Church Going Americans More Likely To Support Torture

cnn.com:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
The Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture rallied on Capitol Hill in March 2008.

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.

Read the whole story: cnn.com

Comments

[rbtboss]

02:29 AM on 05/05/2009

Oops. My previous was a reply to Zanti, of course.

[facebook1]

05:26 PM on 05/03/2009

The bottom line is..we all need to push back the Chr!stian EvangaIicaIs and the lsIamists. They are enem!es of humanity. Their G0d is eviI!

We should not allow them to proseIytize their h@te.

[Zanti]

07:07 PM on 05/03/2009

The bottom line is that 71 percent of the American public is okay with torture. Sorry you don't find that to be a matter of concern, but I beg to differ.

[facebook1]

07:30 PM on 05/03/2009

Unless you go to the heart of the problem, you are not going to solve this.

[rbtboss]

12:24 PM on 05/04/2009

You want to include those who may support some degree of torture under the most harrowing of circumstances with the pure sadists. You consistently treat this like a single-question survey. And you want all the data on religious affiliation and church attendence pushed under the rug. Your problem is not with media, or the analysis of the pole. It is with the original pole for asking too many questions that you don't like. Your objection is that this pole was conducted at all and your indignation about 71 % is just meaningless smoke. I don't believe you are really concerned in the slightest about torture. But I think you have a stake in christianity. Perhaps it is your livelihood.

[rbtboss]

12:05 PM on 05/04/2009

Bottom line here is that certain christians can not tolerate their religion being a subject of objective study. Why is that?

[Zanti]

10:20 PM on 05/04/2009

rbtboss, what was objective about Huff-Po's misquoting of the CNN headline?

That headline read, "Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful." Differs AMONG the faithful. It's an internal comparison.

Huff-Po changed that into the deceptive headline, "Church Going Americans More Likely to Support Torture." And 3 to 4 thousand posters jumped on that as meaning more likely than any other demographic. Is that in fact what the poll showed? No.

Were we even told how "church going Americans" compare to the entire group surveyed? Nope! So, where's the objectivity that I'm supposed to be objecting to?

Also, here's the question people were 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?" It's quoted at the CNN page linked to by Huff-Po.

Presenting a poll's findings utterly out of context is not an instance of objectivity. Quite the reverse.

[Zanti]

04:49 PM on 05/03/2009

Since HHUA is playing the game of aggressively calling me out (and in duplicate!) for points I've clarified several times already, let me condense my main points and sources.

Pie chart showing results of the Pew survey: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/religion.torture/#cnnSTCOther1

"Total U.S. population"--upper left corner. 71 percent of which supports the use of torture to one extent or the other (from "rarely" to "often"). It's there. And I got the link from Huff-Po!

The "never" folks are a mere one out of four. Note that someone (Pew itself, maybe) deceptively combined "never" with "rarely" to come up with a split statistic. In fact, the breakdown of those who support vs. those who don't support is 71 percent to 25 percent, with 4 percent not having an opinion.

If you go to Pew's website and dig a little, you'll find that the religious study followed from the main findings. What set HHUA off was my objection to the way in which Pew and the press elected to introduce the poll findings to the public--to wit, when a survey reveals that 71 out of 100 Americans support torture, why on earth should the findings be revealed in terms of churchgoing rate? Unless the intention is to put the blame on believers for supporting torture.

HHUA, along with a number of others, should consider addressing the issues vice maligning the character, etc. of those who disagree with them.

[HHUA]

01:05 AM on 05/05/2009

I actually get what you're trying to say and will even meet you half-way in regards to the way HP has presented the findings. However, where I feel you are off-base is in your assertion that the study itself is "contrived" and I find basis for that in your own contradictory statements.

Again, I point to your argument that "the critical/shcolarly method demands that we proceed from general to specific... in stages", and AGREE! But by your very own logic if a study is to originate from the "general" to then progress into "specific stages" or sub categories, then needn't we start with the "general"? Of course! We would FIRST need to know what percentage of the "general population" supports t0rture BEFORE we can deduce what percentage of THOSE "go to church" or "party affiliation" (which they also did!), or "pizza lovers" for that matter... YES, It IS the required process for a study to be accurate!!! So you are actually taking issue with your OWN (correct) statement?!!!

