"The word God is the product of human weakness" a letter from Albert Einstein

In January of 1954, just a year before his death, Albert Einstein wrote the following letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind after reading his book, 'Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt'. The letter that was expected to sell for £8,000 was bought at auction in May 2008, for £170,000. Read the very well written and polite response below.

Translated Transcript

Princeton, 3. 1. 1954

Dear Mr Gutkind,

Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me ... With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element ... unites us as having an “American Attitude.”

Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong ... have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision...

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e. in our evaluation of human behavior ... I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes,

Yours,

A. Einstein

Mormons Are Normal And Mainstream

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (I prefer to call them COJCOLDS) has started an advertising program both on commercial radio and television (in selected US markets) and on the Internet to show just how "Normal" and "Mainstream" they are. So, in an effort to help them, based on his many years in the Mormon Church, Flat Lander, the Bishop of the new Moron Church prepared this video of things that the Mormon Church actually do and believe. Decide for yourselves how "normal" and "mainstream" Mormons are.

After watching this informative and funny video I wanted to see if there were any famous exMormons out there; I was surprised and happy at what I found.

Aaron Eckhart

Katherine Heigl

Paul Walker

Jewel

Ryan Gosling, he's "religious but nondenominational"

Eliza Dushku

Amy Adams

Westboro Baptist Church North Texas Hate Tour 2010

The fine folks from Westboro Baptist will be in Dallas and Arlington tomorrow (7/9) and Sunday (7/11). They won't be picketing the funerals of dead soldiers this time but instead they will be picketing the Dallas Holocaust Museum (classy), a few Jewish community centers, a Gay and Lesbian center, Fielder Road Baptist Church in Arlington, and two Catholic Churches. I'm definitely going to their picket at the Gay and Lesbian center to witness this hilarious debacle for myself.

Dallas - 7/9 - 2:15-2:45pm

Dallas Holocaust Museum 211 North Record Street, Suite 100 WBC to picket the Dallas Holocaust Museum to remind the Jews that the Lord their God caused the Holocaust. They broke His Commandments, despised His laws and crucified the Messiah. For these sins, the Lord cast them into the hands of evil men to do with as they pleased. Jeremiah 19:3 And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. 4 Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;

Dallas - 7/9 - 3:00-3:30pm

Jewish Community Center of Dallas 7900 Northaven Road WBC will picket the Jewish Community Center of Dallas to remind the Jews that they are cursed for killing Christ, the son of the true and living God. They still refuse to repent of their sins to this day. Matthew 27:24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. 25 Then answered all the people(they were Jews!), and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.

Dallas - 7/9 - 3:35-4:15pm

Texas Jewish Post 7920 Belt Line Road, Suite 680 WBC will picket the Texas Jewish Post of Dallas to remind you Jews that the Lord has confounded your leaders and they have lead you astray. You have served other gods and now the Lord fulfills his promise toward you as such: Deuteronomy 31:16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. 17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? 18 And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.

Dallas - 7/9 - 4:30-5pm

Yavneh Academy of Dallas 12324 Merit Drive WBC will picket the Yavneh Academy of Dallas to remind this nation that the teachers and parents (in particular, Jewish parents and teachers), of this next generation are lying to these children about God. The parents and teachers are to blame for the sky-high rate of youth fornication, abortion, murder, drug abuse, suicide and demon possession(also called mental illness). They teach the children that it is OK to be gay, that God is a liar and that they can live for the devil himself but still go to heaven without repenting. Deuteronomy 28:41 Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity. Remember the Lord your God, Jews of Dallas, and how He let your ancestors be carried away into captivity by the Assyrians and Babylonians. More and worse is coming at the hand of your God!

Dallas - 7/9 - 6:15-6:45pm

Congregation Beth el Binah at the Gay & Lesbian Center 2701 Reagan Street WBC will picket Congregation Beth el Binah at the John Thomas Gay and Lesbian Center of Dallas to remind them that the Lord, who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for being a bunch of filthy fags, still reigns sovereign. How much worse will it be for this generation of sodomites, having had that example of the Lord's wrath poured out? Luke 10:10 But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, 11 Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. 12 But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city. The perverts of Dallas have a history of rejecting the true Gospel preaching of WBC. They will soon see a repeat of the Lord's wrath poured out as it was on Sodom first hand.

