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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?"
I'd be praying for a quick death so my family wouldn't have to pay the millions to keep me alive after hitting the limit on my insurance policy.
Perhaps its actually that those who cling less to religion are comfortable with the idea that life is finite
That's how it works for me.
Around the age of 5 or 6, I was introduced for the first time to whatever the current life expectancy chart was at the time. For males, the average was 72. Now, I understood that anything could happen and I could pop my clogs a lot sooner, but I distinctly remember thinking "72? Sounds like a good run." And since that day, I've lived my life largely based around the knowledge that by the time I'm 70-80, I better have gotten to do all things I've wanted to do.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Probably get modded down for this.. for "religion" has always struck me as a haven for the fearful, those who lack self-esteem, or narcissistic personalities looking for external justification for their insane behaviour.
When such an individual is confronted with the prospect of death.. all that doubt, self-loathing and regret must really be a lot to suddenly bear when they "know" they're about to face the final judge.
If you think you're not afraid of death, try this test: get a friend, and go to the Grand Canyon. Stand on the edge. Have your friend hold onto your shirt and push you so that your balance goes out over the edge. Don't try it too many times - your friend might slip.
Now, were you okay with it? Did you feel any fear, any adrenaline, anything like that? If not, maybe you're not afraid of death.
I think the actual problem here is something the Tibetans call tetsom - lazy doubt. You sort of nominally believe that X is true, and you leave it at that - you never go any deeper, never really examine it to see if what you believe really stands up to analysis. You *think* you really believe it, but your faith is foundationless.
Then when your faith is tested by the approach of death, suddenly your lazy doubt catches you by surprise, and makes your fear of death just that much worse, and so of course you cling to life all that much more strongly.
The depressing thing about lazy doubt is that I think it's behind a lot of the really pernicious things we attribute to religion - e.g., creationism is a clear case of lazy doubt. "Oh, if it turns out that things evolved, that calls my whole belief system into question, and I don't want to have to question it, so I will pretend that things didn't evolve."
The 'natural religions'? As opposed to the unnatural religions? That makes about as much sense as people who refuse to buy food that's not 'organic'.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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This is a terrible survey, the base demography are of terminal cancer patients. Have the surveyor ever consider the possibility of people become pious due to fear of death? Many soldiers get sent to the battle field also suddenly become more pious. That's not something new. It'd pretty much be the same as "We've surveyed slashdot, and it seems people who post on slashdot also tend to be avid computer users." All I can say about that is "well duh!"
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
People who follow the instructions of authority, believe others should follow such instructions, and tend to believe that authority is right most or all of the time, are called authoritarian. People who hold to belief systems dictated by a hidden power with perfect judgement are some such. Those people also tend to believe/believe in other authorities judgements and power. Thus, people who hold strong religious beliefs tend to be the same people who most strongly believe in (and expect results from) the abilities of health care authorities -- doctors.
The same paradox was noted by Stanley Milgram in the Yale Experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment A nurse was one of the people who continued to follow instructions and "shock" a subject after the subject appeared dead, just because she was told to. At first it seemed a paradox that a nurse would follow instructions that would harm another. He figured it that he was equivalent to a doctor in the nurses mind, and so she was following his instructions to the letter without evaluation, just as she was trained to do with doctors. (Nurses these days are trained differently).
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The term 'unnatural religions' just makes me think 'Scientology'.
I read the internet for the articles.
A few notes to remember about this study:
Personally, I would much rather go for hospice care. Aside from being more comfortable for the patient, it also gives them a chance to say goodbye to everyone properly, rather than just gurgling at your horrified visitors from inside a torture chamber.
It's interesting. Do they realize on their death bed, they were actually raging assholes to their fellow man and are afraid of the wrath of their god on the other side?
EXACTLY! It was probably fear that lead them to the church in the first place. Then they surround themselves with like minded people and yell at the rest of the world for how evil they are(really there just mad everyone else doesn't have the same irrational fears of the natural world.) and have nice fantasies of the rest of the world rotting in hell. Then on their deathbed they wonder... "Is god gonna like those fantasies of all those people burning and being tortured because that's about as much as I thought about my entire life...All I ever wanted was for OTHER people to die and goto hell".
From a memetic point of view, this only makes sense. Any religion that believe offing yourself as fast as possible was a good idea would be like the Ebola of religions, wiping itself out before getting a good shot at jumping hosts.
Although, in this day of fast communication and semi-decent data retention, one could almost get away with it. Put up a website, start a trust to keep it going, put up a page consisting of "donate to our trust, then pop a cap in your head". Then read it.
It'd only catch the crazies without a better hook, but it'd probably keep the site going until the government where the site was hosted suffered revolution or nuclear war.
