I guess so. Howvever, they were convinced that a martyr's death meant they would go to Heaven (martyrs automatically became "saint so-and-so" after their deaths: saint=person definitely in Heaven, not Purgatory or Hell), so you could say modern suicide bombers are doing the same (although the Christians weren't harming anyone else in the process). One early Christian, Saint Ignatius wrote this to his friends in Rome who wanted to try to get his sentence to be eaten by lions quashed -- admirable faith or craziness? Hard to say..

Some quotes from New Advent Catholic Encylopedia:

For I am afraid of your love, lest it should do me an injury. For it is easy for you to accomplish what you please; but it is difficult for me to attain to God, if you spare me.
For it is not my desire to act towards you as a man-pleaser, but as pleasing God, even as also you please Him. For neither shall I ever have such [another] opportunity of attaining to God; nor will you, if you shall now be silent, ever be entitled to the honour of a better work. For if you are silent concerning me, I shall become God's; but if you show your love to my flesh, I shall again have to run my race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater favour upon me than that I be sacrificed to God while the altar is still prepared; that, being gathered together in love, you may sing praise to the Father, through Christ Jesus, that God has deemed me, the bishop of Syria, worthy to be sent for from the east unto the west. It is good to set from the world unto God, that I may rise again to Him.
I write to the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless you hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body; so that when I have fallen asleep [in death], I may be no trouble to any one. Then shall I truly be a disciple of Christ, when the world shall not see so much as my body. Entreat Christ for me, that by these instruments I may be found a sacrifice [to God]. I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man: they were free, while I am, even until now, a servant. But when I suffer, I shall be the freed-man of Jesus, and shall rise again emancipated in Him. And now, being a prisoner, I learn not to desire anything worldly or vain.
May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray they may be found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily, and not deal with me as with some, whom, out of fear, they have not touched. But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so. Pardon me [in this]: I know what is for my benefit. Now I begin to be a disciple. And let no one, of things visible or invisible, envy me that I should attain to Jesus Christ. Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.
The prince of this world would fain carry me away, and corrupt my disposition towards God. Let none of you, therefore, who are [in Rome] help him; rather be on my side, that is, on the side of God. Do not speak of Jesus Christ, and yet set your desires on the world. Let not envy find a dwelling-place among you; nor even should I, when present with you, exhort you to it, be persuaded to listen to me, but rather give credit to those things which I now write to you. For though I am alive while I write to you, yet I am eager to die. My love has been crucified, and there is no fire in me desiring to be fed; but there is within me a water that lives and speaks, saying to me inwardly, Come to the Father. I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the drink of God, namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.
I no longer wish to live after the manner of men, and my desire shall be fulfilled if you consent. Be willing, then, that you also may have your desires fulfilled. I entreat you in this brief letter; give credit to me. Jesus Christ will reveal these things to you, [so that you shall know] that I speak truly. He is the mouth altogether free from falsehood, by which the Father has truly spoken. Pray for me, that I may attain [the object of my desire]. I have not written to you according to the flesh, but according to the will of God. If I shall suffer, you have wished [well] to me; but if I am rejected, you have hated me.

Blink

When I read historical accounts of just about anything up to the last hundred years, I am struck by the level of acceptance of violence that has existed even among people who considered themselves religious. (It still exists today with the medieval mindset of the Islamists and also in our own government wrt terrorist prisoners). Physical violence has been an accepted part of human activity for centuries. A show I recently saw on a PBS station was concerned with the beginnings of the Inquisition. Pope Paul IV was quite brutal; the account of the man whose faith led him to suffer being boiled alive to death in oil at the hands of the Pope's flunkies, which he apparently managed to do with grace, was quite stunning. I think you have to remember that the mindset was different then.

It also occurs to me to wonder what the effect of what one is focusing on at the time of death has on what comes next. If one is able to maintain a state of prayer at death, is the transition easier than for one who appears to die peacefully? So maybe someone who is able to use adversity to maintain focus on "god" at death ends up better off than someone who just dies.

Lucy wrote on Nov 15^th, 2007 at 8:22am:


  I understand the above sentiment, but this post brings up some deeper issues i feel.   Most of us look aghast at any physical violence, it tends to scare or at the very least upset us.  Yet, so many of us so often don't think twice about committing emotional or mental violence to our fellow aspects of creation while in the moment doing it.  Lot's of times many of us may feel bad after, but yet this doesn't stop it from happening again.

  My question is, is physical violence somehow more worse than emotional and mental?  To me, it is all hurting, and the body and physical is not ABOVE our other parts. 

BUT, and this is a big butt, our culture, our global culture has made a cult of the body and generally physical worship/powerful focus.  And to a certain extent, most of us to varying degrees are programmed or influenced by the culture in which we grew up in.

   We have many laws to protect physical bodies, property, and other physical stuff, but we have far fewer laws to protect people from emotional or mental abuse in the day to day life, unless its particularly extreme.   If anything, a certain amount of emotional and mental violence in our culture is supported or advocated, much far beyond physical violence.  Maybe we are way to overly attached to the body, and constantly project these attachments out in moralistic ways?

  Another issue which doesn't get brought up too much is physical violence, and the seeming attitude that so many, the huge majority have, that its "ok" to treat animals in a physically cruel or violent way--or if they don't directly support such attitudes, they support it by apathy, indifference and above all by the spending of their money.   The author of World Peace Diet makes a very good and logical argument for the perception that as long as we continue to do and endorse violence towards animals, we will continue to do violence to each other.  Some may say that this too extreme of a perspective, but when i think about the more enlightened very far past or future cultures that Monroe and Cayce talks about, i can't help but notice these tended also to be vegetarian or more vegan in nature overall.    Do folks really believe that people in a thousand years or so, are going to be herding or  especially killing animals for food?  Now, if Monroe and Cayce are accurate about these cultures and individuals being much more spiritually intune than most today, wouldn't we connect the dots?

  Speaking very generally and broadly, it's far easier to talk the talk, than walk the walk, isn't it?

Quote:


Good points and/or questions.

tgecks wrote on Nov 15^th, 2007 at 10:47am:


  To me, the body is both ultimately unreal, and yet at the same time it is our Temple--a seemingly paradoxical position to take but...   Yes, the point was more so the Resurrection, but to get there, he needed to go through Crucifixion so there is relationship there--a direct causal one.   Couldn't have had the former, without the latter.  Nor would he have been so well known if he had just died of 'natural' causes, or completely ascended while still physically alive.  It had to be dramatic to get the worlds attention.   And he needed to balance karma, believe it or not.   His other self, Joshua, had put out similar dynamics to what he met in self as Yeshua.