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> This is true. I think that it's also a religious thing as well, and almost Christians. Other religions are more accepting of death, but Christianity has taugh

> This is true. I think that it's also a religious thing as well, and almost Christians. Other religions are more accepting of death, but Christianity has taught many to sincerely believe that Jesus himself would step into the room and heal their loved one, therefore every attempt must be made to save them. Nope. Everybody dies, with rare exception: the Bible is pretty unequivocal on that. I hate to drift so close to playing an SJW card and I'm not saying what you've described never happens, but please don't tar us all with the same brush and, instead, educate yourself.

jrnichols 8y ago
This has been my own experience over the years, and if you'll please take the time to re-read what I said, you'll see I said "many" and not all. There are going to be differences, of course. Think back to the Terri Schiavo case. While she was apparently Catholic, the sentiment was the same. Her family believed that she was going to be healed by God (or Jesus, either one) and would make a full recovery. I also think that years of medical dramas on television have given many many people (again, not everyone...) unrealistic expectations of medicine.
- jawns 8y ago
  Her family did believe that she had more than a nonzero chance of some level of recovery, but that was not why they did not want her to be starved to death by having her feeding tube removed. Though they held out hope, they acknowledged that she might never get better. Their objection to withdrawing her feeding tube was not because they considered it wrong to do to a person who might recover but because they considered it wrong to do to a person. That does not mean that they considered every life support measure to be necessary. It just means that they considered the denial of food and water to be different than something like turning off a ventilator.
- learc83 8y ago
  >Think back to the Terri Schiavo case. While she was apparently Catholic, the sentiment was the same. Her family believed that she was going to be healed by God (or Jesus, either one) and would make a full recovery. That's a mischaracterization of what happened. They had several arguments. 1. They believed that she wasn't actually in a persistent vegetative state, but that she was still conscious and could understand what was said to her and display emotions. They even found doctors (who were probably wrong, but they still had validation) to agree with their theory. 2. They believed that her husband wanted her to die so that he could get remarried while still inheriting her estate. 3. They didn't believe her husband when he said that she wouldn’t want to be kept alive via feeding tube. They believed that since she was a devout Roman Catholic she would have seen denying nutrition as euthanasia even though she might not want to be kept alive via a ventilator. This is the main religious argument made at the time, and it’s more of an argument about her wishes than a religious argument. 4. They found doctors who told them that there was a chance of improvement through experimental procedures. They also seem to have made money since then by taking a salary to run a foundation in her name. It seems like either they were just parents who didn't accept that their daughter was in a persistent vegetative state, they believed the doctors who told them that their was small chance of improvement, they were trying to make money, they really hated their son-in-law, or some combination of all 4. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with them thinking that God was going miraculously heal their daughter. It’s definitely not evidence of wide scale Christian refusal to accept death.
  - GalacticDomin8r 8y ago
    > It’s definitely not evidence of wide scale Christian refusal to accept death. True if you are speaking only of the events you described. However you left out the national debate(and I use that word loosely) over the matter. That was evidence of wide scale Christian refusal to accept death. It took the typical form of the extremists appealing to and living under the shield of the larger group of religious believers who didn't exactly believe the same, but presumably felt some need to side with a "believer".
    - learc83 8y ago
