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Study Finds the Pious Fight Death Hardest

Posted by timothy on from the would-like-a-mulligan-please dept.

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?"

15 of 921 comments (clear)

  1. Or they're terrified by Nursie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because they don't really believe and haven't had time to consider and come to terms with their own mortality.

    1. Re:Or they're terrified by new_breed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ..or terrified that what they've believed their whole lives might actually not be true. It's the ultimate test of your faith!

    2. Re:Or they're terrified by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      what they've believed their whole lives might actually not be true

      Actually, I'd expect it to be the reverse. If I expected my eternal destiny to be judged upon death, I'd be pretty anxious to postpone my trial.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    3. Re:Or they're terrified by Ambiguous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or it's as simple as those that are afraid of mortality tend to cling to the idea of an afterlife. Rather than a causation here, I would guess we more likely have a correlation. The sort of people who are afraid of death will of course do everything in their power to avoid it. Additionally, the sort of people afraid of death will also be more willing to accept the idea of an afterlife.

      We're so quick to tag any "link between video games and violence found" as correlationisnotcausation, but then we get an article positing a correlation between fear of death and religious faith, and we all start hopping on the bandwagon for "oh they don't believe their own lies" or "haha, shaken faith!" but really, I'm guessing it's more likely that the one doesn't actually cause the other, but they're instead both caused by some third factor (railing against mortality.)

      --
      Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
    4. Re:Or they're terrified by Ambiguous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think most everyone should be bothered by the situation you described: that's just a healthy human reaction.

      But there's a difference between fear of death, and acceptance of the inevitable. Me falling into the grand canyon is not inevitable (I hope) but me dying eventually for some reason is.

      --
      Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
    5. Re:Or they're terrified by __aagmrb7289 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You can be afraid of pain, but not of death, and have the same reaction. Your test is poorly designed.

    6. Re:Or they're terrified by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 5, Insightful

      According to my common sense, original sin is messed up.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    7. Re:Or they're terrified by Sentry21 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Couple that with the fact that the more 'pious' people that I've met are generally the worst Christians. They're judgmental, opinionated, closed-minded, bigoted, and full of hate. The most laid-back Christians I know are more liberal and open-minded, and follow the teachings of Christ a lot better.

      Perhaps when faced with their impending death, some of them realize just how much of assholes they've been, and how badly that's going to look come judgement.

    8. Re:Or they're terrified by vadim_t · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You have the answer right at the start of the article.

      If the universe wasn't tuned in a way that allowed us to exist, we wouldn't be here to marvel at its well-tunedness.

      There's also that life forms adapt to their environment. It's not that the universe is well suited to us, but we're well suited to live in the universe. It's like wondering that the ocean is remarkably well tuned for dolphins. It's isn't, the ocean was there before the dolphins.

    9. Re:Or they're terrified by Chad+Birch · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a quote I've always liked along these lines:

      "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." - Marcus Aurelius

      --
      Sturgeon was an optimist.
    10. Re:Or they're terrified by pluther · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Very few have ever thought seriously about the question, and most are more than content to ignore the issue, or maintain a blind faith in some system of parallel universes for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

      No. You may have been told by those in authority in your church group that atheists have never thought about the issue, but that is not the truth.

      What you describe is the Anthropic Principle, and far from never being seriously thought about, it's been debated to death all over the internet.

      Aside from the extreme fallacy of claiming that if an atheist can't explain how something happened, it must have been a specific god, it can also be pointed out that the universe is not precisely tuned for human life. In fact, in all of it we know about, with the exception of one tiny portion of one tiny planet, we can't even breathe. And even on that part there are places where it's so hot and humid you'll die within hours, so cold you'll die within minutes, wind so strong it'll kill you, ground that shakes, falls, burns, fills suddenly with water, or just collapses under you unexpectedly. And that's not to mention all the other life forms, from large predators to tiny micro-organisms, that kill millions of us every year.

      --
      If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
    11. Re:Or they're terrified by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You could only come to that conclusion if you ignored all the other tenets of Christianity e.g. murder being wrong, life being purposeful because it is commanded by God and provides opportunities to serve him and enjoy him.

  2. Time on Earth is Valuable by A.+B3ttik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe, since they believe in a higher power, they believe that they "belong" on Earth and "have work to do" and that they can actually make a difference in the universe.

    Compare this with an atheist who might believe that life is futile, fleeting, and nothing they do matters in the long run... they might be more accepting and complacent.

    I'm not saying that either of these two are the case, my real point is that there are a billion different ways to look at this.

    1. Re:Time on Earth is Valuable by DinZy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If there are billions of different ways then clearly most of these ways must be wrong on some level or another.

      Most of the atheists I know, myself included, value life a great deal. I would argue that the pious are more afraid because they spend their whole life thinking the afterlife is where life truly begins that they fail to live it to the fullest. Whereas the accepting atheist knows he/she has only 70 or so years if they are lucky to have a personally meaningful existence.
       

  3. Cause/Effect... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd be inclined to suspect(admittedly without experimental evidence) that, rather than being cause or effect of one another, piety and pursuit of aggressive EOL care are both effects.

    People with the greatest fear of death would be inclined both to fight it medically and to seek reassurance against it theologically.