They perhaps feel that most of the victims are not innocent, and are not Christians. They see Muslims as the enemy perhaps, and they assume that Christianity and Islam are at war with each other and thus they can rationalize and justify torture on what they perceive to be the enemy.

Around the time of the given Law. People that committed a premeditated murder or rape were put to death. This was a deterant that caused a whole lot less murders and rapes. Given that this has been something that is not practiced often, Murder and rape are rampit.
When Jesus came and died for our sins he said also that he did not come to change the law but to fulfill it. If the law had been kept aot more people would not be victims of such hanis crimes. God knew what he was doing and it worked.
I know that christians today are mislead in many ways including the scriptures that say to forgive and the scriptures that say turn the other cheek. Firstly God is our Father and wants the best for all his chilren. When he asks us to forgive, trust me it is not for the person who has hurt us. It is so we don’t waste precious time and energy obsessing over what has wronged us. He gives us the option to leave it in His hands. As for turning the other cheek the scripture is not saying you should take a beating for nothing. It is saying that if you deserved the smack for something turn your cheek and take another.
People just do not know how to interpret the beautiful words the Lord has given us.

an amazingly deceptive article and anonymus author…first, he uses an open source site where anyone can edit the info to define torture…that’s intellectually dishonest, then he pretends that the Bush administration used “torture” because President Obama “thinks” it is…and doesn’t point out the LEGAL process, medical oversite and legal waterboarding being used as a last resort when all else failed…gee, I think beheading innocent people is real torture vs. his perception that being forced to wear underwear and stand naked is torture…is he real? has he ever studied history? read a book? seen a movie? he should get out from under his looney left wing rock…let him spend a week with Al Quieda and then let’s see how his views change…I wonder what else he’s distorting…this is the propaganda that allows ill-informed Americans to think we’re doing something wrong when we’re not…

Lol, I don’t think that any of your conclusions are correct. People who go to church more support torture more because the people that go to church are generally more traditional people living in the southern regions of our country. More traditional people are more likely to own guns and be really hard on people we’re fighting, not really worrying about torture if it’s against terrorists and might protect our country.

Of course this is all speculation.

It is very simple, an eye for an eye, life for a life, Hamarabi was very intelligent. If they torture us why woulden’t we torture them.

When you start a sentence with new polls show then your down the road where you believe a media and polling system that is owned and controlled by the same guys who print your money …wake up people you will face the truth sooner or later and the later it is the deeper the hole will be.

Americans are a bunch of hypocrites… I think william s burroughs said it best when he said “never trust a religious son of a bitch, his word isn’t wort shit, not with the good lord on his side helping him hook you on the deal”.

I most people in TX are so called Christians, and they love the death penalty. I could never understand how someone could say they were christian and advocate death, distraction and violence

It’s this kind of hypocrisy that drove me away from christianity. I’m not an athiest but at the same time I do not identify with what christianity has become. I used to be a member of the republican party too but they became so radical that I left that as well.

When zealots take something over, it’s real trouble.

Saying “torture is okay if it helps us” is like saying “murder is okay if it helps us.” Try using that argument in front of a judge: “Your Honor, murder was justified in this case because I benefited greatly from the deceased’s life insurance.”

The first list of types of torture are approved by the DOD and have no lasting physical effects. For one to perform such torture and is certified to do so and performs it by strict rules set fourth and to be criminalized after the fact would be insane. The second list is of real war crimes soldiers and officers alike are and have been charged with. Those guilty are in prison! To say those involved in war crime are not being charged is complete ignorance to current events. What would we do without the approved form of torture? Feed detainees filet migon and champane? Give them a nice comfy bed to sleep in while military men and women are being killed overseas and civilians are being terrorized? As far as this post is concerned it is full of misinformation to manipulate your views on society.

Perhaps the best interests of Christians and the world may lie in focusing on making this world a better place than spending time, effort and energy thinking about and planning for the next one to come or looking for signs of the apocalypse.

If the end times are coming or not, that will yield good fruit. A man who focuses on the harvest yet plants no crops will end with an empty belly. A Christian who focuses on the end times yet leaves others to suffer in the world…

Mark R.

Before you speak about Obama, how about you also speak about Bush and Cheney and Rice and Yoo? Who started it? Who ended it? How come you’re only outraged about Obama?

Note also that Obama deliverately did not leave out prosecution of those at the top. He just said that those in the CIA who acted in faith under orders would be safe.

Only 42%? Only? ???

You guys are lost in ways that don’t bear thinking about.

Welcome to America: Land of the Idiots (We killed off all the smart ones in World War II)

I don’t support torture; however, this article/post is not valid at all. Just because there is a study between two groups that leads a specific result, doesn’t mean that the people conducting the study identified the correct variable that is the CAUSE of the statistical change between the two groups.

