Immoral Atheists
Over at Street Prophets, Pastor Dan posts a stonking sermon for this Sunday. A lot of it is a cut and paste from a diary earlier in the week, but it's well worth reading in full nontheless. The most interesting aspect (and real crux of the sermon), however, is the juxtaposition of the following two facts (ganked from the earlier diary):According to this study, atheists are the most distrusted minority in American society. They're lower down the totem poll than Muslims, gays or recent immigrants.
The final analysis seems to be that atheists are considered to be a moral threat. These are people who, due to their lack of religious faith, are unable to act in a moral way as compared to the rest of us. You'd think therefore, that this would play out in reality, then, right?A survey by the Pew Research Center in October showed that 15 percent of Americans believe torture is "often" justified, and another 31 percent believe it is "sometimes" justified. Add to that another 17 percent who said it is "rarely" justified, and you have two out of three Americans justifying torture under certain circumstances. Only 32 percent said it is "never" justified, while another 5 percent didn't know or refused to answer.
But the portion of Catholics who justify torture is even higher, according to the survey. Twenty-one percent of Catholics surveyed said it is "often" justified and 35 percent said it is "sometimes" justified. Another 16 percent said it is "rarely" justified, meaning that nearly three of four Catholics justify it under some circumstances. Four percent of Catholics "didn't know" or refused to answer and only 26 percent said it is "never" justified, which is the official teaching of the church.
[...]
By contrast, 41% of "secular" respondents replied that torture is never justified, the highest percentage of any group surveyed.
So an overwhelming majority of Catholics and Protestants support torture in the US. While secular respondents also had a majority, the gap is significant.
It's hard to know what to make of these numbers. Obviously, I wouldn't use this as a pointer that religious - specifically Christians, being one myself - are inherently immoral, but where this can have come from I don't know. It's really hard to reconcile "love your enemies," with "let's get the pliers out, boys!"that Christians can approve of torture in anything like the numbers represented in this survey reflects the piss-poor job the church has done in moral education.
As she says, this is what torture looks like:
2000 years ago, God sent us his Son, and we nailed him to a tree. You'd think that we'd have learnt not to do that to people by now. So where does the Church start in making clear that this is unacceptable? Honestly, I don't know myself, because it seems so self-evident that this is not how Christians should be behaving.
X-Posted to
christianity.
The final analysis seems to be that atheists are considered to be a moral threat. These are people who, due to their lack of religious faith, are unable to act in a moral way as compared to the rest of us. You'd think therefore, that this would play out in reality, then, right?A survey by the Pew Research Center in October showed that 15 percent of Americans believe torture is "often" justified, and another 31 percent believe it is "sometimes" justified. Add to that another 17 percent who said it is "rarely" justified, and you have two out of three Americans justifying torture under certain circumstances. Only 32 percent said it is "never" justified, while another 5 percent didn't know or refused to answer.
But the portion of Catholics who justify torture is even higher, according to the survey. Twenty-one percent of Catholics surveyed said it is "often" justified and 35 percent said it is "sometimes" justified. Another 16 percent said it is "rarely" justified, meaning that nearly three of four Catholics justify it under some circumstances. Four percent of Catholics "didn't know" or refused to answer and only 26 percent said it is "never" justified, which is the official teaching of the church.
[...]
By contrast, 41% of "secular" respondents replied that torture is never justified, the highest percentage of any group surveyed.
So an overwhelming majority of Catholics and Protestants support torture in the US. While secular respondents also had a majority, the gap is significant.
It's hard to know what to make of these numbers. Obviously, I wouldn't use this as a pointer that religious - specifically Christians, being one myself - are inherently immoral, but where this can have come from I don't know. It's really hard to reconcile "love your enemies," with "let's get the pliers out, boys!"that Christians can approve of torture in anything like the numbers represented in this survey reflects the piss-poor job the church has done in moral education.
As she says, this is what torture looks like:
2000 years ago, God sent us his Son, and we nailed him to a tree. You'd think that we'd have learnt not to do that to people by now. So where does the Church start in making clear that this is unacceptable? Honestly, I don't know myself, because it seems so self-evident that this is not how Christians should be behaving.
X-Posted to
christianity.