TY - JOUR
T1 - Religious Perspectives on Human Suffering
T2 - Implications for Medicine and Bioethics
AU - Fitzpatrick, Scott J.
AU - Kerridge, Ian H.
AU - Jordens, Christopher F.C.
AU - Zoloth, Laurie
AU - Tollefsen, Christopher
AU - Tsomo, Karma Lekshe
AU - Jensen, Michael P.
AU - Sachedina, Abdulaziz
AU - Sarma, Deepak
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
PY - 2016/2/1
Y1 - 2016/2/1
N2 - The prevention and relief of suffering has long been a core medical concern. But while this is a laudable goal, some question whether medicine can, or should, aim for a world without pain, sadness, anxiety, despair or uncertainty. To explore these issues, we invited experts from six of the world’s major faith traditions to address the following question. Is there value in suffering? And is something lost in the prevention and/or relief of suffering? While each of the perspectives provided maintains that suffering should be alleviated and that medicine’s proper role is to prevent and relieve suffering by ethical means, it is also apparent that questions regarding the meaning and value of suffering are beyond the realm of medicine. These perspectives suggest that medicine and bioethics have much to gain from respectful consideration of religious discourse surrounding suffering.
AB - The prevention and relief of suffering has long been a core medical concern. But while this is a laudable goal, some question whether medicine can, or should, aim for a world without pain, sadness, anxiety, despair or uncertainty. To explore these issues, we invited experts from six of the world’s major faith traditions to address the following question. Is there value in suffering? And is something lost in the prevention and/or relief of suffering? While each of the perspectives provided maintains that suffering should be alleviated and that medicine’s proper role is to prevent and relieve suffering by ethical means, it is also apparent that questions regarding the meaning and value of suffering are beyond the realm of medicine. These perspectives suggest that medicine and bioethics have much to gain from respectful consideration of religious discourse surrounding suffering.
KW - Bioethics
KW - Medicine
KW - Religion
KW - Suffering
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84954397126&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84954397126&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10943-015-0014-9
DO - 10.1007/s10943-015-0014-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 25680422
AN - SCOPUS:84954397126
SN - 0022-4197
VL - 55
SP - 159
EP - 173
JO - Journal of Religion and Health
JF - Journal of Religion and Health
IS - 1
ER -