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January 23, 2012 at 8:07 pm 
Cuttlefish My apologies for repeating myself, but when the foes of atheism repeat themselves, what am I to do? This past week, I have seen the phrase which is this post’s headline in several different places.
In a South African billboard, on a thread arguing about a Denver billboard, a thread about gay marriage in Washington State, and a couple more I can’t be bothered with chasing down.
More, after jump:
I am not the product of an accident.
I am the product of more accidents than you can count! Hell, you can just go back a handful of generations, and the number of competing sperm cells that my DNA had to beat is already simply phenomenal! Throw in childhood diseases for my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and beyond, the odds of any given set of them meeting in the first place, and I am a statistical anomaly a trillion to one against! And so are you! And so is every other person on the planet.
I am accident on accident
And chance on random chance
I’m the product of environment
And changing circumstance
The odds of my occurrence
Are incalculably small—
If you round off to the m b trillionth place
I don’t exist at all!
Every atom in my body
From an ancient star’s collapse;
I’m a long time in my making—
Several billion years, perhaps!
In a corner of infinity,
A cold and hostile place
On a tiny blue oasis
Set adrift in empty space
I’m a subset of the universe
That’s learned to look around—
And which cannot help but wonder
At the marvels I have found!
The descendent of bacteria,
Of annelids, of fish,
I’m a member of the primates,
Just an ape-man, if you wish
Through the engine of selection
Some would live and some would die—
“From so simple a beginning”
Just how fortunate am I!
And I pass along my molecules
And take my place in line
So some distant, future life form
Will have carbon that was mine
And perhaps my DNA as well—
Unlikely, though, my friend—
I have ridden quite a lucky streak,
And lucky streaks must end.
So it is, and so it must be
When so much depends on chance
But…
Since the music plays so briefly,
Can you blame me if I dance?
Posted in 
QFT
Do you ever put these to music?
I want to sing this one.
Some of them, Chigau, but not this one. And even those I have, I can’t say I’ve really made the music public (the parodies of, say, Dylan, or of Gilbert & Sullivan excepted). I am not a tunesmith. I would love for someone to take up the challenge, though! Feel free to give it a try!
Beautiful. I had to share this with my facebook friends (with link and attribution) I hope you don’t mind.
With link and attribution, I don’t mind a bit. Even better is sharing part of it, with link and attribution, so they have to come here… but don’t worry, MikeG., you don’t have to change what you did. Thank you.
You got it. In the future, i’ll excerpt. The more people I can expose to the Cuttlefish the better.
Thanks, MikeG!
Wow! Again! You’re pretty damn good for a cephalopod, or even a mammal, for that matter!
I simply adore this poem. Thank you for making our improbability beautiful!
Wow.
Beautiful. I am glad to have read this.
Awesome!!
I can’t tell for sure but the sentiment seems to be implying that being an accident is a bad thing. However, I don’t find it to be problematic, nor for that matter an idea that comes from my atheism. Seems more like this is a biological statement. Or maybe it’s just one of those places where science and atheism are joined at the hip.
p.s. the poem is beautiful.
Love the poem.
Just wanted to post one quick observation: I think we should be opposing the banning of this ad. Eugene Gerber is no better than religious people who complain against atheist billboards. I know ours are less offensive – it doesn’t matter.
@Die Anyway:
Best I can tell, most theists need an externally defined purpose and something like these accidents are completely incomprehensible to them.
I agree, bsk–asking for the ban made the atheist who lodged the complaint look foolish, in my opinion. Leaving it up made the sponsors of the billboard look foolish. I’d much rather have it up, and own it with posts like this, much as atheists are owning “evil little thing”.
Lovely poem. Off to buy a lottery ticket (though now of course I realize I already won the grand prize).
Once, using Dembski acolyte Sean Pittman’s own reasoning, I concluded that the sheer improbability of each of the events which would have been necessary in order for Pittman to exist, meant that his existence was impossible.
Wow. You atheists are incredibly dumb. You think the universe and all life came about as products of a random accident? Prove that accidents can create order, design and balance. You can’t. It’s only logical to assume that we were created by an intelligent mind.
http://atheismandevolutiondisproven.blogspot.com
Then we have your flawed evolution which claims that we came from mutated animals which magically evolved from dead chemicals.
Atheism and evolution are such odious and pathetic theories.
Farewell.