As for the percentage of the general population being 71%... Fine if you want to count "rarely" as "supporting"... Just supports my earlier argument even more since Christians make up approx. the SAME percentage of Americans!!!

And to say that I've not been addressing the issues is ridiculous. In fact, several of the questions I posed about " the issues" have still gone unanswered... Regardless, I do appreciate your concern about potential bias... just disagree in this case.

[Zanti]

01:45 AM on 05/05/2009

In a pro/con survey, "rarely" means yes. Only "never" means no. Why polls are conducted along yes/no lines, I have no idea, but there's no getting around the fact that this one was. If someone kills on rare occasions, is he not a murderer until he starts killing sometimes or often? Is someone who rarely steals within the law until he or she steals often?

Again, my problem is with introducing the study's findings in terms of regularity of church attendance. The only possible reason for doing so is to suggest that Americans who attend church are more likely than anyone else to support torture. And, lo and behold, that's the Huff-Po headline: "Church going Americans more likely to support torture." In fact, the CNN headline states, "Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful," making it clear that the comparison is between religious demographics. Nowhere in the CNN piece are we given a comparison between the church-going faithful and the population at large (I suspect there's little difference), nor are given anything like an idea of how the church-going faithful compare to all the other demographics, making the data both biased and useless. Data presented in no particular context is meaningless.

Now, what if CNN had written a piece revealing that moderate Democrats are more likely to support torture than liberal Democrats? And what if Huff-Po announced, "Moderate Democrats More Likely to Support Torture"?

You'd still have no problem?

[HHUA]

12:41 PM on 05/03/2009

Zanti,

If "the critical/shcolarly method demands that we proceed from general to specific... in stages", then why do you object to the "religious angle" and suggest that it be put on hold? And by "put on hold" do you mean indefinitely or temporarily (and until what point time)?

Would you also object to a further breakdown by say race, age group, etc.? Your statement seems contradictory and counter to "critical thinking" in this case. That you would reject a study out-of-hand as "contrived" simply because you feel that a certain "angle" should not have been explored seems in fact un-scholarly.

I also find it curious that you have deemed the conclusion to this study to have been "predicted in advance"... Do you have data and empirical evidence to support your claim or did you "predict" this?

[HHUA]

12:45 PM on 05/03/2009

Zanti,

Please also enlighten us as to where you are getting your data that a Pew poll has found 3 out 4 Americans support t0rture (as you have been posting on this thread)? I just checked the Pew polls official website and have found the data to show that Americans are SPLIT http://people-press.org/report/510/public-remains-divided-over-use-of-torture, so you may want to check this before you continue posting inaccurate information in support of your views.

Also please note, that an additional demographic breakdown was conducted on the basis of party affiliation and therefore NOT just "manipulated into a matter of religion". No surprise in the findings there I might add as more Republicans favor t0rture than Democrats... Do you have a problem with that demographic as a basis for study and believe these results to be "contrived" as well?

And I might ask, which groups or demographic you WOULD approve for study? It seems Christians are off the table for you... even though they make up approx. 3/4 of all Americans!! So if the point of a study is to examine how AMERICANS view t0rture wouldn't it make the MOST sense to look at the LARGEST DEMOGRAPHIC in our society?!! No "critical thinking" required just common sense!!!

[JohnFromCensornati]

01:00 PM on 05/03/2009

Your asking for Z's nonsense to make sense?
Z does not even believe the Z0mbieStory!
Z is a fake xian. Kinda like GodIs.

[Zanti]

04:17 PM on 05/03/2009

Calm down. It'll do your heart good.

The pie chart: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/religion.torture/index.html#cnnSTCOther1

"Total U.S. population"--to the upper left of the pie chart. Total percentage of Americans who feel torture is justified (from "rarely" to "often"): 71 percent. People who don't have an opinion: 4 percent.

Percentage of people opposed to torture: 25 percent.

If you travel to Pew and do a little looking, you'll discover that the religious study in question derives from the initial poll.

What I'm objecting to is the press and Pew having introduced the findings to the public in the form of churchgoing rates. What stopped them from announcing that 71 out of 100 Americans find torture acceptable? They could at least have given the context for the findings of the religious study. Unless, of course, they wanted to scapegoat the faithful, in which case they succeeded admirably.

