[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

BUDDHA: The Cardinality of the Communion of Saints


This contribution from the guy who puts the Man in Manhattan, Andrew Horton 
who writes:

> Found this in the online version of a column called "The Straight Dope" by a
> guy called Cecil Adams.

... read on...

------

Dear Cecil:

How many people have lived on the earth since the beginning of time? The
reason I'm asking is I want to know if there's going to be enough room in
heaven for all those souls. --Listener, Roy Leonard show, WGN radio, Chicago

Cecil replies:

Boy, for a minute there I thought you were going to say something silly. 

Estimates of the total roster of humankind rely heavily on guesswork, a state
of affairs not entirely unknown to us here at the Straight Dope, and
accordingly the numbers vary widely. 

Demographers have come up with estimates ranging between 69 billion and 110
billion humans. This gives us a spread of 41 billion, a pretty formidable
margin of error. 

Still, it should put to rest the line of baloney put out years ago by the
zero-population-growth alarmists, namely that the majority of humans who have
ever lived is alive today. That's flat wrong no matter what your assumptions.

For example, creationists, who believe it all started with Adam and Eve
around 6,000 years ago and that a flood in 2700 B.C. killed off everybody
except Noah and his relatives, say the world population to date is 51
billion. 

Some may feel the creationist figure is entirely to close to the "real"
figures for comfort. Maybe, you are thinking, we should abandon the pretense
of science and address future demographic inquiries directly to God.

Well, I told you this involved a lot of guesswork. The main problem is that
we have only a vague idea of the birth rate and average lifespan in ages
past.

Another complication, among scientists at least, is that we do not know
precisely when our primate ancestors became human. Many researchers have
arbitrarily settled on one million years ago, even though our own subset of
the genus Homo, H. sapiens sapiens, did not emerge until around 40,000 years
ago. 

If the paleolithic crowd (1 million years to 25,000 years ago) strikes you as
too crude for admission to the communion of saints, subtract 36 billion or so
from the figures above. 

But before we start whittling down the eligibility list, I just have one
question, my friend. What makes you think you have to worry about how crowded
it is in _heaven_?

- --CECIL ADAMS

Copyright 1988-1996 Chicago Reader

------- End of Forwarded Message
Little Tiny Buddha Picture Back to Buddha