Churchgoers more like to back torture
Offline http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/religion.torture/index.html
Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful
- Story Highlights
- 742 American adults surveyed on use of torture against suspected terrorists
- 54 percent of those who go to services at least weekly say it's often or sometimes OK
- In survey, people unaffiliated with any religious group were least likely to back torture
- President of National Association of Evangelicals yet to comment on survey
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.
The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The survey asked: "Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?"
Roughly half of all respondents -- 49 percent -- said it is often or sometimes justified. A quarter said it never is.
The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations -- such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians -- categorized as "mainline" Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified. A quarter of the religiously unaffiliated said the same, compared with two in 10 white non-Hispanic Catholics and one in eight evangelicals.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
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edit: once again the quotes pwned me...
"I've yet to witness circumstance successfully manipulated through the babbling of ritualistic nonsense to an imaginary deity." -- me (josh)
If god can do anything, can he make a hot dog so big even he can't eat all of it?
I don't get why the support of torture necessarily has to do with gullibility? I find most people who support torture, to do so for what they perceive to be practical reasons, and it seems the gripes with the use of torture are not about if the information that is yielded by these methods have been valuable or not, but seems to be solely for aesthetic reasons, a moral repulsion towards the act. In fact I'd say that most people who support real politiks, which i consider to be the only true form of rational politics, support the use of torture.
Now, I personally don't support torture, purely out of moral reasons, but I can sure see plenty of reasons to support it, if i were to kick my emotional investment in the matter aside.
The church provides a cohesive enviroment.
The more the people coherse, the more likely they will identify themselves within an in-group.
Christian, American etc....
The more coherse they are of the ingroup values, the more likely they are to support support extreme measures against an outgroup that they percieve as their enemies.
I bet they view those rabid Arabs as an outgroup to take away their national identity because they hate America/freedom.
haha, no it doesn't actually work that way. I doubt those Unitarian unversalist who gather no differently than the fundies support "extreme" measures against an outgroup.
Now, I hardly know anybody who supports torture as a form of punishment, like the Jesus sort of torture, the reason why most people support torture is because they feel it would yield worthy information. Secondly, you need to distinguish between what values one brings into their religious groups, and what values that are fostered by that religious group. You'd be hard pressed to find a protestant evangelical church sermon dedicated to exalting the use of torture, even if most of the parishioners who are typically conservative evangelical support it.
9/11 alone fosters that sort of environment, there's a resentment, and support of means that normally wouldn't have been supported if the wounds weren't so deeply felt by some, to prevent future attacks. It's far easier for a father whose child was raped and killed, to support the death penalty, than for those without any real emotional investment at all.
The Christian religion, has become a hallmark of the american way of life, just like apple pie, for many it's form of patriotism to be a Christian, so for those who have that sense of nationalistic fervor, those deeply invested flag wavers, tend to also be christian, even if their Christianity is merely for the sake of sharing in their supposed national heritage, and these people are also those most inclined to be deeply wounded and reactionary to the 9/11 attacks, by foreign invaders of their american way of life. Try giving a sermon at a fundie church about loving your enemies immediately after 9/11, see how far you'll get.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!