No, Americans aren't SPLIT over torture. There are two positions regarding torture: pro or con. 71 percent of us are pro. What confused you was the dishonest grouping of "rarely" and "never" at the link you provide. Rarely and never are two different things. One either supports torture or one does not.

[Zanti]

04:27 PM on 05/03/2009

I have to ask why you duplicated this post. At any rate, I answered you below, where you first asked all this. And I answered your follow-up rant.

[GodIs]

07:12 AM on 05/03/2009

Non-believers are on the dark side and allied with the forces of decline.

[facebook1]

09:54 AM on 05/03/2009

I am a believer in G0d but not in a ped0phyile lsIamic God or a mass m urder!ng Ch!stian G0d.

So?

[research]

12:36 PM on 05/03/2009

Not historically.

The Intolerant and literalist people of the world

are the true evil.

[HHUA]

11:36 PM on 05/02/2009

GodIs --"Men who have rejected God and do not walk in faith are more often than not immoral"

Really? Seems to me there is nothing more "immoral" than adult men raping little boys... Who would commit such a heinous act? Must be the "men who have rejected God" right? Oh wait a minute... that would be Christian priests who have been SODOMIZING little children for YEARS while the CHURCH COVERED IT UP and allowed the very same priests to CONTINUE RAPING!!! Best look in the mirror before you call anyone else "immoral"!

You show yourself to be a true BIGOT (how very Christian of you --NOT sarcasm) not to mention a CHAUVINIST --"men who have rejected" as opposed to "people". No wonder you cling to your bible... being so ignorant would leave little else.

Of all the people I have known or had dealings with over the years (Christians, Jews, Agnostics, Athiests, Humanists, Buddhists, etc.) I can honestly say some of the most self-righteous, bigoted, racist, and UNKIND human beings were also some of the most religious... And vice versa!!! Only the most ignorant and intolerant of people would make such a ridiculous claim as you have... You are a "case in point" for your OWN COMMENT... It is both irresponsible and "immoral" for YOU to pass such a judgment!!!

[minimalist syntax]

12:39 AM on 05/03/2009

don't take GodIs seriously. He is an agent provocateur saying ridiculously cruel things from a fake "Christian"point of view to stir up hate against Christians. Not that there are not Christians who are so intolerant and judgmental. There are. But most Christians are not like that.

[HHUA]

01:08 AM on 05/03/2009

Quite the contrary... In my personal experience I have found MANY Christians to be JUST "like that"... In fact, far more so than most of the others on my list. Granted, according to the teachings of Christ it is not supposed to be but something must have gotten lost in the translation on a lot of people! How else do you explain the vast cesspool of intolerance that is the "Christian right".

[Zanti]

02:12 AM on 05/03/2009

"But most Christians are not like that."

Ahhhh, but we have a contrived "study" to add fuel to that stock perception. And studies never lie! Not only is data always perfect, there's nothing anyone can do in the way of spinning that data that could make it any less true.

This seems to be the going view on the left. Lefties like you and I who question such judgments.... Well, we must be corrected. Often and sternly.

Can't permit critical thinking in the ranks, you know.

Hang in there.

[duxguts]

11:36 PM on 05/02/2009

I guess if you're silly enough to even go to church, you're silly enough to believe in torture.
Thank God I'm an atheist!

[Zanti]

02:36 AM on 05/03/2009

Well, actually, if you're silly enough to be an American, you're silly enough to believe in torture. 71 percent of us do, according to the poll the religious "study" was derived from. Four percent of us don't know how we feel. A whopping one out of four feel torture is flat-out wrong.

America--a moral nation.

So, really, we're talking about those folks silly enough to be part of that 75 percent. Something tells me that, when we're talking 3 out of 4 people, we're talking a whole lot of demographics. Do you agree?

[rbtboss]

03:09 AM on 05/03/2009

Yea a lot of demographics. Why don't we isolate one and take a look at it. How about religion? Oh, you don't like that one? OK. Well, you wanna go with cat owners vs dog owners. That ought to be safely unilluminating.

[darker]

09:28 PM on 05/02/2009

They want torture?
Well then, it's obvious what some "Christians" are all about: SADISM.
They really "get off on" Christ's torture by the Romans.
What a bunch of CHURLY BEASTS those "Christians" are!

