Churchgoers More Likely to Support Torture

[applejack]

Patrolmag

Christians More Likely to Support Torture
Apr 30, 2009 | 05:18 pm

A new Pew survey reveals something not-all-that-shocking: people who attend church at least once a week are more likely to say torture is "often" or "sometimes" justifiable. And those who identify as evangelicals are even more likely than mainline Protestants or other denominations.

Considering that evangelicals supported President Bush the Iraq war more than any other demographic, this is hardly a surprise. The popular notion that Christianity is a feel-good pacifist religion that would never support war or torture is obviously silly, but the Christian right's almost cheerleaderish embrace of national violence seems a bit hard to explain. (To be fair, a good 44% of weekly churchgoers say torture is rarely or ever justified, so this is by no means everyone.) Percentages aside, why are Christians always a healthy margin ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to waging war or brutally interrogating prisoners?

Two half-baked but possible explanations:

- Christianity has just as much emphasis - if not more - on justice as mercy, and its personal commands to be merficul do not necessarily apply to states and governments. Thus, churchgoers tend to have more binary understandings of good and evil, and are less squeamish about what they perceive to be justice.

- A high percentage of evangelicals live in the South and other rural regions where popular sentiment is more antagonistic toward nations and ethnicities believed to be "anti-American." War and torture is much more compatible with their general support for strong national defense.

We haven't really had the Christianity and torture debate here, and I suppose it could be a rather vicious one. But what I mostly want to know is this: Christians, as documented by the numbers and overwhelming anecdotal/cultural corroboration, do not tend to be bothered by war or violence. Why? Is there a simple factual, regional, or demographic explanation? Is it a well-considered support, or an outgrowth of fear, racism, or bloodlust?

[via Marc Ambinder]
Posted by David Sessions

Just came out. I tried to look for any earlier threads that may have dovetailed with this - specifically one that covered this article about Catholics and torture, but couldn't find any.

[Executor32]

Why of course it's OK! It just brings the victims lucky recipients of torture aggressive negotiations closer to God. It happened to Jesus, too, remember?

[NecronLord]

Of course. Let's remember there's this thing, in most Christians' beliefs, called Hell. Where God (who is the absolute epitomie of good) sends people that offend him, to be tortured.

For ever.

And ever.

And ever.

Ad Infinitum.

Literally.


Of course most Christians believe that torture is sometimes justified - God himself has it done (and most of them think rather a lot of people go to hell too) quite frequently. That bad people deserve pain is a fundamental belief of many christians.

[Kanastrous]

I had the impression that in the main Christians believe that *all* people, good or bad, deserve suffering to some degree or other as a consequence of Original Sin...

...anyway to do as God does is to be as God is. Considering the amount of torture God inflicts upon His victims in the Torah etc, it suggests that perhaps torturers may be closest to God...

[Darth Wong]

I had the impression that in the main Christians believe that *all* people, good or bad, deserve suffering to some degree or other as a consequence of Original Sin...

That's what they believe in theory. In reality, you don't have to talk to Christians for very long to realize that they think some people deserve suffering more than others.

...anyway to do as God does is to be as God is. Considering the amount of torture God inflicts upon His victims in the Torah etc, it suggests that perhaps torturers may be closest to God...

Indeed. Torturing is next to Godliness

[Superman]

No surprise. Personally, I've always thought that the fundies I grew up with were the most sadistic bunch of assholes I've ever known.

[Darth Wong]

I've said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating.

Conservative Christians have two sets of beliefs: those which they preach to others and those which they preach amongst themselves.

To others, they say that all of us deserve Hell equally. Amongst themselves, they rant about how the Devil works in the lives of people like me, and how God will strike us down but not them. To others, they say that they love gay people but we must stop gay marriage because <insert bullshit reason here>. Among themselves, they rant about how the gays are eeeeeeeeevil. To others, they say that they respect other religions. Amongst themselves, they pray for the day when all of the eeeeevil heathens are cleansed from the Earth. I've seen the other side of that fence and it's just as scary as any of the caricatures we make of it. It's not like conservative caricatures which have no relation to reality; atheist caricatures of lunatic conservative fundies are actually pretty much spot-on.

[erik_t]

Yes, but this isn't just fundamentalists. This appears to be true to some degree across all sorts of Christianity. That actually surprised me somewhat.

[Darth Wong]

Yes, but this isn't just fundamentalists. This appears to be true to some degree across all sorts of Christianity. That actually surprised me somewhat.

It doesn't surprise me. I've said elsewhere that moderate Christians are not fundies but they are sympathetic to fundie thinking, and this only bears that out.

[General Zod]

Wasn't Mother Theresa rather big on the idea that suffering was a positive thing? I seem to remember how some Catholic douchebags espoused massive suffering being positive because desperate and suffering people will turn to God. I hear torture is a pretty big form of suffering.

[Samuel]

Wasn't Mother Theresa rather big on the idea that suffering was a positive thing? I seem to remember how some Catholic douchebags espoused massive suffering being positive because desperate and suffering people will turn to God. I hear torture is a pretty big form of suffering.

Yes, she did believe that, but except for extracting confessions and saving your soul I don't think the Catholic Church viewed torturing people as an acceptable form of indoctrination. People who voluntarily crucify themselves fall in a special category, all by themselves.

[Superman]

Wasn't Mother Theresa rather big on the idea that suffering was a positive thing? I seem to remember how some Catholic douchebags espoused massive suffering being positive because desperate and suffering people will turn to God. I hear torture is a pretty big form of suffering.

If Penn from Penn & Teller is correct, then that's a perfect example. According to him, Mother Teresa was quite the sadist.

