Anonymous, you misunderstand life expectancy. All of the senators in ancient Rome, for instance, were in their 50s and 60s. A life expectancy of, say, 45 is a mean, not a mode. It doesn't mean that healthy adults were all dropping dead around that age. It means that, when all deaths were averaged together, especially including *infant mortality,* that was the arithmetic mean. High infant mortality, in the past and in the present, acts as an outlier, skewing the life expectancy much lower than it would be normally. Infant mortality is foreign enough to us now that we don't think of it, but it's the explanation.

Almost everybody, except the former Christian fundy who posted earlier, misses the point. The problem here is religion, which destroys a thinking mind and stops any and all critical thinking. It amazes me that men of science would believe in "God" at all, much less act like this, but then again I ask that question about everyone.

Christians don't seem any better than the Muslims, Elephantman. In the U.S., the Religious Right are among the biggest supporters for the imperialist war against Iraq (despite its calamitous consequences for Iraqi Christians.) These are the same people who offer nearly unconditional support for the Zionists, and pressure Washington to do the same. They do this due to some nonsense about the "end times" or something. The consequences are once again calamitous for the region's Christians. And then there's Africa, where they (particularly the Catholics,) go around telling people that condoms don't work.

Best of all: have you ever heard of the Lord's Resistance Army? I think they put Al-Qaeda to shame.

It's true that Che helped Castro crush opposition after they took power. I wonder how much of that opposition was made up of freedom fighters and how much of it was made up of Bautista loyalists. In any event, thanks for defending *most* of his career. He left his home in well-to-do Buenos Aires, saw the results of U.S. imperialism, nearly got killed by it in Guatemala, and then vowed to fight it. He seems rather prescient today... "two, three, many Vietnams!"

You don't see atheists doing this, do you? Religion stops a thinking mind.

It's unfathomable. My sexual experience is limited, but one particular memory I treasure is that of hearing, seeing, and feeling how much she enjoyed what we were doing. Who doesn't want to hear their partner in ecstasy?

Oh, that's right. Religious types!

This is why I love alternative songwriters. I wonder what David Brooks would make of Kathleen Edwards.

While we're on the subject, the new Bad Religion album is rather good.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned that the drop in sexual activity may be due to those who believe oral and anal sex don't count as sex. That's not a recent development. What percentage of teens have had oral sex?

I'm so tired of that fallacy. If I had never been born, how could I care?

You mean "fight so that the ruling class can profit."

No war but the class war.

Religion shuts down the human mind and prevents critical thinking. That's how.

You miss the point. These are all pseudonyms, but the anonymice just make things confusing.

VictoriaL, you either know you're lying or you don't.

Penetrating a woman orally without her consent seems like an extremely bad idea.

Thanks, anonymous. Sometimes I feel like it's 1936. The corporate and particularly right-wing media was/were aghast over developments in Spain ("Godless Reds are raping nuns!") while those who care about social justice were sometimes ecstatic and often guardedly optimistic. This time, I think the fascists are going to lose.

Religion stops a thinking mind, in spectacular fashion this time.

There are many perfect words for "prejudice against a religion." Examples include: intelligence, adulthood, logic, accuracy, rectitude, maturity, and so on.