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