I came across this poll in a few publications in the last week or so. According to the results the more frequent and devout church goers were in favor of the use of torture.
This makes me think and wonder. Why are the good sheep of the lord so in favor of allowing the torture of another human being? I wonder if that other human being was a affiliated with the same religion as them, if their views would be the same? However I have to admit I am not surprised by these results and I am reminded of a recent Facebook discussion I had with a friend of my sisters. After some discussion on a bible quote she had posted John piped in. We started the usual debate over logic and faith but what really struck me and reminded me of this poll was his comment on how my disbelief had caused me to have cancer at a young age and the tumor I am being treated for now. This was not the first time I have heard or witnessed such comments from someone of faith.
There is this feeling and observance from Christians I have encountered that non-believers and people of different religious views are seen as evil or just lesser human beings. Missionaries often have this attitude surrounding them. This must make it ok to treat another human so badly.
The people that think torture is ok should re-evaluate their ethics. Maybe step back from their religious prejudices, look at the facts about the effectiveness of torture and think of these prisoners as fellow human beings.
I welcome comments and maybe if we have some Christians in the crowd, you can prove me wrong.
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Not that I am condemning you and proving you wrong... but I will try and offer a different view.
ReplyDelete"Why are the good sheep of the lord so in favor of allowing the torture of another human being?"
What do you mean by that? What kind of torture? Who are the good sheep of the Lord?
Depending on what kind of torture you mean (or maybe all kinds of torture...I don't know...), Christians would probably say that it's because God wants them to suffer. God wants the people to wake up and see the truth--whatever that may be.
It could also be that the reason is not revealed or answered in this life time. God always has His reasons and will reveal them sooner or later.
And you cannot say that there aren't any Christians that don't care at all. There ARE other missionaries who go to preach the gospel without and prejudice.
I do not try to give a reason for your cancer, but maybe God gave you cancer because He wanted you to get to know Him. I don't think that just because you didn't believe, you got cancer. On the contrary, I believe that God gave you cancer so that you will go through this path of life and meet these kinds of Christians in hopes of you finding Him. To find out who He really is and understand who He is and not just who you "know" Him to be.
"The people that think torture is ok should re-evaluate their ethics. "
There are different levels of torture. What kind of torture you may think is not right, can be right to someone else and vice versa. Can you say that you would have a murderer go free and not be in jail because you don't believe that they should be tortured?
People will always think they're right, and the others are wrong. Maybe there is no right or wrong. Maybe all these beliefs are used merely to help us cope with the world. Or maybe there is only one right and everyone can only view it from one angle (therefore saying that the other views are not right).
I have just a couple comments to make:
ReplyDelete1. If that poll were in Canada or another nonmilitary country I would expect much different results from the church. This poll reflects the Christian right in the southern states. This is a much different culture than most of the world. This also most likely reflects non-educated Christians as well.
2. As a Christian I find it more interesting that the unaffiliated group (non-denominational) showed less acceptance to torture than the general population. This is the group you will find the majority of younger Christians and a higher percentage of educated Christians as well. Evangelical Christianity is starting to date itself in theology much like the Amish. Catholicism is steeped in religiosity and (for the most part) struggles with the theology of grace and forgiveness. Protestants show a small amount of lesser acceptance of torture and those who attend weekly a slightly greater acceptance, but that 3-4% can be considered an insignificant number considering most poll results are +/- 2%.
I also wanted to say I am sorry to hear that you have cancer again, and God did not give you cancer because of unbelief. The only reason we get sick (I also suffer from a chronic illness) is because this life is only temporary. That I am sure we can both agree on.
ReplyDeleteDarren, I think for the most part the states do have a higher evangelical christian base. However they do exist here, the previous comments from Julie are from someone I went to SFU with. I have also received the same type of comments from friends of my sisters (she is a born again). My parents also received these comments when I fought leukemia when I was six.
ReplyDeleteOf course not all Christians believe that torture is ok but the poll merely points out the correlation.
Julie, a couple of questions for you.
If the people being tortured are Canadians, Americans, British soldiers etc.. is it ok then? They may or may not be Christian. If we allow it to happen it is it not ok for our foes to use it on us? The Geneva Convention already condones torture by the way.
I find it difficult to quantify torture. How can one form or torture be better than another form of torture? All of this really comes down to the use of waterboarding by the U.S. military, a practice which by all accounts is torture. A person is put in a position of almost drowning.
ReplyDeleteHypothetically (from my point of view), why does god need there to be suffering in this world if there is a hell to send all the sinners to? Does that not seem a little redundant to you?
Finally back to the torture thing. Torture is a violent act carried out against another human being. It is not employed as a means of punishment so much as an attempt to easily garner information from someone.(The effectiveness of torture, however, seems to be somewhat suspect in this regard) It is immoral to torture anyone, and as so many christians point out, morality comes from god. Therefore, by all rights christians should be condemning torture, so why is there a correlation? I think what the study really points out is that morality comes from the application of critical thinking to the world around us. The christians that do this are the ones who disagree with torture, just as the "unaffiliated" people with the same response do. In the comments so far my statement has seemed to be true. Julie you try to somehow justify torture in some regards while Darren does not and takes the study into some sort of context.