Thursday, April 30, 2009

Churchgoers more likely to back torture of suspected terrorists: poll

This does not surprise me at all. In fact it supports the research done by Dr. Robert Altemeyer in his masterful book, The Authoritarians.

This book is available for free in PDF format and for a small cost as a bound paperback. He also has an audio version available. Click on the above link for download and other info.

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Churchgoers are more likely to back torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey by Pew. Per CNN:

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 the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.