Good think we have a godfearing CIC.

Of course they do. That's how they got their Lord...

I belong to the other 40%.

If it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for enemy combatants!

Well if it was good enough for Jesus....

Theories from 400 years ago in terms of inquisitions, torture, pregnancy rights, and creationism all apply, particularly since there's a 5600 year track record of mankind thinking about such things.

I'm in the 40% and believe we should keep torture in the bedroom, where it belongs....

Then they won't mind so much when Big Brother comes for them...

I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

there are times this country really makes me want to move to canada or europe.

Duh. Brown people aren't really human, especially if they believe in a moon-god.

/convert or die, heathen!

burndtdan: there are times this country really makes me want to move to canada or europe.

Wait until McCain is elected and tell me how that feeling compares.

To be fair, the poll quoted was not of Christians in general, but of "White Southern Evangelicals". Big difference, that.

This About That: To be fair, the poll quoted was not of Christians in general, but of "White Southern Evangelicals". Big difference, that.

yeah, the southern christians are the loud dumb ones.

mesmer242
I belong to the other 40%.

THIS, squared.

I can never figure out what New Testament they're reading.

Rather than wanting to move, this kind of poll result gets me thinking that my country may just get to reap the the full, bitter harvest of what it's sown...


/disgusted with the C-word label more and more

Why can't they leave Christ out of it and call it something else? These people are really smearing the guy and giving him a bad name.

This is a group of people that actively listen to Christian rock. I think we already knew their views on torture.

Who Would Jesus Torture?

JerseyTim: This is a group of people that actively listen to Christian rock. I think we already knew their views on torture.

Yeah, but that's self-flagellation. Which is fine, if you're into that kind of thing. I'm mostly against them bringing in unwilling participants.

Grrr: Rather than wanting to move, this kind of poll result gets me thinking that my country may just get to reap the the full, bitter harvest of what it's sown...

that's actually what makes me feel like moving. it's not that i hate america, it's that i don't want to be here when the shiat hits the fan.

My dad, a fundamentalist, and I were having a conversation a few months ago where he was saying John McCain was actually a liberal. Oh, did I forget to mention he listens to Rush faithfully? When I pressed him into giving me one issue where he differed from the Bush administration, he finally came up with torture. First, I corrected him and told him McCain has changed his views on torture since getting the nomination. But then it dawned on me that 7 years ago torture wasn't a partisan topic.
Was it? It seems to me that now it goes like this:
Bush = Christian. Bush = torture good. Hence, Christian = torture good.

JerseyTim: This is a group of people that actively listen to Christian rock. I think we already knew their views on torture.

Ha! Bingo :)

Teela: Bush = Christian. Bush = torture good. Hence, Christian = torture good.

Or it could be that there just a whole lot of people with a rather horrifying mindset on any number of things. Sometimes there is an excuse, like "terrorists" and "policy" that let this horror out of their brains and into practice, or at least into public expression. This is the importance of changing gummint policy away from the far-right-driven Republican Party.

so did pontius pilate.

poopalacarte: submitter: Praise the lord: 60 percent of evangelical Christians think torture is justified

Of course they do. Ever sit through an entire Roman Catholic mass?

Catholics aren't considered evangelical.

Well, this is 60% of evangelical Christians, so that really isn't a huge number, right? Right? Please?

CheddarPants: Why can't they leave Christ out of it and call it something else? These people are really smearing the guy and giving him a bad name.

I have a feeling that if they didn't have religion, they do the same exact thing with some other medium instead.

Southern evangelicals are therefore the mainstay of the torture regime in this country. The only point at which they even balk at torturing people who haven't been subject to minimal due process is when they are reminded that this could come back to hurt Americans.

Hmmm....Christ said 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you." If these southern evangelicals are following that rule, then I can only conclude that they're all a bunch of closet BDSM freaks.

I think I know my next investment strategy....

Bwhahahahah!
The reporter thinks that it is only Southern Christians. If you ran this poll with Christians anywhere in the United States you would get nearly the same results. Religious folk are the most ethically bankrupt people in the world. They can justify anything that makes them feel good because they have morals and not ethics.

Makes perfect sense.

You have to think of fundies as fascists and then the reasoning becomes clear.

poopalacarte: Ever sit through an entire Roman Catholic mass?

Roman Catholic ≠ Evangelical Christian.

Galen_Rasputin: Bwhahahahah!
The reporter thinks that it is only Southern Christians. If you ran this poll with Christians anywhere in the United States you would get nearly the same results. Religious folk are the most ethically bankrupt people in the world. They can justify anything that makes them feel good because they have morals and not ethics.

good thing you aren't bigoted yourself though, right? because that would be ironic indeed.

In order to claim the moral high ground, you have to actually occupy that territory first...

The Evangelical bunch are...

Well, unique to the US, are fervent in their faith, ignore science and history if it disagrees with them, and generally come across as ignorant f*ckwits. Generally. It's unfair to paint them all with the same jackass-brush.