Their "Christian" VALUES ARE IN THE TOILET.
Bunch of TAWDRY HYPOCRITES.

[TheBaffler]

11:01 PM on 05/02/2009

All true.

[Zanti]

02:14 AM on 05/03/2009

You know who else is okay with torture/sadism? Seventy-one percent of the American public.

Are 7.1 out of 10 people tawdry hypocrites and sadists and churly beasts? By your standards, apparently, yes.

[TheBaffler]

09:36 AM on 05/03/2009

Yes. Are you in favor of torture, 'lil conservadem?

[DingoDave]

08:36 PM on 05/02/2009

According to the Bible, even old J.C. himself wasn't beyond inflicting a bit of pain and suffering on his ideological opponents.

John 2:
13-And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14-And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
15-And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;

Notice that the text says that Jesus went away and MADE a scourge, which he then used to drive the sellers of the sacrificial animals, and the money changers, out of the temple courtyard. The Bible makes it clear that he didn't just pick up any old scourge which happened to be lying around, but that with pre-meditated malice-aforethought, he went away and made one with which to assault his opponents. (who incidentally, according to the Jewish laws of the time, were required to be there)

By the way, here's a picture of a scourge. I sure wouldn't want to get whipped by one.

http://media.animevice.com/uploads/0/465/72080-cat_o__nine_tails__psf__super.jpg

I guess 'gentle Jesus meek and mild' wasn't quite as meek and mild as a lot of Christians would like to make him out to be.

[DiogenesII]

06:15 PM on 05/02/2009

"When Fascism comes to America it will be,

wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

Sinclair Lewis

[research]

07:55 PM on 05/02/2009

A Christian.

[Zanti]

02:16 AM on 05/03/2009

Yes, and there's absolutely no possibility that Lewis meant that, as a general rule, evil disguises itself as good.

No, he meant it bone-literally. The cross.

Welcome, folks, to the No-Metaphor Zone.

[facebook1]

05:42 PM on 05/02/2009

Men who have rejected the spiritual God of many Spiritual faiths for a sp!teful lsIamic or a Chr!stian God are more often than not immoral

[GodIs]

05:23 PM on 05/02/2009

Men who have rejected God and do not walk in faith are more often than not immoral.

[facebook1]

05:38 PM on 05/02/2009

Many of us have not rejected G0d. We are only rejecting the immoral Chr!stian and lsIamic G0d!

[Hirnlego]

05:54 PM on 05/02/2009

Which God?

[Zanti]

02:32 AM on 05/03/2009

The God of Data. You know, the one that so many of us on the left bow to at every opportunity. The God we never question. If it's on a pie chart, well, it must be true.

Which sort of blows away the myth that liberals, as a group, hold values contrary to those of business. After all, business worships data, too, and in precisely the same way.

I wonder if that helps explain why liberals, for all our talk to the contrary, never seem to come down very strictly on the money class, whereas we're open to making ordinary workers take pay cuts?

Anyway, that's the God he meant. Unless he was referring to the God of Edgy HBO Dramas. Not sure.

[dwright]

04:17 PM on 05/02/2009

FAUX Christians and Church goes would support torture - true followers of Jesus Christ would never

[facebook1]

04:24 PM on 05/02/2009

Just like True lsIam does not preach h ate. Right?

[minimalist syntax]

04:52 PM on 05/02/2009

It doesn't.

[facebook1]

04:25 PM on 05/02/2009

Chr!stian in denial.

[Taliese]

10:54 PM on 05/03/2009

Alkie off the wagon.

[dwright]

04:16 PM on 05/02/2009

Jesus WAS a liberal! I want someone to quote from the NEW Testament proof that he wasn't.

[ProfessorDuh]

03:40 PM on 05/02/2009

Basing your ethical views of torture on a Hollywood ticking-time bomb scenario is about as smart as limiting your culinary choices to the options available to the Donner Party.

[kwinter]

04:10 PM on 05/02/2009

Well is that really unsurprising that a lot of people using that basis are the same people who have made a sacred ritual out of symbolic cannibalism?

[ProfessorDuh]

04:29 PM on 05/02/2009

An astute observation. I'm now a fan.