I read the first couple paragraphs and sadly agree with him.

You might think that after all those tens of millions of Evangelical Christians watched The Last Temptation of Christ, they perhaps developed at least a mild disdain for governments that hire soldiers to inflict violent brutality upon their prisoners.

Guess not.

A new national survey just released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveals that it is precisely those folks who ate up Mel Gibson's blockbuster -- church-going Evangelical Christians -- who are far more likely to support the use of torture than non-religious Americans. And of several groups representing various religious orientations, it is secular Americans that are actually the group most opposed to the use of torture.

What's the deal? I thought Christians were into things like mercy, love, and forgiveness. Not water-boarding. Maybe I missed it, but of the thirty or forty times that I've read the New Testament -- particularly the Sermon on the Mount -- I just don't recall the "Thou Shalt Torture" passages. It is fascinating that on this clear question of morality, church-going Christians seem to be the most, well, challenged.

One might be tempted to view this survey as some sort of anomaly or outlier. But it isn't. Rather, it is simply the latest of many such surveys reporting what a small minority of us secular folk already know: that when it comes to numerous issues of morality and ethics, religious Americans actually come up quite short on a host of measures when compared to their atheist and secular peers.

Consider what many recent surveys have found in recent years on a variety of issues of moral/ethical concern:

• The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq: it is the most religious Americans that have been most in favor of the war, while it is the least religious Americans who have been the least supportive.

• Women's equality and women's rights: it is the most religious Americans who are least supportive of women's rights and equality, while secular folk are the most supportive.

• Full civil rights and equality for homosexuals: again, the correlation is quite strong, with religious people being less supportive of gay rights and scoring higher on measures of homophobia than atheists and secular folk.

• The death penalty: the more religious are the most in favor, while the less or non-religious are the most opposed.

• General treatment of Prisoners: Strong God-believers and regular church-goers generally favor harsher treatment and strict retribution, while atheist tend to favor more humane treatment and rehabilitation.

• Doctor-assisted suicide: the religious tend to oppose, the secular tend to support.

• Stem cell research: ditto.

The list could go on and on. Whether we are talking about environmental protection or corporal punishment for children, sane drug laws or responsible sexual education, religious Americans are more likely to take a less ethical, less merciful, or less rational position than atheists and secular people. And just to top it off, sociological and psychological studies since the 1950s have consistently shown that strongly religious Americans, on average, tend to be more ethnocentric, prejudice, anti-Semitic, racist, intolerant, nationalistic, and authoritarian than those who forgo church and don't believe so strongly in God -- if at all.

How strange, then, that "immoral" is a word people often associate with atheism, while "moral" is a word people often associate with religion. Studies show the exact opposite correlation.

Are there lots of immoral atheists? You bet. Are there lots of moral Christians? Hell yes. But study after study consistently finds -- this one on torture being merely the most recent - that when it comes to questions of how we view others unlike ourselves, what kinds of rights we want other human beings to enjoy, or how we generally seek to treat other people, our fellow Americans with the little crosses around their necks and the fish on their bumpers just don't appear as loving, merciful, or forgiving as those of us without.

Phil Zuckerman, Ph.D. is a professor of Sociology at Pitzer College and the author most recently of Society Without God (NYU, 2008).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuckerman/who-would-jesus-torture_b_195270.html

Discuss.

Yeah, he meant 'The Passion of the Christ,' BTW.

Hahaha, this is gonna be a shitstorm.

I'm totally the stereotypical anti-torture, anti-Iraq war, anti-death penalty, pro-equality secular atheist.

I loved The Last Temptation of Christ, since it was an artistic exploration of the gospel and alternative ideas, with a great score by Peter Gabriel, but I thought the Passion of the Christ was torture-porn just like Saw or Hostel.

I think this article was worded horribly and was unnecessarily inflammatory, since the statistics themselves are inflammatory enough. But I guess somebody's gotta say these things, since the majority of articles covering these issues paint us atheists as hedonists with no morals. I feel that without an afterlife, we really need to make the best of this one, so we shouldn't all murder and bomb and torture each other.

Well, some Christians define moraility as what God loves, and immorality as what God abhors.

I suppose that also implies that atheists and agnostics are incapable of moral judgement.

Regardless of whether you support the wars in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, you have to agree that if these countries are stabilized and a capitalistic democracy can be formed that receives investment from outside of these countries you will have improved the lives of the citizens of these countries far beyond the capabilities of what humanitarian aid can.

Rather than defining this as "Women's equality and Women's Rights" which is amazingly misleading, why not be honest and just say that religious people are "Anti-Abortion"?

Once again, a level of dishonesty because there is no evidence to suggest that any group is against "Civil Rights" on the whole for homosexual people this ends up being that religious people are against "Gay Marriage" ...

This is true ...

This is not necessarily true ...

A lot of "Punishments" that people would consider "Inhumane" like performing physical labour that are often proposed by the religious right are often prefered treatments of prisoners.

Once again a true statement ...

For the most part, religious people aren't against stem cell research, they're against embryonic stem cell research ...

In general, this artical is written in a way to try to make religious people look as bad as possible by taking one or two disagreements (or the views of a tiny minority of people) and generalize them  ... Its really not that hard to understand someone elses viewpoint regardless of whether you agree with it or not.

Jesus would also never give food to those who do not work for it. Good thing Christians never learn.

I'm glad there are a few posters on this forum who can see through the garbage rather than just take an article and bash on religion.

OK two points I can say about this article.

1. The opinions used were VERY broad, I am sure that many religious people support Stem cell research or rights for gays and women. The broad statements do not represent the truth in this case.

2. Religion does restrict free thinking to an extent about most topics such as these, that is inneviatable. The word of god may say that murder is bad and thus stem cell research from embryos is bad. But I'm sure that with the ever increasing levels of information concessions are starting to be made on gods word that are bringing changes to the old morals and updating them for the modern world, if you understand what I mean.

Basically religious ideologies are changing and it is not correct to label religion as being so black and white on subjects nowadays.

That's just my opinion though, I am atheist so I can't state this from first hand experience.

so what i took from this. these "secularists" enjoy killing people and think only americans deserve to be treated nicely (especially the rapists and murderers) except the religious

What I don't get is why the article says "the most religious" when it's referring to Christian evangelicals though.  What makes evangelicals more religious than Americans Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and everybody else?  I don't think being the biggest most politically organized religious group somehow makes them more religious.

Yeah I guess that's the best way to summarize and explain where all the atheist bashing comes from.

Why put secularists in quotes?

And how'd this article imply that secularists don't think religous people should be treated nicely?