Although I wonder if they would be so quick to condone torture after a few screenings of the Passion and be forced to watch the flailing of Jesus without turning away, and THEN ask that 58% how they feel about torture.

I honestly wonder how much of torture?:ok is because it's typically Muslims who get the water to the face. If America was at war with France or Italy, I don't think the views would be the same.

/ I'd love be wrong

burndtdan: that's actually what makes me feel like moving. it's not that i hate america, it's that i don't want to be here when the shiat hits the fan.

Naturally...
But if enough people with the "My country, right or wrong"* mindset manage to set up camp somewhere else, they bring the infection with them. And so it goes.


* The full quote is, curiously, ignored by the simpleminded...
Our country, right or wrong.
When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.

- Carl Schurz

Love thy brother as you love thyself with water and sleep deprivation.

poopalacarte: submitter: Praise the lord: 60 percent of evangelical Christians think torture is justified

Of course they do. Ever sit through an entire Roman Catholic mass?

VERY different religions. you'd know that if you weren't so busy being a sterotypical bigot.

Galen_Rasputin: Bwhahahahah!
The reporter thinks that it is only Southern fanatical Christians. If you ran this poll with Christians fanatics anywhere in the United States you would get nearly the same results. Religious^fanatical folk are the most ethically bankrupt people in the world. They can justify anything that makes them feel good because they have morals and not ethics.

absoluteparanoia: Love thy brother as you love thyself with water and sleep deprivation.

Which means that they want to be tortured themselves.

I've never really bought into that whole guilt thing myself. Probably why I'd have made a terrible priest.

Terrorists feeling pain, fear, annoyance, and boredom is more acceptable to me than westerners dead in the name of Islam.


Grow up and deal with the real world, drama queens. Your ivory tower ethics do not extend to the minds of these people.

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Matthew 7:12, King James Version.

"And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Luke 6:31, King James Version.

"...and don't do what you hate...", Gospel of Thomas

A new poll released Thursday (Sept. 11) finds that nearly six in 10 white Southern evangelicals believe torture is justified, but their views can shift when they consider the Christian principle of the golden rule.

Well that's good at least. Sure, they're prone to endorsing despicable acts, but toss a little bible at them and they clean right up. Solid upstanding citizens, these people.

Modern Christians remind me more and more of Catholicism before Luther's translation of the bible. They don't really study the bible themselves but rely on their power-hungry pastors for direction of what to do or think. They don't have the excuse anymore though that Christ's teaching wasn't available.

Maybe they're the ones he meant when he said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

Original poll:

But when asked if they agree that "the U.S. government should not use methods against our enemies that we would not want used on American soldiers," the percentage who said torture was rarely or never justified rose to 52 percent.

"Presenting people with this argument and identifying with the golden rule really does engage a different part of people's psyche and a part of their heart, their soul, and really does shift their views on torture," said Robert Jones, president of Public Religion Research, which was commissioned to conduct the poll.

The findings of this poll, which did not define torture...

So we have 57% who believe torture's okay unless it's explained that our guys might get the same treatment too and then about a quarter of them change their minds, but all the while neither questioner nor respondent know the definition of the term.

And neither do any of us, when it comes to discussing this poll.

Not that that stops Andrew Sullivan from hyperventilating...

Jesus would've turned the waterboarding into wineboarding.

Hopefully I don't butcher this quote:

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ."

Teela: But then it dawned on me that 7 years ago torture wasn't a partisan topic.
Was it?

Neither was illegal immigration. I don't know how my side got stuck with defending criminals.

Courtney Cox-Zucker: Jesus would've turned the waterboarding into wineboarding.

golfclap

The article did note that folks, when confronted with the idea that maybe Jeebus might not be down with the whole "torture" thing, they sort of backed down.

That's part and parcel of the problem with religious teaching in a lot of the country. It is often used to justify a position taken, as opposed to letting a the scripture lead you to the position.

Peace. Love. Forgiveness. A lot of congregations tend to throw the New Testament under the bus as soon as they find something that offends them personally, and look to scripture--even the scripture that was supposedly superceded by the Nazareen's coming to clarify a few things--to find something to give them the clearance to hate.

I don't call these folks Christians though. I call them asshats. Which is what you are, if you use religion to justify hate. Be you Christian. Jewish. Muslim. Wiccan.

Poor Jesus. He started out cool, but look. 2000 years later, he's got these people as followers.

Weaver95: absoluteparanoia: Love thy brother as you love thyself with water and sleep deprivation.

Which means that they want to be tortured themselves.

I've never really bought into that whole guilt thing myself. Probably why I'd have made a terrible priest.

Maybe a priest of some Protestant denomination. They're not so big on guilt, like the RC's, or damnation, like the Evangelicals.

Wight Power: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ."

sounds about right.

starsrift: I honestly wonder how much of torture?:ok is because it's typically Muslims who get the water to the face. If America was at war with France or Italy, I don't think the views would be the same.

/ I'd love be wrong

Go give waterboarding a try and get back to us.