not ignorant of science fiction, yo.)
So for us to buy into "oh, if Mrs Tebow had been weak and sinful and selfish and followed her doctor's advice and aborted fetus Tim, the world would have missed out on him and he would have missed out on his wonderful life" and mourn that possibility, we also have to mourn the possibility of all the infinite number of possible human beings who were never born because their parents didn't meet, didn't mate, didn't have sex on one particular night, would have resulted from an egg or a sperm that was "wasted", were miscarried early before the possible mother even knew she was pregnant, or were miscarried at some later point. Any one of those possible human beings could have been another Tim Tebow, Gandhi, Pol Pot, Albert Einstein, Barack Obama, Paris Hilton, or Jeffery Dahmer. Any one of them could have had the most blessed or most cursed or most average life. But they're not. They were never born and they never grew up and that's just the reality of this particular universe you and I are living in.
I think I'm done now.
xoxo
5 comments:
The law of large numbers carries the truth about how many Mrs. Tebows (and their fetuses) died as a result of ignoring advice on her condition. What we're really hearing is that Timmy thinks a Heisman winner in hand (i.e. he, himself) is worth more than all of the other of God's children (many of whom happen to be women and not baby to-be Heisman winners, so, therefore, less important to the world), who aren't here instead.
America needs quarterbacks!
Not that it's *directly* relevant, but when I saw Al Green preaching, he said "People ask, Rev. Al, how can you be a preacher and sing 'For the Good Times'? And I tell them, 'Someone must have been having a good time or you wouldn't be here!'"
As for CBS's sudden turnabout on "advocacy ads" it's interesting how conservative, christian, right wing, tell other peope how to live their lives advocacy so often seems to get ok'd before left-wing, progressive, leave people the fuck alone ads get approved. As with the news, the people who run the media run afraid of conservatives and somehow think they won't offend if they take a conservative stance. If progressives were smart, they'd disabuse them of that notion.
Let's not forget, either, that there are quite a few people in both the NCAA and the NFL who think it would be just fucking fine if there were no Tim Tebow. Not everyone shares Tim's self-conceit, meaning he is just as unimportant as those other people.
I think I'll pick up a book on Sunday night.
I see no logic fail.
And thank you for the reminder that *I* am a miracle, just like Tim Tebow, and you and Uncle and everyone else. And that I am here, so I may as well get started really living the life Im supposed to be living.
And America only needs quarterbacks if theyre like Joe Montana :-)
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