153,000 People Dead Today (no not in the Tsunami)

I was curious how many people die every day in the world. Turns out the number is 153,000 people.

So, as bad as the Tsunami was, as many people died of other causes on Dec 26th as those who died in the tidal wave. 56 million people die a year. So this terrible tragedy will still only account for 1/3 of 1 percent of all people that died in 2004.

If you were to try and estimate this and try and divide the total world population 6.4 billion by the average life expectancy of 64.05 you would be way off. Turns out that humans are procreating like rabbits and the birth rate is much higher than the death rate. Only 1 out of every 113 people in the world died last year.

How did I find this number? Google of course. If you were to google this, what site would come up with this information? Any guesses? Check out the top hit. This site is sweet. There is actually a java applet that tells you how many people have died since you have been on the page (check out this cool pop-up version) . It also has source code to add to your site so you too can have a death counter.

Why would someone create such a site? To save your soul of course. Some crazy misguided Christian felt that such a counter will make you realize that you too will die someday, so you better be sure to have all your religious affairs in order before that happens. Oh and by the way that day could quite possibly be tomorrow. You never know.

While the death counter is nice, I so wanted to have a people going to hell counter. That would be so cool. Since you have been on my site for 5 minutes 600 people have gone to hell (and you could be next if you don't repent right now!). Why won't you make one Mr. crazy misguided Christian?

But I don't just want 1 hell counter, I want 3. I want a Christian hell counter next to my Jewish hell counter next to my Muslim hell counter. And then I want another counter of people that are in both Christian hell and Muslim heaven at the same time (and all other permutations of this game), because otherwise my numbers wouldn't add up, and I can't have that now can I?