Dallas - 7/11 - 8:30-9am

Chabad of Dallas 6710 Levelland Road WBC to picket the Jews at Chabad of Dallas where they teach lies and traditions of men that encourage sin instead of teaching the commandments of God. Why will ye die, Jews? Eze 18:31 - Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Why do you continue to provoke your God to wrath with your rebellion? God has promised to restore you -- 144,000 of you, that is -- who will look upon him who you pierced and mourn for your dreadful sins. The majority of you will never repent and will face a destruction that will make the holocaust look like a tea party -- all at the hands of Anti-Christ Beast Obama, and very soon now. Come out from among them, and repent! We will help you, God willing. Hallelujah! Amen!

Arlington - 7/11 - 9-9:30am

Fielder Road Baptist Church 1323 West Pioneer Parkway WBC will picket Fielder Road Baptist Church to remind these so-called Christians that by paying preachers to lie, they are incurring God's wrath. The pay the preaches to tell them that they each have free-will and that their fate is in their own hands rather than God's. Further, the people do not want to OBEY nor do they want to hear the truth about the wages of their sin (hint: death.) They prefer to hear preacher tell them that they control their own destiny and that God is a liar and didn't mean it when He said He would send the unrepentant to Hell. Isaiah 30:9 That this is a rebellious people(i.e. doomed americans), lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: 10 Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: 11 Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.

Dallas - 7/11 - 9:45-10:30am

Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadelupe 2215 Ross Avenue WBC to picket the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadelupe to remind these people that Priests Rape Boys. Catholics pay the priests to lie on God and tell them that they do not have to obey. God promised he would curse you if you would not obey, hence He sends pedophile priests to rape your children. The parents continue to send their children to this pedophile machine masquerading as a church because they don't want to put away their sin and repent! 2 Peter 2:9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. Titus 1: 15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. 16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

Arlington - 7/11 - 10:45-11:30am

Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church 2100 North Davis Drive WBC to picket the Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church of Dallas to remind these hard-hearted Catholics that Priests Rape Boys. Catholics pay the priests to lie on God and tell them that they do not have to obey. God promised he would curse you if you would not obey, hence He sends pedophile priests to rape your children. The parents continue to send their children to this pedophile machine masquerading as a church because they don't want to put away their sin and repent! 2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Christopher Hitchens Explains Why Even If Christianity Were To Be Proven True, It Would Still Be Immoral...

...and I totally agree with him.

NASCAR Bible...Dang!

NASCAR Bible makes me think of this...

"Dear Lord baby Jesus, lyin' there in your ghost manger, just lookin' at your Baby Einstein developmental videos, learnin' 'bout shapes and colors. I would like to thank you for bringin' me and my mama together, and also that my kids no longer sound like retarded gang-bangers." Ricky Bobby

"I like to think of Jesus as a mischievous badger." Cal Naughton, Jr

"I had a dream where Jesus was a dirty old bum, and I was about to sock him in the face because, well he's a dirty old bum, but then I thought, there's something special about him.." Cal Naughton, Jr

"I like to think of Jesus as an Ice Dancer, dressed in an all-white jumpsuit, and doing an interpretive dance of my life." Cal Naughton, Jr

"I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-Shirt because it says I want to be formal, but I'm here to party." Cal Naughton, Jr

"I like to think of Jesus like with giant eagles wings, and singin' lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd with like an angel band and I'm in the front row and I'm hammered drunk!" Cal Naughton, Jr

"[running around on the track in his underwear] Help me Jesus! Help me Jewish God! Help me Allah! AAAAAHHH! Help me Tom Cruise! Tom Cruise, use your witchcraft on me to get the fire off me!" Ricky Bobby

The Daily Show - Jon Stewart on Obama Praying for Divine Intervention For the Oil Spill

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, "God or Government, Who do You Worship"

This is an excerpt of Gov. Rick Perry's 14 minute speech to the Conservative Texas Eagle Forum where he lays out his idea for a religious crusade to take back the soul of the country. This event was on Thursday just before the kick off of the Texas GOP Convention:

"We will raise our voices in defense of our values and in defiance of the hollow precepts and shameful self-interests that guide our opponents on the left," Perry said to the receptive audience.

He said the November election is bigger than "red states and blue states, conservatives or liberals, stimulus or budget cuts."

"We are in a struggle for the heart and soul of our nation," Perry said.

"That's the question: Who do you worship? Do you believe in the primacy of unrestrained federal government? Or do you worship the God of the universe, placing our trust in him?"

The Dallas Morning News

Texas GOP Convention Prayer Rally:

Catholic Magazine FAIL

This looks about right...

Richard Dawkins "Pope Nazi" Comment At The GAC

This is from a Q&A at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention in Australia.

"Mission Accomplished"?

