|
|
Post by Doctor Fishcake on Mar 18, 2009 4:57:07 GMT -5
People with strong religious beliefs appear to want doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive as death approaches, a US study suggests. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7949111.stmBut surely if you were on the brink of dancing around on a fluffy cloud with the angels for all eternity, you would want to speed it up? Maybe they're just not as sure as they make themselves out to be... |
|
|
|
Post by Star Cluster on Mar 18, 2009 5:09:47 GMT -5
Yeah, I've noticed this before, particularly with my own mother. She has always been very religious which has bordered on fundyism, although I wouldn't go so far as to call her one. She will be 85 years old later this week, has dementia, can't walk or even stand on her own anymore, and has no quality of life left. Yet she is fighting death with every breath she takes.
Don't get me wrong. I love my mother, but I certainly wouldn't want to live like she is having to. I hope that if I every start getting into the kind of shape she is in that I just go ahead and check out of here.
|
|
|
|
Post by Lady Renae on Mar 18, 2009 6:09:13 GMT -5
Part of Christian belief is that you are supposed to wait until God makes you die. You cannot make yourself die. Other people can kill you, but only against your will. If you agree to it, it's considered suicide, which is a sin that will send you straight to hell since you can't really repent afterwards. Some fundies interpret this to also mean that you can't just let death happen to you and must fight it to your last breath, or you'll go to hell. Now, ordinarily I'd say they had the right idea, except they put that hell part in there. I'm not a fan of hell being an incentive to live. I'd rather have LIFE be the incentive.
|
|
|
|
Post by JonathanE on Mar 18, 2009 6:16:27 GMT -5
It is a biological imperative, in evolutionary terms, to have the will to survive as long as possible, whatever personal beliefs one has. I would think that in the the case of terminal diseases, a non believer would accept the inevitable much easier than a hard core believer, simply because of the lack of belief in divine intervention. Pure speculation, that last bit, but would explain a lot of this.
|
|
|
|
Post by Star Cluster on Mar 18, 2009 6:24:35 GMT -5
Yeah, yeah, the whole "God calling you home" banality. But as the OP suggests, a lot of devout believers aren't heeding the call, but instead are fighting to stay alive to the very end. Instead of going peacefully and with dignity, they want to be kept alive regardless of the expense and/or discomfort it may bring.
If not for modern medicine, a lot of these people would not live as long as they do and would already be dead. So at what point does it go from not going until God wants you to die to fighting the will of God for them?
In the case of my mother, if the fundies are to be believed, God does not want her to die yet. So he is making her suffer with no quality of life, sitting in a wheelchair all day long, not being able to do anything on her own. And I see people in even worse shape that that in the nursing home my mother lives in. So what, God is keeping them alive for his own amusement?
Cruel bastard.
|
|
|
|
Post by Vene on Mar 18, 2009 11:25:22 GMT -5
Not surprised, look at the rapture crowd. They are so afraid of death that they think God is going to whisk them away. I have long thought that religion is based on fear and many people stick with it because it contains an afterlife. Not that there is anything wrong with having a fear of death, but it is not okay to let fear control your life.
|
|
|
|
Post by The_L on Mar 18, 2009 12:09:31 GMT -5
I'm pious, and I don't fear death. Of course, I'm not a pious Christian... Why do they always assume religion = Christianity? Also, this Pious doesn't seem to fear death--hell, he makes it happen to other people:  (I'm sorry, it was a horrible pun, I know.) |
|
|
|
Post by schizophonic on Mar 18, 2009 12:11:52 GMT -5
Part of Christian belief is that you are supposed to wait until God makes you die. You cannot make yourself die. Other people can kill you, but only against your will. If you agree to it, it's considered suicide, which is a sin that will send you straight to hell since you can't really repent afterwards. Some fundies interpret this to also mean that you can't just let death happen to you and must fight it to your last breath, or you'll go to hell. Now, ordinarily I'd say they had the right idea, except they put that hell part in there. I'm not a fan of hell being an incentive to live. I'd rather have LIFE be the incentive. That's nice and all, but how do we determine when God makes you die, anyway? Is there actually a religious imperative to exhaust literall all options? And then, say your only treatment was from stem cell research and your church says that's murder...Can you kill to survive? |
|
|
|
Post by The_L on Mar 18, 2009 13:02:06 GMT -5
