26th March 2004, 9:20 AM
Weltall, when you consider life expectancy there is one key thing: infant mortality rate. Now, it is absolutely true that more people live longer than ever before now. But the numbers are skewed even higher because most infants live. In the past life expectancy was cut a lot by how so many infants died young...
Still, you're right that we've advanced a lot in the last century. And that Darunia's idea there is idealistic and not especially realistic... I don't see how getting rid of religion would cause some great improvement in human thought and condition. Maybe it's because I'm cynical but I don't have much respect for the greatness of human nature... people are stupid and will do dumb things. They'd just replace it with something else stupid. :)
Still, you're right that we've advanced a lot in the last century. And that Darunia's idea there is idealistic and not especially realistic... I don't see how getting rid of religion would cause some great improvement in human thought and condition. Maybe it's because I'm cynical but I don't have much respect for the greatness of human nature... people are stupid and will do dumb things. They'd just replace it with something else stupid. :)