This study was done on terminally ill cancer patients. My wife is an RN, and in our discussions about her job it has been very apparent to her that death by cancer, slowly, causes a very different reaction in most people she has seen than other terminal illnesses.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the study, but I would like to see it expanded to, for example, heart/lung failure and other forms of terminal disease, and see what the difference is.
One aspect that I have seen in cancer end-of-life treatment is the heavy reliance on pain-killers to cope (nothing WRONG with that, just an observance). This could also have a very serious effect on EOL decisions.
-- I really need to bleed off some of this
I cannot speak for all the pious, nor do I know how the study defines the pious so I will speak for myself. [cue the anti-whatever snarks...]
I believe we---mankind---were created for this world, not some ethereal place in the clouds. The Bible teaches that the people of God will live on earth forever, with a brief (relatively speaking) intermission elsewhere (between death and the return of Jesus Christ). It's quite interesting that the Bible begins with the Tree of Life in a garden (Eden) and ends with the Tree of Life in a city (see Genesis 2-3 and Revelation 21-22). Actually, the Tree of Life is still in a garden-like area that we would call a park. When Jesus returns He will create a sort of heavenly Central Park in the midst of a great city.
God intended from the beginning that man should live on the earth and the great promise is that one day man will live on a newly recreated earth and God will dwell with man forever in a world of peace, free of greed and anger and malice and war and poverty and hunger. In other words, people were created for this world and it should come as no surprise that they want to stay in it as long as possible. If, however, one does not believe this or one believes that this world is all there is, why delay the inevitable? Non-existence can often seem more desirable than a bad existence in this fractured, fallen world. For those who have hope for a future, existence in this broken world is desirable because they believe they were meant for it all along.
Life is short; think quickly.
Oh believe me, I agree with you 100%
I would choose to consider myself a "Christian", if one were to apply a label to my religious beliefs.
The core tenent of Christianity is to (paraphrasing) "Love God above everything, love others as much as you love yourself."
Now I have serious problems with pretty much all organized Christian faith. They spend all their time telling you that you're going to burn in hell if you don't do this, or don't say that, or if you vote in favor of gay marriage, or eat red meat on Fridays during Lent, or use a condom or Pay us 10% of your wages or fail to wear your holy underwear at all times. You have the godhatesfags.com morons who obviously really fucking hate themselves if they're "loving others as much as you love yourself".
Its not my place to pass judgement on ANYONE. I live my life, believe what I believe, pass on my beliefs when appropriate, and try my best to be good natured. And I fail miserably at times :). I try to do good overall in the world, and help other people out when they need it. And quite frankly, I can do that without someone telling me the myriad of ways I'm going to go to hell.
But I agree..the Burn in Hell shit is nothing but FUD. These people who call themselves Christian and constantly tell you how you're going to burn in hell....well, assuming hell IS real, my personal opinion is they'll probably be there too.
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The pope decided that the idea of limbo was too depressing and decided to drop it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5406552.stm
Who knows what happened to all the babies' souls that had supposedly been in limbo up until that point. It makes absolutely no sense to me how people can believe in religion when things like this are fairly common.
Sturgeon was an optimist.
People pray a lot. The question is what they actually do with their lives.
Many church regulars will tell you about people they know who attend every Sunday, yet who live some of the most amoral lives imaginable.
So prayer itself isn't a measure of religiousness. It may even be a measure of self delusion so that people can live with what they have done with their lives.
Too many people don't know why they live. They don't really believe in anything, so the thought of death scares them to no end. They seek prayer as an affirmation that they're basically good people, even if they don't feel like their time on Earth was a good thing.
I call that a guilty conscience, not a pious person.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
I can talk about this first hand. You are all wrong. My father is very religious. He has had cancer twice. The second time was seven years ago. The doctor's gave him a 3% chance of living. He lived. And to this day, his medical bills are nuts. He works everyday to prolong his life in a manner which I know any normal mortal would be able to handle. I would have rolled over and died years ago. His quality of life sucks. He has been on a 90%liquid diet for seven years. For the past two years, he coughs up half of what he eats because it goes into his lungs. It takes him an hour and a half to eat a snack. It is an everyday battle for calories and strength. His oxygen levels are so low, that nearly every regular doctors visit, they send him to the emergency room. In fact, he went today.
So what is it? Is it a fear of death? Hell no. If you met my father for as little as one hour, then you would know that isn't it. He isn't scared to die. It is the combination of two things,
1) His faith gives him strength. What we may see as an unbearable life style, he has ways of dealing with it. It simply doesn't break will. He still finds joy in life.
2) My father believes in purpose. If God has given him a way to live, then God still has plans for him. Suffering everyday means something completely different to him.
