I have included this quasi Religious question here
as group of Scientists(?) are about to conduct lab: controlled torture tests upon people, to find out.
The US John Templeton Foundation, has funded a two million dollar, 2 year study to find the truth

Dozens of people, from the extremely religious, down to the blatently anti-religious, will be subjected to the agony of laboratory controlled torture, while looking at pictures of the Virgin Mary, and Crucifixes, etc. Various neurological and physical sweating responses will be measured to determine whether a belief in God, helps relieve pain!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1436161,00.html

We suddenly have an explanation for the ineffectivenes of the Inquisition's intensive interrogation techniques. Redheads need deeper anesthesia to achieve a given level of pain relief due to their genetics. The mental aberration leading to a big helping of Christ up your butt could well dull nociception, allowing hind gut-fermenting wombats to implacably torture the general populace while themselves feeling no pain.

It's a great experiment! If Christ had my mother he would have nailed himself to the cross. Cf: Ronald Nimkin in "Portnoy's Complaint."

Of course belief in religion, or god, or Allah, or green gophers relieves pain. The ability to focus the mind on something other than pain relieves pain.

The one thing shown to definitely relieve pain is humor ... and solely because it removes the focus.
Why should any other subject, no matter how relevant or inane, be any different.

So if both god and humor relieve pain you are free to posit that god is just a joke.