Oh ye of little faith

Today's trivial newslet:

Cancer patients who rely on religion to cope with their terminal illnesses are more likely to use intensive life-prolonging care, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. [...]

Cancer patients who had high levels of religious coping were three times more likely to receive aggressive life-prolonging care.

The researchers propose [login info here] precarious explanations like this one:

Religious copers may choose aggressive therapies because they believe that God could use the therapy to provide divine healing, or they hope for a miraculous cure while intensive medical care prolongs life.

So religious people think God needs an assist from modern medicine while he's cobbling together their miracle, or that he needs to work through their IV drip?  Somehow I don't think so.  And in offering these dubious explanations the researchers appear to have missed an obvious question: isn't it just a tad ironic that religious people are working so hard to avoid meeting God?  That the devout are so determined to postpone this consummation devoutly to be wished?

No, I think the actual underlying reason has less to do with modern medicine as a vehicle for divine healing, and more to do with the fact that most thieves would be happier postponing their trials.

Comments

[Harold M]

Oh dear, oh my. That's excoriating and I'm having a hard time typing through the tears of laughter. If the shoe fits, throw it. Throw it hard and true.

But I have an alternative, possibly complementary speculation. Some types of religious conviction give the believers the endurance and sense of entitlement needed to withstand and demand aggressive treatment. Clearly God intended for them to have it. Otherwise it wouldn't exist.

But in a pinch, your excoriation works for me.

[John Caruso]

I'd go for that (though on the other side you have the zealots who think that only God heals, and it's blasphemy to rely on man's methods instead). And actually I agree with the researchers that it's an interesting question; I just find the explanations they included vs. the ones they left out pretty amusing.

[Benjamin A. Schwab]

Perhaps someone who thinks that their life has a divine purpose or someone who is against euthanasia would try to prolong life as much as possible? or someone who is against euthanasia may consider opting out of medical treatment that could prolong life to be equivalent?

Perhaps there is more then one reason to explain the occurrence.