It at least partially is dependent on how one defines "suffering". All of us will have things happen to us that will cause suffering, but it's how we handle it that makes the most difference according to both Buddhist and Hindu dharma. Generally speaking, the more attached to things we are, the more we're prone to suffer if those items are taken from us. Therefore, it sounds logical that we should eliminate all attachments.

But hold on a minute. Does that mean I cannot love my wife, children, and grandchildren? Does that mean I can't enjoy a good dish of falafel? Does that mean I shouldn't encourage my grandchildren to study hard in order to learn more? Of course not. The best way to deal with such matters is what Gandhi called "disinterested action", namely that we simply do our best regardless of the consequences. IOW, we can still like and love what we like and love, but not to let them become so entrenched in us that if they're missing it causes harm to us.

However, that's a very difficult process obviously. Which one of us will not grieve over the loss of a loved one, for example? But what we can do is to brace ourselves for that eventuality as best as we can, and Buddhists, for example, are encouraged to think of their own death and that of loved ones for at least part of their evening meditation.

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"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

...let's try a few examples:

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A cilice was originally a garment or undergarment made of coarse cloth or animal hair (a hairshirt). In more modern religious circles, the word has come to simply mean an object that can be worn to induce some degree of discomfort or pain. According to an American Catholic writer, its practice in the Catholic Church is "more widespread than many observers imagine." (John Allen, Jr. Opus Dei, Double Day, 2006)

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See also "Mortification of the Flesh"

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Pope John Paul II wrote the following: "Christ did not conceal from his listeners the need for suffering (emphasis added). He said very clearly: "If any man would come after me... let him take up his cross daily, and before his disciples he placed demands of a moral nature that can only be fulfilled on condition that they should "deny themselves". The way that leads to the Kingdom of heaven is "hard and narrow", and Christ contrasts it to the "wide and easy" way that "leads to destruction." Christ does not explain in the abstract the reasons for suffering, but he states: "Follow me!". Come! Take part through your suffering in this work of saving the world, a salvation achieved through my suffering! Through my Cross. Gradually, as the individual takes up his cross, spiritually uniting himself to the Cross of Christ, the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed before him. ...It is then that man finds in his suffering interior peace and even spiritual joy."


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The FLDS takes girls and, without the slightest regard to their will to it, or to their happiness, force them into marriage with much older men already having multiple wives. There is a great body of evidence that gives credence to the suffering of these girls/women. Further, there is the matter of the "lost boys" of such practices, since if boys and girls are born in approximately equal numbers, and men are to have multiple wives and women only a single husband, than many members of the sect must be left out of the marriage pool. That usually means working them as near-slaves until they're old enough to be booted out. (See: Daphne Bramham's riveting and unsettling book, The Secret Lives of Saints, in which she variously calls them extortionists, misogynists, racists, child abusers and, most disturbingly, pedophiles. She says the Taliban has nothing on the FLDS where revolting attitudes toward women and children are concerned.

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And speaking of the Taliban, has nobody ever bothered to ask about the women suffering in stifling heat under their burkas? They are suffering for their religion (or rather, their men-folks' version of religion).


If you want, I can begin the process of digging up situations in which people suffer for no other reason than that to not suffer would somehow be offensive to their religion. Women unable to drive in Saudi Arabia, just for example. How would you like to have to walk miles just because there was no man around to drive you? And this last point is quite telling, because what it says is that it is better to suffer than to do something that religion tells you is wrong. Now, let me just point out that there were no cars when Muhammad wrote, so how he knew women shouldn't drive is beyond me.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.