Stanislav_J writes "A US study suggests that people with strong religious beliefs appear to want doctors to do all they can to keep them alive as death approaches. The study, coming 345 work with terminal cancer, found that 'those who per usual



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document.write(le prayed were more than three times more likely to receive undivided 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 finally decide when it is 'our time,' is it felt that refusing combative life support measures or resuscitation is tantamount to deliberately ending one's life prematurely?"

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Mark