Zulu

I'm curious if there are any Christian answers as to why we feel physiological pain. When I stub my toe: why does it hurt? I mean, why doesn't your brain just say: "stop doing this and don't do it in the future".

This question avoids the whole notion of free will so it's a rather simple question to answer...I'd imagine.

-Zulu

diana

Theological reasons for physiological pain.

Baffles me.

Think I'll move it to someone more qualified.

d

Magus55

Why would you think it would be any different for us than how you percieve it? Pain is from electrical signals telling the brain something is wrong. We don't completely negate all science, we just believe God designed it instead of astronomical chance.

spurly

What is the purpose of pain? To let us know something is wrong somewhere in the body. To let us know that we need to give an arm, finger, etc. some attention.

Without pain, we would be in big trouble. We wouldn't know when we were too close to fire or when we were sitting on a nail, etc.

It is actually a great system designed by God to help his children.

Kevin

my dog earl

Am I right when I'm thinking that there were no thorns on Rose bushes or cactii or other types of defensive mechanisms on plants before the original sin? It would seem that there might have been pain before Eve coaxed Adam to eat the forbidden fruit but God just "child proofed" the world.

Saltiness

I think what the OP means is that why didn't god just make a system that didn't cause so much displeasure? Couldn't he have just been nice and made a piece in our brains that just made us stop doing stupid things that hurt us without causing us pain? Why would he want us to suffer so much because we burned our finger on the stove?

beastmaster

Great question Zulu.

Surely, an Intelligent Designer could have come up with a more compassionate way to deliver the *informational* value of pain without needless suffering.

Seems like the only explanation behind the clumsy device of pain perception would be that god was foolish, careless, lazy, and/or cruel.

Ice

Perhaps it's simply not to teach us that pain affects us - it affects others too.

Zulu

Magus55, Spurly,

To reiterate the others: I understand the value of physiological pain. I know why it's there. Afterall, it makes complete sense from evolutionary theory.

The question is: why didn't god create us with a less painful method of identifying harm?? Or is your contentions that pain is the absolutely only method in which we can figure out not to do something? Seems extremely unncessary. As a matter of fact, there exist people who don't feel any pain... instead they simply 'know' when they've reached a physiological barrier. Why aren't we all like that?

-Zulu

Zulu

Would you appreciate the suffering of others more if I violently beat you, Ice ?

-Zulu