Good news: Afghanistan might not find Christian convert guilty and then put him to death! Not so Good news: They might decide he is crazy instead.

The trial of a man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity might be dropped on the grounds of his "mental instability", officials have said, as Afghanistan provoked international criticism over the case.

Rahman reportedly confirmed to the court that he had converted while working for a Christian aid agency in Pakistan at the end of the 1980s and told the judge he had "no regrets" about his decision.

However, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Supreme Court, Wakil Omar, told journalists yesterday: "As far as I've noticed and been told, he might have a mental problem. If he is proved mentally ill, then he wouldn't be tried."

I have my own theories on religious belief and sanity, but I am just going to keep them to myself. I am just not sure that this really qualifies as a win for religious tolerance. To find that somebody is potentially insane if they do not adhere to the same religion that you do just seems at least as intolerant as arresting somebody and threatening them with death if they convert to a differing religion.

I know that many of you are going to take umbrage at this comparison, but to me it is like saying that your hallucination of a flying giraffe is perfectly fine while your friend's hallucination of a polka dot unicorn is just plain nuts! There is just no way to challenge somebodies mental capacity concening religious belief without calling into question your own faculties.

Unless you are a Scientologist. I mean those people are absolutely bananas!