Pain and Suffering; Why We Celebrate the Hurt and the Martyred

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Pain and Suffering; 

Why We Celebrate the Hurt and the Martyred

One thing I find incredibly interesting about religion is the pain we so heavily associate with it. So many religious figures seem to have to have encountered some sort of pain to “deserve” their position as an “important” figure. I think one significant, particularly universal example is Christ, especially with Easter occurring so recently. For some reason pain appears to be a necessary, however, I don’t understand this. Why must one suffer to deserve something and would we feel these figures less deserving if they hadn’t suffered? 
“A successful explanation of sacred pain needs to account for this phenomenon, that is, the experiential contours of pain and how these contribute to the pervasiveness of voluntary pain in the religions of the world,” - Glucklich, 391

We celebrate and romanticize the pain that our figures experience and we look at how they experience pain for us. I guess for me it is a question of why religion looks at the pain we experience as a “ necessity” in the world. The reason I ask this is because I believe it gives people an excuse to let other people suffer. I see people saying that their pain is “bringing them closer to Christ” and telling them that it will eventually pay off. I understand that pain is a part of life however that doesn’t mean that people in terrible situations should be happy allowing people to suffer in the name of religion. If pain is the choice of the pained I think that’s perfectly alright, however if the pained are being forced to feel pain than I do not believe that is morally correct!

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