A Curious Finding

From a blog on The Economist (click HERE to read the full post):

Here is a curious finding: doctors who hold religious beliefs are far less likely to allow a patient to die than those who have no faith. That, at least, is the contention of Clive Seale, a medic at Barts and the London hospitals and an academic at Queen Mary, who yesterday published a paper on the subject in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Interviewed by the BBC this morning, Dr Seale said that, when questioned about the most recent patient to die in their care, non-religious doctors were twice as likely as religious ones to report that they took a decision either partly intended to end life or one in which they expected death would result.

That seems odd, because you might expect believers to accept death as God’s will and, while not attempting to force his hand by hastening a patient towards it, they might avoid delaying his intention by intensive medical techniques. Atheists, by contrast, believe their patients have no afterlife, so they might be expected to extend their presence on the planet by as much as possible....