This is called “false cause” and it’s a common logic error (see this paper from MIT on it – http://eagar.mit.edu/EagarPresentations/tweagarwriting/logic.html).

A more clear example of this logic error is “People who wear t-shirts view CNN more than people who wear suits.” This doesn’t mean that the t-shirt makes people want to watch CNN more, but rather people who watch CNN live a lifestyle or make personal choices that lead to more t-shirt wearing.

I’m all for fighting torture, but make sure when you do – you have a strong argument backing it up. If you don’t, you can hurt the cause rather than help it by giving the opposition lots of holes to poke through and not giving a truly convincing argument to people who are undecided.

Becoming the bad guys?!

That ship sailed decades ago. Many in neutral, or “American friendly” countries have viewed USA as the bad guys for literally decades. Illegal invasions of sovereign states (often attacking democracies to install dictatorships), assassinations, drug production/transportation/dealing, inciting and funding riots, coups and genocide all around the world. And yes, torture.

What did you think the CIA did/does around the world? In your name!

You also missed the extraordinary renditions (how many people have the CIA “dissapeared” in the past decade?), using NGOs to funnel funds in to foreign nations to alter election results, fund domestic “terrorists” inside other nations, and in one case, even install the husband of one CIA agent as the president of a foreign nation. All in the name of “exporting American Democracy”.

You may have also missed the US military shooting at, bombing, and killing foreign journalists. The US military proudly claim that they have bombed Serb TV stations with civilians inside.

The reason Americans do not know about this? It is called propaganda. During the cold war, the USSR had propaganda, but outside USA we all saw that USA had a propaganda machine so overwhelming and effective that the Russian leaders only dreamed about. Since the cold war, the American media has become worse. Willingly capitulating to every US government demand to restrict reporters and cameramen. And following every government story blindly, including calling foreign reporters “propagandists” while the US military bombed them, but getting very upset when new enemies took the same stance and deliberately killed the US propagandists (reporters).

Simply, what you, as Americans, have not been told could fill encyclopedias, and what you have been lied to about could fill more encyclopedias. Unfortunately, average Americans are so brainwashed by their lifetime of propaganda, that they automatically assume that anyone telling them the truth is lying.

As a Christian, I have a few things to say:

1) These acts of torture are definitely perverted.

2) The vast majority of “Christians” have no clue as to what went on here. These details and “facts” (I only add the “” for the sake of some of them not being confirmed/proven yet, and some of them even being disproven [ie. one guy waterboarded 183 times]) of these cases of torture are not publicly known, therefore I would not expect the majority of these “Christians” who were polled to give a credible opinion. So it is important to know how the question was presented to them.
For example, if you asked them a theoretical question such as, “Is it OK to ‘torture’ someone who wants us and our children dead, who know about others who are currently planning on killing us, our brothers and sisters, and our children, yet who refuses to give us the details of this information”, then yes, I would expect anyone, no matter how religious or “spiritual” they are, to protect their family from evil people at all costs. However, if you were to ask a “Christian”, “Is it OK to rape prisoners (and video tape it), who were never given a trial, in order to gather information that is needed to stop their plans of killing your friends and family?”, they would most likely say “No way!”.
And why is their a difference? Because someone who is legitimately attempting to save lives, at the cost of someone whose occupation is taking lives (which, even in my own opinion, is a reasonable trade-off), has no desire to rape them. That’s disgusting and perverted, and those who are guilty of that should be tried and punished.

All of that to say that we don’t know how these “Christians” were polled, or what question they were asked. If you compare the ideas of “torturing in order to gather information” (which was likely in their minds when they were asked) with “perversion and forced sexual acts to people who were never given a fair trial”, you might get very different results from these “Christians”.

3) If you think that “torture” (for the purpose of gathering information in order to save lives) is “unChristian”, then you don’t know anything about Christian Theology. I am not going to claim that Scripture teaches that torture is OK, or that Jesus would say that it is, but as a student of the Bible, I can tell you that Jesus was not the peace-love-and-rock-&-roll hippie that everyone thinks he was. Biblically speaking, God/Jesus is just. He is perfectly love and he is perfectly just, all at the same time. In fact, if He lacked “justice”, then He would lack love. And if anyone demands it, I could easily provide a list of instances where God’s wrath towards disobedient people were carried out, not only through forces such as nature and super-natural occurances, but also by and through His own people (just read any of the Prophets).

Lastly, I think C.S. Lewis said it best in his book The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe… “He isn’t safe… but He is good”.

