http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Southwest/04/07...l.ap/index.html

JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD IT ALL...WELLLLLLL

SHERMAN, Texas (AP) -- A jailed man accused of killing and cutting out the hearts of his son, estranged wife and her daughter plucked out his own eye and then quoted from the Bible, officials said Tuesday.

Andre L. Thomas was in a county jail cell Friday night when he tore his eye out of its socket with his hands, said Grayson County Sheriff Keith Gary.

Thomas, 21, then quoted the verse Mark 9:47: "And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell."

Thomas was taken to a hospital and the eyeball was put on ice, but it could not be reattached. He is now being held in restraints at the jail, the sheriff said.

Thomas is accused in the March 26 stabbing deaths of his 4-year-old son, his 20-year-old estranged wife and her 1-year-old daughter. All the victims' hearts were cut out; two were found at Andre Thomas' house. He turned himself in and was charged with one count of capital murder.

A judge ruled Monday that Thomas will be evaluated by a mental health professional.

John Krakauer, in his recent book "Under the Banner of Heaven", ponders an interesting if heretical question.

When does irrational belief become total insanity?

Organized religion is widely accepted, so even though it espouses what may be objectively considered an irrational belief system, is not generally regarded as insane.

Yet plenty of people take the currently accepted irrational belief system prevailing in any given culture and use it to justify any number of crazy and horrific acts, from killing your own child to get rid of its evil spirits, to plucking out your own eyeball because of a loony passage in a contradictory ancient text.

Where, indeed, does one draw the line between socially acceptable irrational belief and certifiable craziness?

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