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lid writes:

I understand that the notion of heaven as being a pleasant place that the
average person went after death was rather radical at the time and that
establishment of suicide as a sin in Christianity was the result of too
many Christians immolating themselves in order to escape their miserable
existence in Pagan Rome and go to a better life in heaven.

You are partly correct. It was actually to imitate Christ and honor Him,
and they considered themselves martyrs.

It was "made a sin" by a particular clergyman who saw his congregation
(and therefore his financial support!) dwindling. He then started
preaching it as a sin and those who died by suicide would be barred from
heaven. It was a very short time before other clergymen and subsequently
churches began officially declaring it the same. This certainly appears
it was strictly a financial decision and had nothing to do with God,
Christ or the Bible. In fact, there is nothing in the Bible that declares
suicide a sin (don't bother quoting "thou shalt not kill" as the original
text does not say "kill"), it only reports it, it does not judge it.
Judas throwing himself in the fire is the example used by the clergy;
however, there is no indication that he was condemned for that, it's a
"translation" issue. (You know, "The King James version of the Bible was
good enough for Christ, so it's good enough for me" thing.)

Not to miss an opportunity for financial gain, governments started making
laws to make suicide a crime; after all, the church supported it.
Initially, it was so the Crown would have a legal basis for seizing the
properties of the victim. The word "coroner" was coined in England with
the office established to establish identifying suicide deaths with the
properties seized by the King. If memory serves correctly, it quite
literally means "Crown's plea." FYI, AFAIK there is now no state in this
country which still has it listed as a crime as it has been removed from
the books. The big one, however, is the Catholic Church which, in 1983,
adopted the official policy of being compassionate to the families of
suicide victims rather than ostracizing them as had been done for
centuries.

If you were to read the history of suicide in our "modern" world
(post-Christ in this case), you would be horrified. Homes were burned,
bodies dismembered, burial barred, and those are the better things that
happened. If fact, after reading what churches did, I have pretty much
stayed away from any organized church. When a "man of God" can initiate
and order the dragging of nude bodies of suicide victims through the
streets, there is something really wrong with their "calling." No, this
wasn't in the 5th, 10th, or even 15th century . . . it happened in this
country, through a church of an established religion. The churches were
the worst persecutors of families already devastated and destroyed by the
sudden death of one of their loved ones.

If one takes it back to those in the first century who were suiciding to
follow Christ and become Martyrs, then it's much easier to understand how
some of those martyring themselves now think. That doesn't make it right,
however. That commandment very clearly includes the murder of others, at
least for those who base their religions on the Bible. I personally
detest the phrase "suicide bomber" for two reasons. Suicide is a medical
issue, and those people set out to murder others, most of whom have done
no harm to them (in other words for self-protection). They are bombers
and murderers and should be called such, not given an identification that
implies in any way that it could be considered by anyone as "noble" which
is what the phrase means in other mind-sets. We have the media to thank
for that. The headline of "Bomber murders 50 people" hits harder than
"Suicide bomber kills 50 people" because it clearly identifies in
everyone's mind these are murderers rather than people acting in the name
of their god. The very title implies it is acceptable behavior in another
culture which does have its affect on the minds of the readers.

I have no more use for today's "holy war" than I did for those I read
about in history books. In my simple mind, there is nothing holy about
using your (generic) god's name as an excuse for murdering, regardless of
the country, background or belief system.

Part education and part opinion; hopefully it's clear which is which.

Glenna