Reply To: It's Fascinating the Places I Discover Evidence For Evolution

[PopeBeanie]

I’ve been to Good Samaritan and St. Vincent’s hospitals here locally and aside from a cleric dropping by to ask me if I’d like to pray with him when I did an overnighter (“No, thank you”) there’s never been a hint of religion or that religion would be allowed to overrule a medical decision.

I had an instructor, ex-nurse, who openly spoke of God’s love, and said it motivates him. He spoke of an unconscious patient who was normally in great pain, and very, very unlikely to survive much longer. The patient stopped breathing, and he decided at that moment to leave things “in the hands of God”. No resuscitation was attempted. The patient died.

No one in class asked if there were any other witnesses to this event, nor did I ask. At that moment, hearing the medical details, I felt he behaved the same way I probably would have. In fact, I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever try to use “reasoning” with a theist like “are you sure you want to keep this body alive, or would you rather let God take over?”. (I imagine there may never be such a circumstance where it would be ethical for me to say that, or worth the risk.)

This is somewhat confusing. Our organs can use fresh water.

Yeah, I assumed some kind of typo there, somewhere. In fact, to clear up another myth that’s out there, it is never a good idea to drink seawater to hydrate. Perhaps a handful of seawater a day can add essential minerals, but any more than that will cause further, unnecessary dehydration.