Seven years ago today President Bush made his "Mission Accomplished" speech on the deck of the U.S.S Abraham regarding the Iraq war. Bush's photo op moment isn't just slightly off...it's 2,555 days, thousands of lives, and billions of dollars off.

Tim Minchin - "Pope Song"

Here are the lyrics in case you missed something:

Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker, he's a fucking motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the fucking fucker
Fuck the motherfucker, he's a total fucking fucker

Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker, fucking fuck the motherfucker
Fuck the motherfucker, fuck the motherfucking pope

Fuck the motherfucker, and fuck you motherfucker

If you think that motherfucker is sacred
If you cover for another motherfucker who's a kiddie fucker
Fuck you, you're no better than the motherfucking rapist

And if you don't like the swearing that this motherfucker forced from me
And reckon it shows moral or intellectual paucity
Then fuck you, motherfucker, this is language one employs
When one is fucking cross about fuckers fucking boys

I don't give a fuck if calling the pope a motherfucker
Means you unthinkingly brand me an unthinking apostate
This has naught to do with other fucking godly motherfuckers
I'm not interested right now in fucking scriptural debate

There are other fucking songs and there are other fucking ways
I'll be a religious apologist on other fucking days
But the fact remains if you protect a single kiddie fucker
Then pope or prince or plumber, you're a fucking motherfucker

You see I don't give a fuck what any other motherfucker
Believes about Jesus and his motherfucking mother
I've no problem with the spiritual beliefs of all these fuckers
While those beliefs don't impact on the happiness of others

But if you build your church on claims of fucking moral authority
At which threats of hell impose it on others in society
Then you, you motherfuckers, can expect some fucking wrath
When it turns out you've been fucking us in our motherfucking asses

So fuck the motherfucker, and fuck you, motherfucker
If you're still a motherfucking papist
If he covered for a single motherfucker who's a kiddie fucker
Fuck the motherfucker, he's as evil as the rapist

And if you look into your motherfucking heart and tell me true
If this motherfucking stupid fucking song offended you
With its filthy fucking language, and its fucking disrespect
If it made you feel angry go ahead and write a letter

But if you find me more offensive than the fucking possibility
The pope protected priests when they were getting fucking fiddly
Then listen to me, motherfucker, this here is a fact:
You are just as morally misguided as that motherfucking, power hungry, self-aggrandized bigot in the stupid fucking hat

Deepak Chopra Gets Humiliated And Humbled In 13 Seconds

Not that it's really hard to humiliate a new agey pseudoscience pushing hack like Chopra; I mean, this clip is taken from a debate about the existence of the devil after all, and he was on the side of the Catholic Priest.

Muslims Threaten To Kill South Park Creators

[Muhammad]

Damn, Jesus Really Was Hung On The Cross!

[click to embiggen, you really don't need to]

Controversy has engorged a Warr Acres, Oklahoma Catholic church over this 10 foot depiction of Jesus on the cross. Some of the church congregation don't see the god sized gland, while many others are anything but flaccid with anger at the sight of a Christ cock. Personally, I can't unsee a giant Jesus johnson!

NewsOk -

Churchgoers are outraged over a crucifix in a Catholic church that they say shows an image of genitalia on Jesus.

The controversial crucifix has caused a deep divide among members of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, where it hangs above the main altar.

"There are a couple people who have left the parish,” said the Rev. Philip Seeton, the church’s pastor. "There are people in the parish who don’t like it and have stayed.”

Critics of the crucifix take issue with what appears to be a large penis covering Jesus’ abdominal area. Seeton said the portion of the crucifix in question is meant to be Jesus’ abdomen "showing distension” — not a penis.

The crucifix is about 10 feet tall. It has been hanging above the altar since Feb. 21.

Monsignor Edward Weisenburger of the Oklahoma City Archdiocese also said he has no problems with the crucifix. He said the archdiocese has received no complaints about it.

We Are All Star Stuff

"Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today." - Lawrence Krauss (Prof. of Physics Arizona State University)

Mrs. Betty Bowers: Sarah Palin Wins "Worst Mother in America" Award

"Your tireless determination to carelessly ignore your family, when you aren't carefully exploiting them..."

It's Tough Being the Westboro Baptist Church...

[click to embiggen]

Creepiest God Damn Thing I've Ever Seen!

Apparently this artist loves Jesus, and creeping the shit out of little children.

Here's the full size drawing if you want to get full size creeped out.