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I should not that, personally, I am agnostic. All of you pining over the idea that the religious fight death hardest because they are scared of death, which does follow some logic, are VERY wrong.
Personally, I'd classify myself as a "Christian" and this is the main reason that I can believe -- while I am totally comfortable with death (not to the extent that I'm going to go play on the freeway) I also see the possibility of "supernatural events" aka "miracles" to occur and thus can see that prolonging a loved one's life via life-support seems plausible, particularly for a younger individual. However, myself, if I was old and have had a full life, I don't think I see the need to be on life support -- I've done what I need to do in this life.
This idea isn't discussed in the originally linked BBC article, but comes up in other articles on the same study (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7105959&page=1 for example)
So no, I disagree that it's patients being "unsure" about the afterlife or that they're unwilling to accept death. I just think it's relatives that are praying for a miracle.
Buddha looked around him and saw life as a bondage and full of suffering, as we are subject to our animal instincts, fears, desires, etc. I have read a Chinese erudite who interprets the concept of original sin as a corruption of this buddhist idea into something where we are born as entirely corrupt (while it could be observed that we inherited cooperative instincts as well) and where we inherited guilt from our ancestors, a quite simplistic and vicious turn of a sound observation of our animal and earthy nature.
It makes absolutely no sense to me how people can believe in religion when things like this are fairly common.
This is the problem with all Slashdot discussions on religion. All you see is logical analysis of faith and doctrines, pointing out inconsistencies, irrationalities. Of course, most techies have overemphasized rational thinking, and most don't realize that this is but one faculty governing a man's life, and the feeling that this faculty is the one that sits in the big chair is illusory.
And occasionally you see a Christian defend faith, but on the same rationality battlefield, bringing up specious "complex design" or "unprovability of the absence of God" arguments. This is the same fallacy that pits religion against science, as competing descriptions of the world. Inevitably religion loses this concocted battle, because science actually provides a model of the world, while religion is a FEELING.
Why do people believe in religion? And I don't mean people that were born into it and inertially follow the organized traditions, without delving into the questions and their own personal relationship to religion. It is also primitive and uninsightful to attribute the persistence and strength of religions throughout human history to some vague conspiracy-leaning theory about how religion is just another way to hold power and kill people. The people that form the living heart of religions, those that sustain its strength and move it forward (yes, religions progress!) are those that perceive what Jung called the numen, a divine feeling from the inside.
So, why do such people believe in religion? Because the stories of God coincide with the numinous feelings that they themselves experience. The question of where, psychologically, evolutionarily, these feelings come from is irrelevant to these people, since such feelings are often the most real-seeming experiences of one's life, laden with meaning and filling their lives with a sense of purpose.
Now, before you dismiss me as some nutcase, I don't myself have such strong experiences, and am more interested in studying them from a psychological standpoint, but my research consistently points out the ignorance of modern man in regard to what religion really is - a basic perception. Do you believe in sound? Or just hear it?
Of course, it is religion's own fault for not articulating itself better in today's ultra-rational world, and attempting to lay claim to some part of the physical world, through a physical God.
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions of years before I was born and
had not suffered the slightest of inconvenience from it." -- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens).
That's as maybe ... but in those billions of years previously, young Mr Twain wasn't aware of what he was missing.
Okay. So, you've enjoyed yourself. In a very short time, it's over. You don't go to an old folks home where you can reflect back on how much you enjoyed your life. You are oblivion. Now what? Everything you've done, alone, is gone. It might well have never happened. So what is the point?
It really sounds like you haven't thought it through, yourself.
If life is about enjoying yourself, then extreme hedonism, while doing unlimited harm to those around you to get it, is the only way to go.
On the other end of the spectrum, if we exist in what we leave behind, you should start making endless donations at the nearest sperm bank, to propagate the genes as far and wide as possible. With that part taken care of, start building an army, death ray, whatever, to REALLY make your mark on those who survive you.
After all, your genetic material and your societal impact are the only thing which will last. And in both cases, no matter how much of a mark you make, it's likely to be completely erased within a couple centuries anyhow.
Sounds like atheists are actually the ones whose happiness is conditional on their good health, and just give up. Meanwhile the more religious find a way to be happy, even after intensive medical treatment. In fact, this WAS the conclusion of the study, not the trolling anti-religion spin put on the /. submission.
Of course, the REAL answer is pretty obvious. The most popular forms of religion command their followers to maintain their own life as much as possible. There was a minor controversy when baseless rumors began spreading that Pope John Paul II refused life-extending treatment near the end of his life...
Now, with the Catholic church having spread the doctrine that the faithful are obligated to extend their lives as much and by any means possible, some morons just feel obligated to spin that simple fact around, to try and promote their own agenda.
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