Ellis, as I recall, you are an an atheist and you live in Australia. If so, may I ask about the following:

The CBC news, recently reported the following about the rate of suicides, in Australia. I wonder to what extent our PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION plays a role.

What do you think?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Australia

Suicide in Australia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

Suicide in Australia has been extensively studied.

Approximately 2000 Australians die from suicide every year. Men are 4 times more likely to die by suicide than women and they use more violent means generally to end their lives.

Over the past decade, about 2100 people have died by suicide each year. There were 2132 deaths from suicide registered in 2009, which is down from the 2282 deaths from suicide recorded in 2008.

Note that both 2008 and 2009 figures are subject to revision. Deaths from suicide represented 1.4% of all deaths registered in 2009.

Suicide rates for both males and females have generally decreased since the mid-90s with the overall suicide rate decreasing by 23% between 1999 and 2009. Suicide rates for males peaked in 1997 at 23.6 per 100,000 but have steadily decreased since then and stood at 14.9 per 100 000 in 2009.

Female rates reached a high of 6.2 per 100 000 in 1997. Rates declined after that and was 4.5 per 100 000 in 2009.

In Australia 48% of all suicides in 2000 were by 35-64 year old; an additional 13% were by 65 year old and over.

The suicide rates for children younger than 15 years is estimated to have increased by 92% between the 1960s to 1990s.

Suicide rates are generally higher amongst males, rural and regional dwellers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
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By the way, thanks for the amusing phrase you created, "brain-numbing posts." cool eh! Interesting!


G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org