Let me make sure I understand this; You’re pissed at Obama for ending torture, then not dragging our country through a bitter, year long hunt for over lawyered ex Bush administration officials? Think about it. Do you really feel like we have the resources to commit to this? O

bama has found a way to massage the Dow up 1600points since March, he’s closed Guantanamo, and he’s working to make sure Americans maintain a standard of life worth living through health care reform. You have to understand that this man’s eyes are forward, and he has many priorities that he would like to begin sooner rather then later.

While i would love to see these evil men pay for what they did, the fact is i would rather have a job market willing to hire me once i get out of college then to string a few scapegoats up. Plus, American Christans sold out years ago. Get with the times.

I think it’s time for a class on statistics.

Let’s phrase your data backwards: If about 50% of all Americans approve of torture, and about 50% of American Christians approve of torture, that must mean that there is something wrong and unusual about Christians…. WAIT A MINUTE!

I might almost make the stretch and say that this data proves that American Christians, are similar to normal Americans, and that your 12% difference in trend is not a large enough change to relate correlation and cause-and-effect. But of course, that’s math, and math is less relevant than all of you people freaking out over a few hundred cases of war crimes and swine flu.

I disagree with your analysis of Obama’s decision. Take a look into the research done by Stanley Milgram and Phillip Zimbardo.

Their research shows that in such situations, anybody would act like the MPs did. These were not a ‘few bad apples’, but normal people placed in extraordinary situations. You yourself would probably act in much the same way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

sad thing is that at the end time Gods people are going to be persecuted again

There’s no easy answer to this problem. If the President were to institute a tribunal and put the torturers on trial, there would be all kinds of nasty repercussions that would cause rips in the moral fabric of the country that would last for decades. South Africa followed an admirable path after the end of apartheid. I have no problem with an investigation similar to their Truth Commission, but prosecutions could turn into a witch hunt. We don’t need that.

Reading the comment I can answer the question. These people are bigots, and simpletons, who are sitting in their living room, not knowing anything about the world, and passing judgement ignorantly about things they have no idea about.
These very same people would be the first to complain and demand nuclear strikes, if another country abducted and tortured people it suspected of having committed crimes against that particular country’s citizens. They see the world in black and white, where white is anything the US does, and black is everybody who does not agree with them, wheter they are foreigners or Americans. People who think Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the whole Latin American enterprise was justified. People who hate others because their skin is different color. Hypocrites who have no idea what Christianity is about. (And probably no idea what Islam is about for that matter.)
Just one pointer: the people having been abducted and tortured were “suspected” terrorists. The key word is “suspected”. It turns out many of them were innocent. I certainly hope that should you get arrested as a suspect your rectum would not get into any intimate relationships with a blunt objects to get a confession out of you. At least the last I heard, it wasn’t supposed to go on like that in any “civilized” western country. I guess I was wrong. You are not civilized.

just because people attend church does not mean that they are a Chritian…
The term Christian means “little Christ” meaning that we would resemble him in our actions in life.. by no means is this about perfection but about the direction of your life. No one is perfect and everyone including you and me are hypocrites. But what are the patterns of our lives?

Torture is an application of force, neither moral nor immoral in itself–just as a gun is neither immoral nor moral in itself. If I use my gun to kill someone who is threatening my life, I have done a good thing. If I torture someone into giving up a plot to kill hundreds or thousands, then I have done a good thing. In EITHER CASE–If I have shot or tortured the wrong person then that is IMMORAL. The question remains then–do we trust any government enough to make the decision of whom to torture?

ATTN. ALL:

Fake Christians aren’t Christians!

Fake Conservatives aren’t Conservatives!

You can go ahead and attack the FAKES all you want, just don’t assume that you’re actually attacking CHRISTIANS and CONSERVATIVES, cause you’re not.

Example: RON PAUL IS “TRUE” — and you’ve got NOTHING — NOTHING — on him, because he is NOT fake, he is REAL.

No, you are not becoming the bad guys – you ARE the bad guys..

just like Yugo said “No, you are not becoming the bad guys – you ARE the bad guys..”

The only reason you think you are the good guys is because Hollywood portrays you in a good light, go anywhere outside the western world, where America has no allies, you will see your government is the bad guy, even at your doorstep, you are the bad guys, mexico dislikes you, and so does everyone in south america, how can you shit on your own dorstep, (oh they are nice to you when you go on holiday is cos they like your money..)

