Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Saturday, May 02, 2009

WWJD?...Really!

It didn't start with the Islamic fundamentalists. It probably didn't start with the Christians in the Crusades, either. But, somewhere along the line, SOMEBODY decided that hurting other people in the name of a religious deity made it OK. The idea of "Do Unto Others Because Our Religion Says It's OK" seems to have taken over as the modus operandi somewhere in the past and continues full steam ahead today. Conflicts abound for a multiplicity of reasons, but somewhere in the back is a quasi-religious taint. That's why the latest survey was so interesting to me.
Ironically completed by the Pew Research Center, this study sought to ascertain the effect of religious beliefs on a person's acceptance of torture of enemy combatants labeled as terrorists, a subject certainly on people's minds these days. Here's how it went, and you might be surprised at the results.
The Pew Foundation posed the same question to 742 adults, 54% of whom attended church services at least once a week. The respondents in the survey included white, non-Hispanic Catholics, mainline Protestants (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian), evangelical Christians and some who considered themselves unaffiliated with any organized religion.
The question asked was approximately: "Can the the use of torture to gain information from suspected terrorists be justified a) often b) sometimes c) rarely d) never"?

Forty-nine percent of those responding indicated that they would support the use of torture either "often" or "sometimes."
Twenty-five percent of those responding said "never."
The total numbers present an eye-opening conclusion...at least to me. One caveat: in each group, there was a certain percentage who chose not to answer, so the percentages will NOT add up to 100%. I'll give you the link so you can check it out yourself.

GROUP
white, evangelical
Protestants OFTEN 18% SOMETIMES 41% RARELY 17% NEVER 16%

white, non-Hispanic
Catholics OFTEN 19% SOMETIMES 32% RARELY 27% NEVER 20%

white, mainline
Protestants OFTEN 15% SOMETIMES 31% RARELY 22% NEVER 31%

Unaffiliated OFTEN 15% SOMETIMES 25% RARELY 29% NEVER 26%

I'm not trashing anybody's belief or non-belief, and this is a rather small sample, BUT the "unaffiliated" group was lowest in the "often" and "sometimes" categories, and highest in the "rarely" category while placing second in the "never" category.
I'm just saying...

check it out yourself at http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=156

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