05-12-2003 15:11									#1
	A question for all you mathematicians out there. . . Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Ok. This may seem a little sacreligious to some, but I'm quite curious. . . how many Jesuses (jesus's? jesi? whatever the plural of "Jesus" is) have been consumed by Catholics since the beginning of the catholic church?

I mean, according to the Catholic belief system, when they take communion, the wafer and wine actually become the body and blood of christ, right? So. . . that's got to be an awful lot of body and blood. Every sunday. For over almost 2000 years now.

Can anyone help me to figure this out? I'm not good at math. . .

	05-12-2003 15:16									#2
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depends how much the average wafer weighs, how many services have been held and how many people attended those.

let's assume 5g per wafer, 50 people per service (consider there are small and large communities) and the amount of services overall (or the amount of people attending all services) would have to be calculated via calculus. I mean you know the curve of world population and the spread of the Roman church, now get the average amount of believers under that curve and... should be hard...

	05-12-2003 15:18									#3
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thats what i'm saying. i'm not at all good at math, so i'd really be unable to calculate this. but i really want to know the answer too, so that's why i asked for mathematicians

	05-12-2003 15:41									#4
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I'm one by high school graduation, but I'm afraid I can't quite figure it out now

	05-12-2003 18:13									#5
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get the data and an approximation couldnt be taht hard
we woudl need data for number of practicing christians over time, as precise as possible.

	05-12-2003 18:31									#6
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Does each wafer count as a single Jesus?

If so, then you can discount the consumption of wine/blood, since you're not supposed to drink wine/blood without eating bread/flesh.

Otherwise, I'm not sure that a simple mass measurement will suffice, since Divine blood/flesh may be more/less dense than mundane blood/flesh. You can probably make up any density numbers you want, in which case I can say with complete confidence that 2/3 of Jesus have been consumed over the past 2000 years.

	05-12-2003 18:38									#7
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It's impossible to say, because there are so many unknowable variables.

	06-12-2003 00:53									#8
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger Does each wafer count as a single Jesus? If so, then you can discount the consumption of wine/blood, since you're not supposed to drink wine/blood without eating bread/flesh. Otherwise, I'm not sure that a simple mass measurement will suffice, since Divine blood/flesh may be more/less dense than mundane blood/flesh. You can probably make up any density numbers you want, in which case I can say with complete confidence that 2/3 of Jesus have been consumed over the past 2000 years.

Just for arguments sake, lets say that divine flesh and blood has the same density and mundane flesh and blood.

And no, each wafer does not equal one jesus. each wafer equals a wafer sized portion of jesus (whom we will say, just for arguments sake, that he weighed approximately 200 pounds.)

	06-12-2003 00:58									#9
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hmm and a wafer is 5 grams, 454 grams in a pound...

There are 18160 wafers in each Jesus. If there are a billion Christians, then 55066 Jesuses are consumed each time they all have had 1 wafer.

	06-12-2003 01:01									#10
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Whoha. No, it's only the Catholics that count. The wafer and wine don't become body and blood for anybody but catholics (to my knowledge)

plus you didn't factor in the blood, either, just the wafer
and also how often do they take the wafer and wine anyway? right now it's once a week. . . but was it always once a week?

	06-12-2003 01:03									#11
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Whats the total number of Catholics?

	06-12-2003 01:03									#12
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and whats the percentage of blood as body weight

	06-12-2003 01:04									#13
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my roommate (who is catholic) says there are 1 billion catholics in the world today

but there havn't always been . . . you see? it's much more complicated that simple figuring YOU did. Hell, I could do such easy arithmatic myself. . .

	06-12-2003 01:05									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Whoha and whats the percentage of blood as body weight

hmm, i guess a doctor or some other medically inclinded person would have to answer this.

	06-12-2003 01:08									#15
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ok plasma is about 4.5 % of body weight so assuming a 200 pound Jesus, 9 pounds are of blood, and 191 pounds are flesh,bone,muscle,etc.

Muscles make up between 40 to 50% of body weight so ill say 50%.

So that means that there are 9080 wafers in every Jesus.

How much wine is consumed?

	06-12-2003 01:09									#16
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I guess there is no way to know how many Catholics there are, or how many took place in this event, but lets just say lots of Jesuses have been consumed.

	06-12-2003 01:15									#17
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quote: ok plasma is about 4.5 % of body weight so assuming a 200 pound Jesus, 9 pounds are of blood,

plasma and blood are not the same thing.

there is a whole lot more in blood that just plasma . . .

	06-12-2003 01:18									#18
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plasma is the liquid portion though, does wine only come from that or all of blood?

	06-12-2003 01:23									#19
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i would think all of the blood. catholics don't say that the wine become plasma, they say it becomes blood.

quote: I guess there is no way to know how many Catholics there are,

Sure there is. I just don't know how to figure it out. Apparently, neither do you.

	06-12-2003 03:06									#20
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quote: Whats the total number of Catholics?

1.06 billion Roman Catholics. But don't forget the non-RC churches who recognize the primacy of Rome, and the schismatics, such as the Orthodox. Then there's the Anglicans. All believe in transusbtantiation or other terms for the change into the body of Christ, IIRC.

	06-12-2003 03:36									#21
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DanS, that's a good point, i didn't know that.

	06-12-2003 04:21									#22
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Technically, the Anglicans cannot have proper communion since they do not have Catholic priests.

But this is the problem with your calculations:

quote: Does each wafer count as a single Jesus?

There are many communions, yet only one Christ.

The correct answer to your question is one. There has only been one Christ, and all the communions will not add or detract from this number.

	06-12-2003 04:39									#23
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quote: The correct answer to your question is one. There has only been one Christ, and all the communions will not add or detract from this number.

I knew this answer was coming eventually. Again, I didn't mean for this to be offensive, I'm just trying to have some fun with it, and be a little humorous. Work with me, man. . .

	06-12-2003 04:41									#24
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BK: You know what he means

	06-12-2003 07:46									#25
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Come on, besides the number of practising ppl who believe in transwhateber throughout time, the rest are constant parameters that we can evaluate pretty well, so get digging!!