Nate Phelps, Son of the "God Hates Fags" Preacher Fred Phelps, Speaks Out Against His Father

From Vancouver B.C. The Times Colonist:

VANCOUVER — Soft-spoken taxi driver Nate Phelps of Cranbrook, B.C., is coming forward on Easter Sunday to speak out in a televised interview against one of America’s most outspoken anti-gay crusaders — his own father.

Phelps, who has been quietly living in B.C. with his wife and four children, is the estranged son of Pastor Fred Phelps, head of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan.

Members of the church gained notoriety in Canada in 2008 after announcing plans to picket the funeral of Tim McLean, who was beheaded on a Greyhound bus near Winnipeg by a man who is now in a psychiatric hospital.

Pastor Phelps claimed the grisly murder was divine revenge for Canada’s liberal policies on abortion, gay rights and divorce.

Nate Phelps, who broke away from his father and his beliefs in 1980, first revealed his identity to a customer in his cab in Cranbrook. The fare happened to be University of B.C. journalism student Trevor Melanson.

Melanson went on to write an award-winning feature about Nate Phelps that was published in the Ubyssey, the newspaper at the University of British Columbia, and on thetyee.ca website in 2009.

In his first in-depth television interview, he tells journalist Peter W. Klein about a childhood dominated by a fear of going to hell, and says the Westboro Baptist Church shares some of the same traits as a cult.

Phelps says his father regularly beat his mother and 11 siblings, used racial epithets and blamed the world’s problems on homosexuality.

In recent years the Kansas congregation has outraged many for conducting verbally abusive protests at the funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. Phelps claims that America’s losses are God’s punishment for increasing social acceptance of homosexuality.

On his “church” website, (godhatesfags.com) Phelps publishes a list of planned protests that he dubs “the love crusades.”

In the interview, Phelps says that his father was once a brilliant and well-respected lawyer who led several anti-segregation cases and was honoured by the NAACP as a civil rights hero.

Nate Phelps now considers himself an atheist.

This is an amazing interview that recently aired on Canada's VisionTV. It sheds light on Nate Phelps "sociopath" father and his tiny but disgustingly vocal church. The interview lasts just over 30 minutes but it is well worth it.

"I'm Sorry I'm a Christian" - A poem by Chris Tse

If only the average Christian were this honest.



"I'm sorry we stand at the front of abortion clinics screaming at 15 year old girls as they enter, instead of waiting at the back door and hugging them as they leave." I had a momentary choke up when I heard this line.

After Attempted NFL Combine Prayer, Tebow Told To "Shut The Fuck Up"

The overly pious, and professional crybaby Tim Tebow reportedly requested the room of prospect NFL players to bow their heads in prayer before the Wonderlic, a twelve minute, fifty question NFL pre-draft test. Another player reportedly told Tim to "shut the fuck up" as other players laughed.

According to ESPN Tebow had a below average Wonderlic score of 22 out of 50; which once again proves that preparation beats prayer every time.

Darryl. The kind of friend Jesus would have.

Click HERE to read a hysterical email exchange between an Australian public school counselor and a concerned parent that started over a permission slip that the school sent out for the kids to attend an Easter play.

"Fair and Balanced", eh Fox News?

Psst Fox, you're doing it wrong. You're supposed to report on the news...don't be the news!

Here's a Bible Verse You Didn't Hear in Sunday School

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Psalms 137-9
Just Gives you that warm fuzzy infanticide feeling doesn't it?

Christian Side Hug

Because Baby Jesus weeps when two teenagers denim genitals touch! What's funny and scary to me about this real church event is that the kids in the crowd seem to love it and they don't seem to mind that guns are going off the entire time in this christian song. Guns = Good, PDA = Bad.

Glow Sticks N Crucifix

Strangely, I don't remember the baptist church I went to as a teenager being at all like this.

30% of Texans Think the Flintstones was a Documentary

This is just sad and embarrassing. As if Texas wasn't already the laughingstock of the US (and the developed world) with it's love for bronze aged myths and it's denial of scientific reality. Three in ten Texas voters believe that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time!

This cartoon just about sums up the willful ignorance that my state wallows in:

Happy Valentines Day!

A first grade girl made this for her Christian friend who told her she was going to hell for not being a Christian. I think it's sweet!

Anne Hathaway Left the Catholic Church Because it's Anti-Gay

Hathaway told the British GQ:

"The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out. Why should I support an organisation that has a limited view of my beloved brother? So I'm... nothing (no denomination). Fuck it, I'm forming. I'm a work in progress."

While she hasn't come out and said she's an atheist, "So I'm...nothing" gives me hope that she will. I would love to see Anne knock Angelina Jolie out of the spot of hottest atheist celebrity.