That's nice and all, but how do we determine when God makes you die, anyway? My great-grandmother was a firm believer in the whole "threescore and ten" thing. When she reached her late sixties, she basically sat back and waited to die. And waited. And waited. She died at 89, but she hadn't really lived since she hit 70, if not sooner. Never exercised, never really went anywhere except church and family get-togethers. She just sat around watching her soaps, and getting weaker and weaker. When you see something like that as a kid, it does two things to you: 1. It keeps you from fearing death. When you've watched someone slowly dying over the course of your childhood, that knowledge is scarier than death could ever possibly be. 2. It makes you determined to earn enough money to stay out of one of those damned retirement homes. My great-gran spent her last year there--it was horrible. Sure, they tried to make it look nice, but it was basically an underfunded house of death. And I knew it was tearing my grandmother apart inside because this was her mother, and she couldn't give her the care she needed, in or out of her home. I'm not subjecting my kids to that if I can help it. My POV is, enjoy your body while you've got it, and don't worry about the end. If you spend too much time obsessing over death in any way, you'll never really live. |
|
|
|
Post by MozMode on Mar 18, 2009 13:14:06 GMT -5
That's nice and all, but how do we determine when God makes you die, anyway? My great-grandmother was a firm believer in the whole "threescore and ten" thing. When she reached her late sixties, she basically sat back and waited to die. And waited. And waited. She died at 89, but she hadn't really lived since she hit 70, if not sooner. Never exercised, never really went anywhere except church and family get-togethers. She just sat around watching her soaps, and getting weaker and weaker. When you see something like that as a kid, it does two things to you: 1. It keeps you from fearing death. When you've watched someone slowly dying over the course of your childhood, that knowledge is scarier than death could ever possibly be. 2. It makes you determined to earn enough money to stay out of one of those damned retirement homes. My great-gran spent her last year there--it was horrible. Sure, they tried to make it look nice, but it was basically an underfunded house of death. And I knew it was tearing my grandmother apart inside because this was her mother, and she couldn't give her the care she needed, in or out of her home. I'm not subjecting my kids to that if I can help it. My POV is, enjoy your body while you've got it, and don't worry about the end. If you spend too much time obsessing over death in any way, you'll never really live. My grandmother did the same exact thing. She actually died relatively young too, in her mid sixties. But she was sick, mentally and physically. And we tried putting her in a home, but yeah, it was kind of horrible. So we took her in. And she just sat in her room, waiting to die. Never went outside, never exercised, never did much of anything. Finally, after Dementia rattled her brain & she had stopped eating, she passed. It was so freaking hard seeing someone you love slowly pass away. |
|
|
|
Post by Star Cluster on Mar 18, 2009 15:22:45 GMT -5
It was so freaking hard seeing someone you love slowly pass away. This exactly. My dad died suddenly of a heart attack just two months after his 65th birthday. While that was very hard to take when it happened, I'm not sure that it isn't harder on the family watching a loved one die slowly like my mother is doing. I think the suddenness of my fathers death hit me hard since it was unexpected. But watching my mother slowly decline over the past 6 or 7 years has been really difficult. |
|
|
|
Post by Death on Mar 18, 2009 15:38:01 GMT -5
Sad that religion makes them fight from fear, that's no way to live and it's no way to die.
Everyday, just live everyday. If all you can do is see a sunrise or hear the voice of one you love that's enough quality of life.
We're dead an awfully long time.
|
|
|
|
Post by schizophonic on Mar 18, 2009 15:54:00 GMT -5
I'm pious, and I don't fear death. Of course, I'm not a pious Christian... Why do they always assume religion = Christianity? Also, this Pious doesn't seem to fear death--hell, he makes it happen to other people: (I'm sorry, it was a horrible pun, I know.) I didn't notice a mention of Christianity in the article. Pretty sure a lot of other religions are the same. |
|
|
|
Post by The_L on Mar 18, 2009 16:14:45 GMT -5
Yes, but it tends to apply more to Christians than to members of other faiths. Hence my reason for being upset--they lump all religions together and claim that fervently religious people, in general, fear death.
This is even funnier when you think about other contexts--my religion basically wants me to drink, dance, fuck, and have a wonderful time. Fundies think that same sort of behavior is evil.
|
|
|
|
Post by MaybeNever on Mar 18, 2009 16:44:02 GMT -5
Pity the only consideration is often surviving, not living. Without some kind of quality of life, I don't think my life would be very worth having. YMMV, of course.
I've often thought that if I were told by a doctor that I was going to die (at least in some way other than the typical) I'd just as soon get it over with. Death and a sense of my own mortality doesn't frighten me. Dying does, because I'm not keen on suffering, but death doesn't. But then many religions seem to take root in a fear of death, so this isn't too surprising to me.
|
|
