View of Death and Dying, and Other Medical Issues Through the Eyes of People in Different Religions

The process of dying, and death itself, is viewed quite differently among different religions. Other medical issues, including abortion and suicide, are also topics of debate and interest among the major religions of the world. In this thesis, five major religions are discussed: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. For the purpose ofthis thesis, Christianity was divided into two categories: Southern Baptist Convention and Roman Catholicism. Each religion has a vast amount of denominations or subgroups. However, for the information covered here, there is not a huge amount of variation among the subgroups of each religion. That is not to say that there is no variation. Each religion has subgroups for a reason; they view things alternatively from other adherents of that religion. Therefore, each religion could have multiple views on a topic; nevertheless, the information provided here is an overarching viewpoint for each religion. Some categories are, however, more applicable to certain religions. Some religions might not view a specific topic or category as critical to medical care and do not have a firm view on the matter