Religious people seem curiously reluctant to meet their maker
　　很奇怪，似乎有宗教信仰的临终病人不愿意见他们的造物主

　　HOW do a person’s religious beliefs influence his attitude to terminal illness? The answer is surprising. You might expect the religious to accept death as God’s will and, while not hurrying towards it, not to seek to prolong their lives using heroic and often traumatic medical procedures. Atheists, by contrast, have nothing to look forward to after death, so they might be expected to cling to life.

　　一个人的宗教信仰是如何影响他对待终期疾病的？答案令人吃惊。你可能会想有宗教信仰的人认为死亡是上帝的旨意，尽管他们不会急急忙忙奔赴死亡，但是他们也不会采取“英雄般”的往往也是痛苦不堪的医疗过程来延长他们的生命。相反，对于无神论者，你可能会认为既然他们死后没有任何值得期待的东西，所以他们可能会力图抓住生命的任何一线生机。

　　In fact, it is the other way round—at least according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Andrea Phelps and her colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Religious people seem to use their faith to cope with the pain and degradation that “aggressive” medical treatment entails, even though such treatment rarely makes much odds.

　　事实上，结果正好相反——至少根据来自波士顿达那-法柏癌症研究治疗中心（Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston）的Andrea Phelps 和她的同事的研究结果是如此，她们的研究发表在《美国医学会志》（Journal of the American Medical Association）上。有宗教信仰的人似乎用他们的信仰来对付因“攻击性”疗法所带来的痛苦，即使这些疗法鲜有效果。

　　Dr Phelps and her team followed the last months of 345 cancer patients. The participants were not asked directly how religious they were but, rather, about how they used any religious belief they had to cope with difficult situations by, for example, “seeking God’s love and care”. The score from this questionnaire was compared with their requests for such things as the use of mechanical ventilation to keep them alive and resuscitation to bring them back from the dead.

　　Phelps博士以及她的小组跟踪研究了345名癌症患者最后的几个月的情况。研究人员并不直接询问这些患者在宗教上是如何的虔诚，而是询问他们怎样利用宗教信仰来对付困境，比如说“寻求上帝的爱和关心”。研究人员根据这项调查得出一些分值。然后研究人员把这个分值和这些患者为了维持生命而请求使用人工呼吸器以及为了挽救生命而采用抢救措施的情况进行了比较。liuxuepaper.com