Thursday, February 12, 2009

Coincidence?

For those of you who believe that there is no such animal, I'd be curious to know what you make of the fact that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day (200 years ago today)?

The Wolf

8 comments:

DixieYid (يهودي جنوبي) said...

I'm curious what you think the significance of the convergence of those two birthdates means.

That one was born to free the slaves in America and the other was born to free mankind from religion?

Anonymous said...

No significance. There are millions of people born every day and we can't possible make a connection between all of them.

BTW: Ever notice the secular world focuses on birthdays even after the person is dead but the Orthodox world focuses on dead-days. But if a person is an Tzadik like Moshe, they will be the same. What is the significance of that?

The Rashblog said...

My history professor's linkage of the two is similar to Dixie's:

Lincoln freed us from the shackles of slavery, while Darwin freed us from the shackles of ignorance.

G said...

But if a person is an Tzadik like Moshe, they will be the same. What is the significance of that?

The terminology is that God does not "cheat" a tzaddik out if his full year in this world, i.e. they live 'complete' lives in every sense of the word.

Anonymous said...

The terminology is that God does not "cheat" a tzaddik out if his full year in this world, i.e. they live 'complete' lives in every sense of the word.

But maybe the people who die mid-year are actually getting a bonus of of some extra months.

Also, the chance of dying on your birthday is about 1/365 (depending on what calendar you are using). That's not that remote.

Anonymous said...

It's a neat coincidence. Darwin was an ardent abolitionist. (BTW, he wasn't anti-religion or an atheist.) He used the theory of evolution to help show we are all cousins and debunk the notion of races. He used science are reason to try to rid the world of slavery and racism, and Lincoln used the sword and eloquence to try to do the same thing.

Anonymous said...

If it isn't a coincidence, then what is it?

Michael Koplow said...

Since it isn't a coincidence, it must be a miracle.