{"id":619,"date":"2009-03-26T12:06:18","date_gmt":"2009-03-26T16:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therowboat.com\/?p=619"},"modified":"2022-01-26T16:35:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T20:35:40","slug":"dying-desperately-heroic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/2009\/03\/dying-desperately-heroic\/","title":{"rendered":"Dying, Desperately, Heroic"},"content":{"rendered":"
“To study philosophy,” wrote the French essayist Montaigne, “is to learn how to die.” In medieval times, particularly as the Black Death spread through Europe, the art of dying\u2014ars moriendi\u2014<\/em>became the goal to which a lifetime of piety was devoted. Sure, a person can get by faking a good life. But a good death? There’s the true test.<\/p>\n This week there has been a bunch of buzz about a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em> which noticed that the more religious people are, the more they reach for extreme medical treatments in their last days, refusing to give up the ghost. They are also less likely to have prepared ahead of time for dying by drawing up wills and arranging for healthcare proxies.<\/p>\n Any study about religion and health is sure to push some buttons. There’s a whole collection of foundations out there (Templeton, Pew, Lilly, etc.) looking to give out money to scientists who are, as Richard Dawkins put it, “willing to say something nice about religion.” This particular study received money from one of those, the Fetzer Institute.<\/p>\n In the media coverage, however, there’s been an interpretive tug-of-war-going on. The original paper, whose lead author is Andrea Phelps of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, makes mention of the “heroic measures” that these dying religious folks call for\u2014it’s a bit of medical jargon, meant not necessarily to bespeak actual heroism. Run a Google search on “heroic measures religious” today, and the first thing you get is a cheery article<\/a> in the Desert News<\/em>, the Salt Lake City paper.<\/p>\n It isn’t clear why these patients pursue more aggressive treatment, said Andrea Phelps, a senior medical resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and the study’s lead author. It may be that people with a strong sense of faith are more optimistic or are more satisfied with their quality of life, Phelps said. Doctors should be sensitive to religious beliefs and help plan care accordingly, Phelps said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Look through three other reports from less theocratic points of origin\u2014the Economist<\/a><\/em>, the Boston Globe<\/a><\/em>, and Scientific American<\/a><\/em>\u2014and, quite to the contrary, they paint the religious folks as somewhat more like crazed and desperate souls whose supernatural worldviews crumble at the threat of natural demise. The Darwin-loving Economist<\/em> compares the poor believers’ behavior to the pre-conversion hypocrisy of Augustine:<\/p>\n Saint Augustine of Hippo, one of Christianity\u2019s most revered figures, famously asked God to help him achieve \u201cchastity and continence, but not yet\u201d. When it comes to meeting their maker, many religious people seem to have a similar attitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n