I've been offline for a few days, so didn't see where this thread was going. Murray suggests that you'd have to be insane to do something for your faith that you know for sure will lead to your death. We should remember that to a truly religious person in either Christianity or Islam, death is not the end of existence. The afterlife is not only there, but much more important than this life. People have already pointed out Christian martyrs, beginning with Jesus. There are sects of Christianity active today who, for example, will not accept blood transfusions because they believe it will pollute them with spirits--they will essentially become possessed.

If you accept the premises of this belief, namely that spirits or souls exist, that a portion or remnant of the soul can inhabit the blood, and that it is better to die and go to heaven than become possessed and ultimately go to hell, then the practice of not accepting transfusions--EVEN THOUGH YOU WILL DIE--is perfectly rational. Where is the insanity? In the beliefs themselves? Are you saying that Islamic or Christian beliefs are in themselves insane? If not, why is acting on those beliefs insane? Furthermore, for adherents of these sects, it would be insane to accept a transfusion, knowing that it will damn you to hell.

My point is that the claim of insanity is ethnocentric in this case, and can only be valid for someone who does not share the religious beliefs of the ones being labelled insane. Furthermore, "Insane" is not a diagnosis like "Liver Cancer." The concept of insanity itself is culturally conditioned, and one group's madman may be another group's shaman.

Steve