For a Christian to die for his or her beliefs does not make sense. It is better to live for them.

Someone who suffers and dies to further a belief, in most cases religious, is called a martyr. Edmund Campion was a typical martyr. Put to death in England in 1581 for teaching the Catholic faith, he could have saved his life by renouncing his Catholicism and becoming a protestant. Campion is one of many Martyrs killed in England during the period of the reformation and shows that martyrdom is most likely when belief is suppressed by political persecution. So a true Christian martyr must be under pressure and persecution and made to decide weather to deny his or her beliefs or live.

Today however, things are more complicated. In the 1500’s it was easy to spot martyrs. They were the people who...