      The national debate was mostly pro-life groups trying to spin the situation for political gain. And even among those groups, I don't remember it being a common argument that she should live because God would miraculously heal her. The argument was that (they believed) she was still conscious and that her life was still worth living.
      - jrnichols 8y ago
        >I don't remember it being a common argument that she should live because God would miraculously heal her. It was one of many arguments for continuing care. No, it wasn't the only argument, but I remember it being a fairly common one. I remember the dozens of websites popping up around the time and the frequent call for "prayer warriors." there are still a few pages around, but a lot of them went away with the demise of Geocities, or just link rotted.
        learc83 8y ago
        There's always a call for prayer warriors about literally every major news event--elections, judicial confirmations, catastrophes, droughts etc... Yes there were people praying for her to be fully healed, but there's a difference between believing it's possible to be healed and arguing that we should keep her alive primarily because of that possibility. The focus of the argument was that her life was already worth living because they believed she was still conscious, and other sanctity of life issues. At the end, the most common argument was that it was cruel to deny someone food and water. They were talking about how the family couldn't even give her ice chips. The pro feeding tube people believed she should keep being fed regardless of whether God was going to heal her.
dunnevens 8y ago
I was raised evangelical, specifically Southern Baptist. There is a relentless focus on positivity. On prayers being answered. The person, that you're replying to, got it largely correct, at least as my childhood faith goes. Sure, even the most deluded Baptists realize death is inevitable. And they're not entirely hostile to DNR. But their approach to the sanctity of life, and the countless stories of last minute miracles, means they will take an aggressive approach. "Pulling the plug" was often considered suicide / murder, and many in my church considered it a start to mass euthanasia of the old and chronically infirm. Perhaps your experience in Christianity is different. But you should educate yourself and realize your experience is far from universal. The brouhaha over Terri Schiavo was not an anomaly in my former faith. The evangelical approach has created much suffering for people in end of life care. I have no qualms about tarring such people for what they perpetuate.
- learc83 8y ago
  I was also raised Southern Baptist (though I’m a liberal mainline protestant now) and my dad was an assistant pastor/choir director for most of my childhood. I couldn’t disagree with many aspects of Southern Baptist theology and doctrine more, but this was not my experience at all. Sure people prayed for sick family members, but the focus was always more on repenting and being reunited in heaven than it was on staying alive via miracles. If anything, in my experience, devoutly religious Southern Baptists tend to be more accepting of death than less religious people. >"Pulling the plug" was often considered suicide / murder, and many in my church considered it a start to mass euthanasia of the old and chronically infirm. I agree that evangelicals tend to be very strongly against assisted suicide. Part of that is that anti-abortion activists groups are also anti-euthanasia and part of their tactics include scaring old people by convincing them that assisted suicide will eventually lead to forced euthanasia. I don’t however believe that most or even very many evangelicals believe that removing someone from a ventilator is equivalent to suicide/murder.
  - dunnevens 8y ago
    We apparently had vastly different experiences within the same denomination. Prayers were almost always for healing. Repentence almost never came into it as the subject of the prayers was usually "saved". Nor were the prayers for being reunited in heaven because that was assumed to be a given. Feeding into all of this were the half-baked stories from the pulpit of healing. Of some miraculous last minute renewal of health. Always the result of praying, fasting, etc. Once the death happened, they were accepting of it. But they fought like hell until that moment. This was my experience. There is (or used to be) some variance between SBC churches, so I don't doubt your experience was different.

