I wonder what the research area for “finding out whether people with strong beliefs in a religious afterlife of some kind change their minds near death regarding wanting to die vs wanting to go to that afterlife” is called?
I do think you underestimate the strength of religious individual’s convictions and the impact of that on their decisionmaking especially near death if they have significant faith in their religion’s conception of an afterlife (assuming it has one). Still...staring imminent death in the face does spur many changes whenever an individual experiences that, so maybe that does shake things up...but, I’m not sure how much hope I place in that idea without seeing some research around the topic.
I make this claim: Individuals with sufficiently strong religious beliefs in a religion that has an afterlife will more often than not prefer to die on the “mortal plane” and go to their faith’s afterlife than continue living (even in good health and restored to youth, etc.) for [100 more years] [300 more years] [lots more years] [the rest of time].
I make that claim because of my experiences interacting with individuals who have very strong faith in their religious beliefs, including interacting with such individuals when they are near death.
I need to figure out what kind of research people have already done that points in the direction of that claim and see what others have found, then I can pursue this inquiry further. I don’t want to make a claim and forever rely on anecdote to support it!
I wonder what the research area for “finding out whether people with strong beliefs in a religious afterlife of some kind change their minds near death regarding wanting to die vs wanting to go to that afterlife” is called?
I do think you underestimate the strength of religious individual’s convictions and the impact of that on their decisionmaking especially near death if they have significant faith in their religion’s conception of an afterlife (assuming it has one). Still...staring imminent death in the face does spur many changes whenever an individual experiences that, so maybe that does shake things up...but, I’m not sure how much hope I place in that idea without seeing some research around the topic.
I make this claim: Individuals with sufficiently strong religious beliefs in a religion that has an afterlife will more often than not prefer to die on the “mortal plane” and go to their faith’s afterlife than continue living (even in good health and restored to youth, etc.) for [100 more years] [300 more years] [lots more years] [the rest of time].
I make that claim because of my experiences interacting with individuals who have very strong faith in their religious beliefs, including interacting with such individuals when they are near death.
I need to figure out what kind of research people have already done that points in the direction of that claim and see what others have found, then I can pursue this inquiry further. I don’t want to make a claim and forever rely on anecdote to support it!