"Me Fail English? That's Unpossible!

This little beauty was snapped yesterday at the pRick Perry - Sarah Palin rally in Cypress, Texas just outside of Houston. It's a perfect metaphor for the dumbing down of the Texas school children and of America in general that these two imbeciles are so happily taking part in.

Scientologists in Haiti: A Firsthand Account

They would have helped a lot more if they stayed home. Link to the crazy.

Richard Dawkins: The Tim Tebow Fallacy

Q: The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family is sponsoring a pro-life ad, featuring football star Tim Tebow, during Sunday's Super Bowl. Should CBS show the ad? Should CBS allow other faith-based groups to buy Super Bowl ads promoting their beliefs on social issues? Is a major sporting event, or a TV ad campaign, an appropriate venue for discussing such vital and divisive culture-war issues like abortion?

I gather that Tim Tebow is extremely good at football. That's just as well, for he certainly isn't very good at thinking. Perhaps the fact that he was home schooled by missionary parents is to blame.

The following is what passes for logic in the Tebow mind. His mother was advised by doctors to abort him, but she refused, which is why Tim is here. So abortion is a bad thing. Masterful conclusion.

It is a version of what, following the great Nobel-Prizewinning biologist Peter Medawar, I have called the Great Beethoven Fallacy.

Versions of the Great Beethoven Fallacy are attributed to various Christian apologists, and the details vary. The following is the version favoured by Norman St John Stevas, a British Conservative Member of Parliament. One doctor to another:

"About the terminating of pregnancy, I want your opinion. The father was syphilitic. The mother tuberculous. Of the four children born, the first was blind, the second died, the third was deaf and dumb, the fourth was also tuberculous. What would you have done?"

"I would have terminated the pregnancy."

"Then you would have murdered Beethoven."

It is amazing how many people are bamboozled by this spectacularly stupid argument. Setting aside the simple falsehood that Ludwig van Beethoven was the fifth child in his family (he was actually the eldest), the falsehood that any of his siblings was born blind, deaf or dumb, and the falsehood that his father was syphilitic, we are left with the 'logic'. As Peter Medawar, writing with his wife, Jean Medawar, said,

"The reasoning behind this odious little argument is breathtakingly fallacious . . . the world is no more likely to be deprived of a Beethoven by abortion than by chaste absence from intercourse."

If you follow the 'pro-life' logic to its conclusion, a fertile woman is guilty of something equivalent to murder every time she refuses an offer of copulation. Incidentally, 'pro life' always means pro human life, never animal life although an adult cow or monkey is obviously far more capable of feeling pain and fear than a human fetus. But the profoundly un-evolutionary nature of this terminology is another story and I'll set it on one side.

The sperm that conceived Tim Tebow was part of an ejaculate of (at an average estimate) 40 million. If any one of them had won the race to Mrs Tebow's ovum instead of the one that did, Tim would not have been born, somebody else would. Probably not such a good quarterback but - we can but hope - a better logician, who might have survived the home schooling and broken free. That is not the point. The point is that every single one of us is lucky to be alive against hyper-astronomical odds. Tim Tebow owes his existence not just to his mother's refusal to have an abortion. He owes his existence to the fact that his parents had intercourse precisely when they did, not a minute sooner or later. Then before that they had to meet and decide to marry. The same is true of all four of his grandparents, all eight of his great grandparents, and so on back.

Religious apologists are unimpressed by this kind of argument because, they say, there is a distinction between snuffing out a life that is already in existence (as in abortion) and failure to bring life into existence in the first place. It's not a distinction that survives analytical thought, however. Look at it from the point of view of Tim's unborn sister (let us say), who would have been conceived two months later if only Tim had been aborted. Admittedly, she is not in a position to complain of her non-existence. But then nor would Tim have been in a position to complain of his non-existence, if he had been aborted. You need a functioning nervous system in order to complain, or regret, or feel wistful, or feel pain, or miss the life that you could have had. Unconceived babies don't have a nervous system. Nor do aborted fetuses. As far as anything that matters is concerned, an aborted fetus has exactly the same mental and moral status as any of the countless trillions of unconceived babies. At least, that is true of early abortions, which means the vast majority.

The fact that the Tim Tebow advertisement is a load of unthought-through nonsense is no reason to ban it. That would infringe our valued principle of free speech. The best that the rest of us can do is point out, to anyone that will listen despite our lack of money to pay for such advertisements, that it is nonsense. As I have just done.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/richard_dawkins/2010/02/the_great_tim_tebow_fallacy.html