[General Zod]

Yes, she did believe that, but except for extracting confessions and saving your soul I don't think the Catholic Church viewed torturing people as an acceptable form of indoctrination. People who voluntarily crucify themselves fall in a special category, all by themselves.

Not quite the point I was making. Since they espouse suffering for a tool to help bring more people to follow their God, the idea that they might not find torture revolting even if they don't officially condone it isn't a huge stretch.

[Twoyboy]

Wasn't Mother Theresa rather big on the idea that suffering was a positive thing? I seem to remember how some Catholic douchebags espoused massive suffering being positive because desperate and suffering people will turn to God. I hear torture is a pretty big form of suffering.

Yeah... unless the person suffering is Mother Theresa, then she gets flown to the best hospital around while everyone around her suffers.

Actions speak louder than words, and the action says they consider themselves to be divine, but the REST of us need to suffer.

[Superman]

I've seen the other side of that fence and it's just as scary as any of the caricatures we make of it. It's not like conservative caricatures which have no relation to reality; atheist caricatures of lunatic conservative fundies are actually pretty much spot-on.

Sort of like how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is pretty accurate when it comes to categorizing and predicting the thoughts and behaviors associated with various types of mental illness?

[Darth Wong]

The Catholic Church spent centuries torturing people, and even now considers its leaders from that era to be saints. Just how much do you think they're really against torture?

[Kanastrous]

Mother Teresa saw enough suffering to wreck her faith. Which she apparently wanted concealed, after her death. I guess she didn't want other faithful people to benefit from her hard-earned perspective.

[erik_t]

Yes, but this isn't just fundamentalists. This appears to be true to some degree across all sorts of Christianity. That actually surprised me somewhat.

It doesn't surprise me. I've said elsewhere that moderate Christians are not fundies but they are sympathetic to fundie thinking, and this only bears that out.

Maybe I have just been spoiled by cafeteria-catholicism. Thinking back to the folks I associated with in church, I have trouble imagining 40% of them supporting torture to some degree. Of course there's a hell of a lot of selection bias there.

I'm not saying it's wrong, only that it genuinely surprises me that the breakdown is (picking numbers out of a hat):

Evangelical 50%
Moderate 40%
Unaffiliated 30%

instead of

Evangelical 70%
Moderate 35%
Unaffiliated 30%

You learn something new every day, I guess. I'd love to see a bigger sample size that also had regional and age data, rural vs urban, as well as other religions.

[Junghalli]

Personally I suspect that, as with a lot of right wing behaviors, a lot of it comes down to tribalism. The Bush Administration was cool with torture, and Bush and Company were their Holy Warriors fighting the evil corrupting forces of atheism and gayness in the halls of DC, so of course torture must be cool. To do otherwise would be to admit that the people they're cheerleading and voting for are actually douchebags, and that would compromise their solidarity with their fellow conservatives. It doesn't strike me as anything particularly complicated or mysterious.

[Darth Wong]

Personally I suspect that, as with a lot of right wing behaviors, a lot of it comes down to tribalism. The Bush Administration was cool with torture, and Bush and Company were their Holy Warriors fighting the evil corrupting forces of atheism and gayness in the halls of DC, so of course torture must be cool. To do otherwise would be to admit that the people they're cheerleading and voting for are actually douchebags, and that would compromise their solidarity with their fellow conservatives. It doesn't strike me as anything particularly complicated or mysterious.

Christians have been perfectly willing to support torture for their entire history, long before there were Republicans or Democrats. Most of the most horrific medieval torture devices were in fact invented by Christians.

[andrewgpaul]

And then persuaded themselves that they werte using them on people for the victim's own good. The reasoning went, if this person doesn't confess/repent/convert, they'll go to hell, where they'll be tortured for eternity. If I torture them for a few days/weeks/whatever, they'll repent, be saved and go to heaven. Thus, whatever I do is less bad than going to hell, and provides the benefit of sending them to heaven. It's my duty to do this.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

That's the thing with the monotheistic religions, Christianity in particular. By creating infinite rewards and punishments, they have effectively written themselves a moral blank check under a utilitarian system. Since faith based epistemology wipes out all standards of evidence, they can literally do anything to anyone as long as it doesn't make them more uncomfortable than they can rationalize away.

Many of the mechanisms that permit killing that are enumerated in On Killing are at work, such as physical and psychological distance and diffusion of responsibility. These mechanisms are rampant through Evangelical Christianity, which seeks to isolate its members from general society and dehumanize its opponents, while systematically erasing the moral autonomy of its members.

[Master of Ossus]

Christians have been perfectly willing to support torture for their entire history, long before there were Republicans or Democrats. Most of the most horrific medieval torture devices were in fact invented by Christians.

I don't know about "most." There were lots of groups running around in ancient history who would certainly qualify as experts at gruesomely dispatching people they didn't like.

I've been reading some Crusader accounts, though (mostly from the 1st and 5th Crusades), recently. It's pretty interesting. A number of the chroniclers really viewed killing Saracens (and sometimes Jews) as being an expression of love towards them. As in: "I love you so much that I can kill you and your family."

[Big Orange]

Muslims were/are extremely sadistic over the most innocuous of things, the Confucius/Buddaha influenced political organizations from Asia were very sick puppies as well (if you're convinced having young women strangled would make them follow you to your afterlife), and Hindus have their draconian caste system. Christianity does not have the monopoly on pre-industrial asshollishness, although I'm not surprised that religious zealots have sociopathic symptons (they can get lethally enraged over petty slights, but genuine suffering and injustice usually does not concern them).