The Pew Research Center conducts a lot of surveys - but this one yielded a very surprising result: churchgoers, especially Evangelicals, are more likely to support torture than those unaffiliated with any religious organization.
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.
(Photo: sduffy [Flickr])
danoso: If you want to pick "all time" as your reference, they pale in comparison to religious fueled killings throughout history. Maybe instead of accusing someone of intellectual dishonesty, you should worry about your intellectual laziness.
Why don't they ask how many black muslims support beheading?
We can go all day with one group of self-righteous hypocrits pointing fingers at another group of self-righteous hypocrits.
But I'll throw in anyway - we love tossing around this term "torture" without clearly defining exactly what it means.
If you bring any sort of discomfort whatsoever to a captive, then some panty-waist is going to whine "torture". Where do we draw the line? How far should we go to protect our citizens? Is it any way possible we can have a rational discussion about it without someone breaking down in tears or going on a rant about "western imperialism"?
Even if this poll only covered "Christians", I suspect we could find similar results in other religious groups--those who espouse they belong to the world's major religions.
Pure hypocrisy.
I commend your open-mindness and inclusion of diverse ways of thought.
But placing Mohammed with the likes of Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Ghandi is a little off.
None of these other men were warlords. They never resorted to violence in order to spread their philosophy. Mohammed killed a great many people. There is no getting around this fact.
But you're 100% correct on your point of moral relativism - and how so-called "religious" people perverting the peaceful teachings of their founders.
It also depends how "torture" is defined and how far it would go. I would think people would be more likely to oppose cutting off limbs than to oppose waterboarding or strobe lights. The US was very strict on what types of methods could be used, and careful safety precautions were taken to prevent injury.
All TV news should have been ashamed of itself alot of times, and it's not planning to start. It just wants people to get all angry and pissy so their ratings can go up like FOX and MSNBC.
Would you like to be water boarded and be put in a state of "simulated drowning" to get an idea of how torture is defined? The whole idea of torture isn't about the wellbeing of the torture victim, physical wounds heal, but mental scars last until your dead or work it out in therapy. It’s all about extracting information, and what’s done with the meat afterwards isn’t important. That’s what torture is.
see, this is how it gets taken out of context. as i said before, you know when you screwed up, you know the consequences. the probability for me being tortured EVER is exactly 0%. that is a fact, jack.
@Skidworth
Many “Christian's” have had their turn at persecution against other groups, and I can't stand how groups try and play the victim when the thing they are supporting has been the aggressor so many times in the past. It’s a life of push and shove, it always has been.
I really wasn't making a judgement about the political views of either group of church goers. I was mostly making a comment about how the poll in question was really meaningless because of the low numbers of participants and it's poor design. I find it funny that people here are using the results to "confirm" their views about Christians, conservatives, etc. I'm not defending the groups, I don't consider myself conservative or evangelical. Speaking to your point, there are a lot of historical reasons that Evangelicals tend to be conservative (not all of them are conservative, btw. Stereotyping works for liberals too). Overall, I think that people get nervous when their culture changes too fast. They retreat into traditions and traditional values. Their religious beliefs get pushed aside in favor of their defence of the status quo for it's own sake, which they tend try to warp their beliefs to fit. The political right has tapped into these fears and tendencies better than the political left. It started with Reagan in the late 70's and continued through GWB.
What did they do, go to ONE white-evangelical-conservative church ONE Sunday morning and just ask around.
That figure is roughly the size of ONE small church congregation, not even a 3rd of an average sized so called "mega-church".
Seems like the authors of this survey are purposefully trying to propagate an untruth or imply something that isn't there.
That's what you have to expect from today's televised "investigative journalism". They know the answer even before they ask the question, all they are actually investigating is a way how to screw with the results.
What they didn't tell you is that Evangelicals were also much less likely to support communism, fascsim and other leftist pathologies and therefore never support mass murder.
Fascism is actually a far right ideology, and it doesn't much like communism or the far left either. Christianity has had a lot of history of inflicting mass murder with the crusades, the inquisition, and the Salem witch trials. If you support Christianity and its history, you’re supporting mass murder.
It costs a lot, it's degrading and damaging for torturer and victim, and it's politically damaging, if not at once then certainly later.
If I didn't already know that governments have a history of pursuing policies that sound good but in practice don't work, I'd wonder why they keep doing it?
Believe what you will, but a lot of innocent people have gone to jail for decades for crimes they did not commit, put to death for crimes they did not commit, and now tortured for crimes they had no part in. And that is truth.
If you're a white, male Christian, then your odds of suffering illegal treatment from the U.S government is much lower, but it is never ZERO.
how do you figure i have the cards stacked in my favor? i've yet to get a break for anything because i'm a white male. that is what we, the silent majority...teabaggers....whatever you want to call us....are mad about. the misconception that because we are white males we have the world at our hand. there is NOTHING remotely true in that, as i stated i'm still waiting on that honky magic to kick in.
Wouldn't the constant repetition of this threatened, god-sanctioned, inevitable torture lead those folks into some pretty awful sorts of mental conditions? I mean, if you actually believed that your god would not only allow torture, but create a special place for torture to occur, then a little eye-burning or nail-ripping or water-boarding on earth is really no big thing, is it?
Which is why I (and many others) think that christians are mentally ill. One day that opinion will become the norm.
Fascism is the ugly stepsister to communism. It is in no way right wing by the American definition of the term.
The lie to communism is that the people can own or control anything without members of the state as the management.
Both types of governments are statist with strong central control. The American Right is federalist and should be for limited government Both oppose free markets.
Stalinists dubbed Fascists rightwing because that was the propaganda.
I know, wikis aren't the answer.
Still read this: http://tinyurl.com/d9fvtm
There is much more to this than I can write or than this wiki can tell. But they make a pretty good start.
it's pretty much a rehash of the golden rule, just in opposition. don't do unto others as you wouldn't have them do unto you.
We don't abhor torture the way we might.
Are you serious?