Fear of Dying, Religion, & Spirituality

Yesterday I came across an article in USA Today that reported on a recent study that “Cancer Patients of Faith More Likely to Get intensive Treatments”.  I found it to be a fascinating paradox.  It would seem that the religiously “faithful” are also the “fearful” and the fear of wondering whether one has lived a life worthwhile of entering heaven may be at the core of the issue. I wonder if this is as true for those with strong spiritual beliefs instead of strong religious beliefs.

Religion and spirituality have become battlegrounds in the culture wars that have consumed much of the nation’s energy in recent decades.  For many in Ilene’s generation in particular, big R religion stands for bending the reality of the world in which we live, and human nature itself, to conform to an artificial man-made dogma.

Ilene believed that no single religion had THE TRUTH.  She felt that all had truths … and distortions of our spiritual nature. 

In the posting, Transforming Religion Into Spirituality, which I made in her name, she described how her spiritual beliefs and practices evolved and how they sustained her throughout her illness. 

What inspired me was how she lived those beliefs to the very end of her life.