This news came down last night:
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.
Here are the results. You'll notice that "white evangelical protestants" are the group most likely to approve of the use of torture.
Now this news should be accompanied by a lecture on the difference between causation and correlation. For one, white evangelical Christians tend to be more conservative, so they're more likely to steep themselves in conservative radio, watch Fox News, and hear little or no opinions against torture. For another, it could be white evangelicals are more culturally primed towards violent retribution -- according to some sociologists (and highlighted in Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers"), the South, where most evangelicals live, is influenced by its cultural legacy of its Scots highland code of honor.
And then, of course, this is just a poll.
Still, you'd think, or hope, regular church goers would know the difference between right and wrong. What's going on here? Hubris from chuchgoers, that their faith someone is too comforting, and discourages introspection and self-questioning?
Not that non-church-goers do much better, either. A full forty percent believe torture's okay? Sheesh. |
