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Study Finds the Pious Fight Death Hardest
Stanislav_J writes "A US study suggests that people with strong religious beliefs appear to want doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive as death approaches. The study, following 345 patients with terminal cancer, found that 'those who regularly prayed were more than three times more likely to receive intensive life-prolonging care than those who relied least on religion.' At first blush, this appears paradoxical; one would think that a strong belief in an afterlife would lead to a more resigned acceptance of death than nonbelievers who view death as the end of existence, the annihilation of consciousness and the self. Perhaps the concept of a Judgment produces death-bed doubts? ('Am I really saved?') Or, given the Judeo-Christian abhorrence of suicide, and the belief that it is God who must ultimately decide when it is 'our time,' is it felt that refusing aggressive life support measures or resuscitation is tantamount to deliberately ending one's life prematurely?"
Compare this with an atheist who might believe that life is futile, fleeting, and nothing they do matters in the long run...
Atheism != nihilism. You fail it, try again.
Except that according to many Church's teachings, you already messed up as soon as you are born.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Actually, unbaptized babies go to Limbo. Read something besides Pagan FUD please. Thank you.
Rome threw out the idea of limbo. Didn't you get the memo?
Original sin as a Christian doctrine predates the formation of most distinct separate sects -- it may be "catholic" in the sense of "universal", but it isn't a distinctly Catholic idea; it is found in most strains of Christianity (though not in all groups that are or call themselves "Christian"). OTOH, the evolution over time of the precise understanding of original sin differs between different groups within Christianity. Wikipedia's article on original sin is a fairly decent starting point.
Limbo was made up. There's no reference to it anywhere in the bible. Even our catholic school teachers taught us as much.
Actually, I see that question quite a bit, and haven't ever had too much trouble with it.
The universe is not tuned to our specifications, with our well being in mind. We are tuned to it's specifications, and have adapted to survive here.
Oh wait, here's a quote from the article that you linked which explains it better than I could.
Critics suggest that the fine-tuned universe assertion and the anthropic principle are essentially tautologies.[9] The fine-tuned universe argument has also been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination because it assumes no other forms of life, based upon alternative biochemistry, are possible. In addition, critics argue that humans are adapted to the universe through the process of evolution, rather than the universe being adapted to humans. They also see it as an example of the logical flaw of hubris or anthropocentrism in its assertion that humans are the purpose of the universe.[10]"
Not explicitly perhaps, but certain passages read along the lines of "pray for the souls of the dead" - what benefit could that possibly have unless they were in purgatory/limbo? Hell is a one-way trip, and those in Heaven need no such prayer.
If this is true of Christians it's certainly true of Atheists.
No, it most certainly isn't. You're being very dishonest. Isn't lying a sin?
Do you see the lazy doubt at work here?
No, because there isn't any. You're taking the traditional approach used by deeply dishonest and cowardly believers of pretending that just because I know that your fairy tales are ridiculous, and I've never even heard of a religion whose fairy tales aren't ridiculous that somehow I have some magical faith.
I don't have a faith to be questioned. I lack all of the thousands of beliefs in idiotic fairy tales that you do, plus one more. Now if there were any evidence *at all* for the truth of your fairy tales, then it would be possible for you to make a valid point that way. As there isn't any, it is not possible. Rejecting your idiotic ideas isn't a religion, it's just common sense.
Now, keep in mind that the only reason that you are a Christian is that your parents brainwashed you into believing that idiotic nonsense. If your parents were Muslim, then you'd believe that idiotic nonsense just as strongly and you'd recognize what you now see as "holy" to be idiotic nonsense. That's what's really amazing to me about adults who still cling so desperately to childish nonsense like religion. If you'd ever given the matter any honest thought at all, you'd know that your deepest held beliefs are only that through an accident of birth. It's sad, really.
Where did I say that? You were the one with a quote saying that devoutness (i.e. adherence to God) was something God wouldn't care about, which I disagreed with.
Such reasoning takes Genesis 1 and 2, then fails to apply Genesis 3, which reveals man to fallen i.e. no longer a good representative of God, therefore our current nature is not what we are supposed to be.
