You might think that after all those tens of millions of Evangelical Christians watched The Last Temptation of Christ, they perhaps developed at least a mild disdain for governments that hire soldiers to inflict violent brutality upon their prisoners.
Guess not.
A new national survey just released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveals that it is precisely those folks who ate up Mel Gibson's blockbuster -- church-going Evangelical Christians -- who are far more likely to support the use of torture than non-religious Americans. And of several groups representing various religious orientations, it is secular Americans that are actually the group most opposed to the use of torture.
What's the deal? I thought Christians were into things like mercy, love, and forgiveness. Not water-boarding. Maybe I missed it, but of the thirty or forty times that I've read the New Testament -- particularly the Sermon on the Mount -- I just don't recall the "Thou Shalt Torture" passages. It is fascinating that on this clear question of morality, church-going Christians seem to be the most, well, challenged.
One might be tempted to view this survey as some sort of anomaly or outlier. But it isn't. Rather, it is simply the latest of many such surveys reporting what a small minority of us secular folk already know: that when it comes to numerous issues of morality and ethics, religious Americans actually come up quite short on a host of measures when compared to their atheist and secular peers.
Consider what many recent surveys have found in recent years on a variety of issues of moral/ethical concern:
• The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq: it is the most religious Americans that have been most in favor of the war, while it is the least religious Americans who have been the least supportive.
• Women's equality and women's rights: it is the most religious Americans who are least supportive of women's rights and equality, while secular folk are the most supportive.
• Full civil rights and equality for homosexuals: again, the correlation is quite strong, with religious people being less supportive of gay rights and scoring higher on measures of homophobia than atheists and secular folk.
• The death penalty: the more religious are the most in favor, while the less or non-religious are the most opposed.
• General treatment of Prisoners: Strong God-believers and regular church-goers generally favor harsher treatment and strict retribution, while atheist tend to favor more humane treatment and rehabilitation.
• Doctor-assisted suicide: the religious tend to oppose, the secular tend to support.
• Stem cell research: ditto.
The list could go on and on. Whether we are talking about environmental protection or corporal punishment for children, sane drug laws or responsible sexual education, religious Americans are more likely to take a less ethical, less merciful, or less rational position than atheists and secular people. And just to top it off, sociological and psychological studies since the 1950s have consistently shown that strongly religious Americans, on average, tend to be more ethnocentric, prejudice, anti-Semitic, racist, intolerant, nationalistic, and authoritarian than those who forgo church and don't believe so strongly in God -- if at all.
How strange, then, that "immoral" is a word people often associate with atheism, while "moral" is a word people often associate with religion. Studies show the exact opposite correlation.
Are there lots of immoral atheists? You bet. Are there lots of moral Christians? Hell yes. But study after study consistently finds -- this one on torture being merely the most recent - that when it comes to questions of how we view others unlike ourselves, what kinds of rights we want other human beings to enjoy, or how we generally seek to treat other people, our fellow Americans with the little crosses around their necks and the fish on their bumpers just don't appear as loving, merciful, or forgiving as those of us without.
Phil Zuckerman, Ph.D. is a professor of Sociology at Pitzer College and the author most recently of Society Without God (NYU, 2008).
Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph. D.: Should Donald Rumsfeld Go to Hell?
John Shore: No Heaven For You!
So you are opposed waterboarding and fuzzy caterpillars because you think it is torture, but you don't support the pro-life issue because you don't think it is torture. Kind of ass-backwards thinking.
Same buzz words and phrases ... "fuzzy caterpillars" "on-demand abortion"
If you are, could you please explain how the "on-demand" thing became so prevalent in the lingo?
It conjures up some pretty funny images!
Typical.
What is left of the christian faith?
As a generation comes of age less religious than any generation before, as church-going decreases every year (especially in liberal or left leaning churches), what will fill the void.
The teachings of Jesus are good, and can guide people to moral behavior (if followed-that is the rub)
I don't know, I lost my faith when people tried to shove their faith down my throat.
But I can tell you this, if the US stops being a christian nation, you can blame the christian right. Just as the Republican party told everyone to fall in line or get out, so too did the evangelical movement.
Guess what, a lot of people got out.
If being christian means agreeing with the christian right, a lot of people will stop being christian.
And that is kinda sad...
This laundry list that Zuckerman presents is incomplete and based on false premises. Why doesn't he include stats on charitable giving? Because he might reveal that charitable giving to Africa, Haiti, many South American countries is overwhelmingly provided by Christian based religious persons in this country. Basically, the poorest, non-whitest countries on the planet.
And there is so much more to religious folks than what is presented in this post. Even athiests have their struggles. Ever think of how vulnerable an athiests feels knowing that death is the end for them, and that no God loves them? Yet they are surrounded by people of faith who barely even fear death because of God's grace. It's not easy being athiest either. So let's quit sniping and search for true understanding in our varied beliefs.
Your post is absurd, and most importantly, assbackwards. It is xians who are clearly afraid to die. As an unbeliever, I have NO fear of death. I fear a horrible, painful death, but not death itself. I'm not concerned about a judgmental god or a sadistic devil.
I do fear the xians who want to prevent death with dignity.
What he is saying is that in the big scheme of what is going on in the world today, many evangelicals don't seem to pay attention to the teachings of Jesus.
He's right. You don't need to be personally defensive if you are against torture, making war preemptively or ruining the planet. So simmer down. He wasn't attacking you personally.
1. Our faith tells us we were all born sinners. Thus, we are called to grow in our faith. The learning never stops. We read the Bible many times over, discuss and interpret passages and stories with other Christians. Our faith is a living thing- we experience tragedy and triumph and try to find God's meaning in it. We also seek to ask WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) Yet in this post even a Ph.D is taking cherry-picked snippets of a faith, and using them against people he doesn't like very much.
2. There is a major difference between biblical philosophies on personal behavior and society (in our case "government")
The passages in the Bible that contain the words of Jesus are mostly impactful on one's personal behavior. If this were not true, then Christians would all try to be like the poor woman who gave all she had, though it was not very much. Yet Jesus praised her over the rich man who gave significantly more in sum, yet had barely sacrificed to do so.
Also, many churchs use certain Old Testament passages as guidance for the financial operations.
Who would Jesus Torture?
Are you saying that strongly supporting immoral behavior by the state is not immoral? Are you saying that moral behavior at home excuses immoral behavior at the voting booth?
If I take Jesus into my heart, does that make it OK to beat a gay man to death?
If I accept God as my personal savior, does that make it OK for me to burn a cross on a black man's lawn?
If I go to church every week, does that make waterboarding OK?
And by the way, why was waterboarding of US troops by the Japenese torture, but when we do it waterboarding is not torture? I don't know, could you ask your god for me?
I have met many christians who follow the teachings of Jesus, who try to do onto others as they would have others do onto them.
I have met many more Christians who try to shove their beliefs down my throat while showing by their actions that they should, if their beliefs are correct, burn in hell.
The evangelical wing of the Christian faith is driving away the former group. Decent christians are now the minority.
I think that if the man Jesus that is written about in the New Testament were here today he would not have many followers - for one thing he said to pay your taxes and we know that politicians and wealthy people do not want to render to Caesar that which is Caesar's.
Jesus would have been a hippy, living on a commune while caring for people and the earth. Definitely at odds with organized religion, the politicians, corporations, military, etc.