These are the “Sunday” Christians. They show up to church and the only thing they “understand” from the bible is that if they go to church on Sunday it doesn’t matter what they do with the rest of their life Jesus will save them. This is what has really turned me off to organized religion. I consider myself spiritual because the only thing religion seems to do is divide people. These are also the same people that would flip if our soldiers were being waterboarded, rightfully so, but you cant expect others to follow rules that we don’t obey ourselves. With a free society comes there are inherent risks but they far outweigh the alternative. It’s when times are the toughest that we must stick to moral obligations otherwise we become the very thing we hate and fight against.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” ~Benjamin Franklin

Good work citing Wikipedia. It really gives your article a lot of authority.

It is ridiculous to suggest that people have no morals of their own, I like the justification that was given above, it is ok is you rape someone if your boss tells you to. Is that really the Christ message? Is it not your moral duty to say “No”, torturing people is wrong? An let it also be stated, not it was not proven that there were no lasting effect. People died from their torture. Let us also not forget that “We”, American tried Japanese and Germans for committing that same acts, acts that we called torture (waterboading).

Even Regan, Regan for god sake signed the convention on torture.

If you believe in god and an after live, and you thing the almighty is going to give you a pass because your boss told you to do it, you are sadly mistaken

Christ condemned ALL violence of ALL kinds, except arguably property damage. He specifically condemned “self defense” on numerous occasions. Christ was in fact tortured to death.

If you answered that poll with anything other than “seldom or never”, you are not a Christian. If you claim to be a Christian you’re actually a Satanist. Your beliefs are heretical and condemned by every early Christian leader (you might be able to find a few Satanic Popes that support your views). Following this type of heresy is considerably worse than mere nonbelief. You are literally on the road to Hell.

I challenge anyone here to come up with a single significant Christian leader than endorsed torture. Pat Robertson and various Popes don’t count. I’m talking about one of the Apostles or someone like Saint Augustine.

HinduVeg: Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian. The Thugee were/are vegetarians. The Hindu caste system, run by vegetarians, was incredibly brutal and resulted in de-facto slavery for large segments of the population. To this day, Hindu religious leaders try to violently supress other religions in India. I presume these modern Hindu terrorists are vegetarian.

Sorry HinduVeg, Indians aren’t any less violent than anyone else.

Jeff: Please present ANY statement by Christ or the Apostles in support of torture. Old Testament references to punishments in the Law are not applicable. St. Paul specifcally states that the Law is not relavent to gentile Christians (this is repeatedly reinforced by early Christian leaders).

Explain why your exegesis should be taken more seriously than that of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutherans, Calvinists, and all other large Christian organizations, who all agree with me?

There can be NO place for such inhumane treatment of prisoners in a civilized society. Period. And, the fact that so many Christians see no problem with it is extremely disturbing. However, I do take issue with this question:

Where else in the world can you be waterboarded an average of 6 times per day?

How about China? I have seen photos of captured Christians who were burned, beaten, and tortured in other ways by Chinese officials…simply for being Christians. And, this was 4 or 5 years ago. These weren’t suspected terrorists. These were ordinary men and women who were charged with being a member of an illegal religious group. The fact that we support this communist regime by buying cheap stuff from them is horrific indeed.

I agree that there is no justification whatsoever for these barbaric incidents, but to claim that US treatment of prisoners is worse than it is anywhere else in the world is absurd. That kind of thing really does detract from the main message of this piece, which is right on the money.

We can continue the blame game here forever; blaming the article author, blaming soldiers following orders, blaming detained terrorist suspects, blaming the President. However, if it’s any consolation for those who are truly innocent victims of torture, in the end all human actions become subject to the mystical process of Universal Law and retribution. What one sows he shall also inevitably reap. Evil punishes itself.

Now if you listed all those tortures used by the military and then ask your Christians if they would approve, do you really think 54% would say ‘yes?” I am thinking far and away most were thinking only of waterboarding or perhaps sleep deprivation. So I would pull back on all your attacks and conclusions. If you ask me if I am in favor of torture the only answer I could give you is “it depends.” It depends on the nature of the conflict and the kind of torture. I am Ok with spanking a child but absolutely against physical abuse. I am in favor of some form of torture on a kidnap suspect for information when his buddies are threatening to kill some child.

Gee, whiz, if I may paraphrase from memory, “In those days, many will call unto me, saying , Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, and I will say unto them, “away from me, I never knew you.”

It has always struck me as peculiar that this could be preached in church for… well, for more than a thousand years, without it ever apparently having made the slightest impact.

Where is the Antichrist? In the front pew. Pillar of church and community. And how else could it be, eh? Take that in a literal or allegorical sense as you please; the principle is absolutely identical.

Anyway, I have my own name for them. Chromefishtians.

After World War II the United States Tribunals, hanged several Japanese Commanders and Soldiers for waterboarding American POWs in order to get information about the US military. What is the difference between what was JUSTICE in the late 1940s, and now?

For which means do you support torture then?