The Miracle of You

You are a miracle.  Every one of your direct ancestors - going back through all the generations before your generation to the beginning of humanity as we know it - lived to pass on the DNA that became you. 


Author and blogger Dr. Ali Binazir did the actual calculations and the probability of your existing at all is:

 1 in 10^2,685,000

Various analogies can be given to try and wrap your head around this number.

One example is this: two million people getting together each day to play a game of dice with a trillion sided die...and they all come up with the same number.

Another example comes from Buddhist teaching: Imagine there was one life preserver thrown somewhere in some ocean and there is exactly one turtle in all of these oceans, swimming underwater somewhere...the probability that you came about and exist today is the same as that turtle sticking its head out of the water - in the middle of the preserver.  On one try.


Here is my analogy: Let's say there was a factory that makes confetti cake sprinkles and of all the millions of sprinkles, there is one that has been marked with your initials on it.  Let's say every employee in the factory takes all the lids off every container in every case of sprinkles in the whole building and throws them up into the air as high as they can simultaneously.  Let's say someone is walking around in random patterns all over the factory and this person  lifts up his hand in the very moment the sprinkles are launched...only to catch the one piece that has your initials on it in the center of his palm. 

A recent article on a Catholic web site does a great job on explaining the sanctity of this...

http://blog.adw.org/2011/09/the-probability-of-you-existing-at-all-is-almost-non-existent-a-brief-refelction-on-the-contingency-of-our-being-based-on-a-recent-math-article/

You landed in the palm of God's hand.  Live your life like it is a miracle.  It is. 



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(c) 2012 photography and writing by Chloe - all rights reserved