Who said anything about blind faith? I certainly don't have it and hope that people have faith on the basis of evidence.
I agree that God gave us minds in order that we might use them (though I also disagree that his precepts are irrelevant). How is that at all relevant to what I posted? Surely a intelligent mind, upon discovering an infinitely worthy being, would worship it?
Firstly, this thread seems to forget that there are many religions, not just Christianity. Each religion treats the coming of death differently. We Muslims are actually taught to be fearful of God and the coming of death. Being fearful of God and death is judged a positive trait.I have said before and I will say it again: you do not need a God to justify doing bad (and good) things in life. Atheists are as prone to having "insane behaviour" as religious people, or any human being. In fact, we say that those who don't believe in God are the ones who are narcissistic, in that by not believing in God, they elevate themselves to Godhood.
There are many verses in the Quran and hadiths that says every little action, good or bad that we do in this world, hidden or clearly seen, will be replayed and judged on Judgment Day and we are constantly reminded that death afflicts the young and healthy as equally as the old and sick. Muslims are taught to pray for an "easy" death, easy in the sense that the soul leaves the body without much suffering to the body. We fear death because we might not have asked people for forgiveness when we had the chance, or we had not carried out our duties and responsibilities to the best of our abilities, or we have taken more than we have given back. Yet we do not "hate" death because life and the whole Universe is an illusion, a game. We score points by doing good and lose points when we do bad things. The "real" life begins after death, one that is eternal and where we reap our rewards or receive our punishments. There are many verses in the Quran where non-believers and sinners on Judgment Day, will beg for another chance to return to this life and do better, but always the answer is it is too late.
Thus, it is a duty of a Muslim to live as long as possible, while doing as much good deeds as he can, to prepare for the inevitable. When a Muslim is on his death bed, his family and friends will attend to him, and whisper in his ear "there is no God but Allah" and asks him to repeat it so that it will be his last words. Quranic verses will be recited in his presence to calm him down and to face death with dignity. And when he dies, it is the duty of his children to regularly pray for him so that God forgives him.
So you obviously don't believe in God. I accept that. Then why do you belittle those who do? You choose to highlight evil religious people, yet you conveniently ignore those who serve the community and do good deeds. We Muslims are taught to praise and respect people who do good deeds, be they Muslims or not. If you don't believe in the Afterlife, does that invalidates the good deeds of those who do? Will you not benefit from the positive effects of good deeds done by the pious? Or are you ironically succumbing to the same dogmatic stance that you accuse believers of having?
That's some pretty serious twisting of the facts there to suit a particular worldview.
Atheist does not mean "non-monotheist". The Romans were by no means atheists. While there is evidence of persecution of Christianity for some time, it was eventually absorbed as the state religion, and coalesced into the Roman Catholic Church. The title of Pontifex Maximus, now applied to the Pope, was once held by Julius Caesar.
To assert that Christianity has been unchanged before or since this time is just strange. Ever heard of the Council of Nicaea or Vatican II? How about the fate of Gnosticism?
Your desert claims are ridiculous. Where did Jesus go for 40 days and 40 nights, to be tempted by the devil, if there was no desert in Ancient Israel?.
It is hard to buy your argument that Christianity somehow "works". It has split into innumerable denominations, further underlining its mutability. Allegedly righteous Christians launched the Crusades and used their religion as justification for colonialism and slavery for centuries. The modern world only even began to "work" when Europe was released from religious domination of state affairs.
I do agree with you that not all ideas ideas in established religions are simply random. Successful religions will tend to have properties that lead to that success. There is no reason to believe, however, that benefit for believers or alignment with actual truth about the world are well-represented among these properties.
I agree completely. My mother-in-law who suffers from cancer stays with my wife and I. She is going through her second episode of cancer.
I can attest to the fact that she finds it possible to carry on only because of her faith. If she didn't have faith, she would have given up and died long ago.
Most people on Slashdot do not seem to realize that people handle terminal illness very differently. Many just give up and then death comes very quickly. Some just don't quit - no matter how hard it gets. Mental toughness goes a long way in keeping one alive.
I am guessing many of the more religious people probably don't quit as easily as those who are not religious.