jrnichols 8y ago

This has been my own experience over the years, and if you'll please take the time to re-read what I said, you'll see I said "many" and not all. There are going to be differences, of course. Think back to the Terri Schiavo case. While she was apparently Catholic, the sentiment was the same. Her family believed that she was going to be healed by God (or Jesus, either one) and would make a full recovery. I also think that years of medical dramas on television have given many many people (again, not everyone...) unrealistic expectations of medicine.

jawns 8y ago
Her family did believe that she had more than a nonzero chance of some level of recovery, but that was not why they did not want her to be starved to death by having her feeding tube removed. Though they held out hope, they acknowledged that she might never get better. Their objection to withdrawing her feeding tube was not because they considered it wrong to do to a person who might recover but because they considered it wrong to do to a person. That does not mean that they considered every life support measure to be necessary. It just means that they considered the denial of food and water to be different than something like turning off a ventilator.
learc83 8y ago
>Think back to the Terri Schiavo case. While she was apparently Catholic, the sentiment was the same. Her family believed that she was going to be healed by God (or Jesus, either one) and would make a full recovery. That's a mischaracterization of what happened. They had several arguments. 1. They believed that she wasn't actually in a persistent vegetative state, but that she was still conscious and could understand what was said to her and display emotions. They even found doctors (who were probably wrong, but they still had validation) to agree with their theory. 2. They believed that her husband wanted her to die so that he could get remarried while still inheriting her estate. 3. They didn't believe her husband when he said that she wouldn’t want to be kept alive via feeding tube. They believed that since she was a devout Roman Catholic she would have seen denying nutrition as euthanasia even though she might not want to be kept alive via a ventilator. This is the main religious argument made at the time, and it’s more of an argument about her wishes than a religious argument. 4. They found doctors who told them that there was a chance of improvement through experimental procedures. They also seem to have made money since then by taking a salary to run a foundation in her name. It seems like either they were just parents who didn't accept that their daughter was in a persistent vegetative state, they believed the doctors who told them that their was small chance of improvement, they were trying to make money, they really hated their son-in-law, or some combination of all 4. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with them thinking that God was going miraculously heal their daughter. It’s definitely not evidence of wide scale Christian refusal to accept death.
- GalacticDomin8r 8y ago
  > It’s definitely not evidence of wide scale Christian refusal to accept death. True if you are speaking only of the events you described. However you left out the national debate(and I use that word loosely) over the matter. That was evidence of wide scale Christian refusal to accept death. It took the typical form of the extremists appealing to and living under the shield of the larger group of religious believers who didn't exactly believe the same, but presumably felt some need to side with a "believer".
  - learc83 8y ago
    The national debate was mostly pro-life groups trying to spin the situation for political gain. And even among those groups, I don't remember it being a common argument that she should live because God would miraculously heal her. The argument was that (they believed) she was still conscious and that her life was still worth living.
    - jrnichols 8y ago
      >I don't remember it being a common argument that she should live because God would miraculously heal her. It was one of many arguments for continuing care. No, it wasn't the only argument, but I remember it being a fairly common one. I remember the dozens of websites popping up around the time and the frequent call for "prayer warriors." there are still a few pages around, but a lot of them went away with the demise of Geocities, or just link rotted.
      - learc83 8y ago
        There's always a call for prayer warriors about literally every major news event--elections, judicial confirmations, catastrophes, droughts etc... Yes there were people praying for her to be fully healed, but there's a difference between believing it's possible to be healed and arguing that we should keep her alive primarily because of that possibility. The focus of the argument was that her life was already worth living because they believed she was still conscious, and other sanctity of life issues. At the end, the most common argument was that it was cruel to deny someone food and water. They were talking about how the family couldn't even give her ice chips. The pro feeding tube people believed she should keep being fed regardless of whether God was going to heal her.

dunnevens 8y ago

I was raised evangelical, specifically Southern Baptist. There is a relentless focus on positivity. On prayers being answered. The person, that you're replying to, got it largely correct, at least as my childhood faith goes. Sure, even the most deluded Baptists realize death is inevitable. And they're not entirely hostile to DNR. But their approach to the sanctity of life, and the countless stories of last minute miracles, means they will take an aggressive approach. "Pulling the plug" was often considered suicide / murder, and many in my church considered it a start to mass euthanasia of the old and chronically infirm. Perhaps your experience in Christianity is different. But you should educate yourself and realize your experience is far from universal. The brouhaha over Terri Schiavo was not an anomaly in my former faith. The evangelical approach has created much suffering for people in end of life care. I have no qualms about tarring such people for what they perpetuate.

learc83 8y ago
I was also raised Southern Baptist (though I’m a liberal mainline protestant now) and my dad was an assistant pastor/choir director for most of my childhood. I couldn’t disagree with many aspects of Southern Baptist theology and doctrine more, but this was not my experience at all. Sure people prayed for sick family members, but the focus was always more on repenting and being reunited in heaven than it was on staying alive via miracles. If anything, in my experience, devoutly religious Southern Baptists tend to be more accepting of death than less religious people. >"Pulling the plug" was often considered suicide / murder, and many in my church considered it a start to mass euthanasia of the old and chronically infirm. I agree that evangelicals tend to be very strongly against assisted suicide. Part of that is that anti-abortion activists groups are also anti-euthanasia and part of their tactics include scaring old people by convincing them that assisted suicide will eventually lead to forced euthanasia. I don’t however believe that most or even very many evangelicals believe that removing someone from a ventilator is equivalent to suicide/murder.
- dunnevens 8y ago
  We apparently had vastly different experiences within the same denomination. Prayers were almost always for healing. Repentence almost never came into it as the subject of the prayers was usually "saved". Nor were the prayers for being reunited in heaven because that was assumed to be a given. Feeding into all of this were the half-baked stories from the pulpit of healing. Of some miraculous last minute renewal of health. Always the result of praying, fasting, etc. Once the death happened, they were accepting of it. But they fought like hell until that moment. This was my experience. There is (or used to be) some variance between SBC churches, so I don't doubt your experience was different.