Do The Living Now Outnumber The World’s Dead?

By James Donahue

An interesting report by the BBC raised this question and said the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington research group, recently attempted to mathematically calculate an answer.

While Christian theology would probably shun the importance of such a question, other world belief systems that adopt the concept of reincarnation, or just the return of the human spirit into new bodies numerous times throughout history might be very interested.

What if, for example, there were more living humans than existing created human spirits to occupy them? Would the door then be open for other spiritual forces to live in these bodies? Would this explain the insanity that appears to be sweeping the planet? 

Setting all of this aside, the Washington team calculates that if homo sapiens walked this planet for the past 50,000 years, and even if the Adam and Eve story was a truism, with everything beginning with just one couple, estimating an average life span of 10 to 12 years, and estimating only 80 successful births per 1,000 people, the bureau calculated that a total of 107 billion humans have existed.

Even using the most cautious numbers, the bureau assures us that there are more dead remains burned, piled up, buried, or sunk in the seas on this planet than all of the estimated 7 billion people now living.

And this raises yet another problem for the reincarnation people. If our spirits are allowed to return to live again and again in new bodies after we die, the waiting list for new bodies must be very long.

If they are correct, and it is possible to return to live again in new bodies after death, then who gets to have this privilege . . . or sentence . . . whichever way we wish to look at it?

From statistics alone, it appears very likely that even if there is life after death, it does not appear very likely that we will ever get a chance to try this experience over again.

This should be a serious warning for all of the suicide bombers, the people who like to climb mountains, jump out of aircraft and do other death-defying stunts. Every day in the bodies we have should be considered precious. We all should be utilizing our brief time on this Earth to the fullest, and not wasting a moment.