TYT: Torture Killed Their Savior, That’s Why These Poll Results Stun

[WhoIsNumberNone]

"Last Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a harrowing executive summary of a new report detailing the CIA’s use of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” on prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay and other prisons. The summary described the agency’s willingness to use brutal methods such as water-boarding, force-feeding, and sexual threats, and ultimately condemned such tactics as inhumane and ineffective for fighting the war on terror.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and other former staffers from the George W. Bush White House took to the airwaves to try and defend the policies, but many such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) quickly labeled the CIA’s methods as torture, and thus inhumane. But as Sarah Posner reported over at Religion Dispatches, a recent Washington Post/ABC poll showed that the majority of Americans would not classify the CIA’s techniques as torture, and most — 59 percent — thought the agency’s treatment detainees was justified. Posner lamented this fact, but also noted another unsettling trend: Christians polled were actually more likely than the general public to support torture."* The Young Turks hosts Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

[cpwm17]

1. A large percentage of Christians favor hell

so this shouldn't be surprising. Many look forward to a future in heaven where they can look down on all of those non believers in hell who had the audacity to have a different view on the origin of the Universe than they do.

[1step]

3. c-street jesus supports torture

and greed, and war. get with the pogrom, for christ's sake.

[LiberalElite]

6. "get with the pogrom" hehe

Welcome to DU!

[1step]

8. i wish i could claim to have coined that phrase

but i read it in a review of the movie 'pulp fiction' twenty years ago.

[panfluteman]

4. Not Surprising, Really.

Just look at how these evangelical Christians went absolutely batshit crazy for Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. I swear - no opportunity for blood, guts and gore was spared. When I saw that other thief who was nailed up to a cross next to Jesus look up at that raven with the long, sharp beak sitting on the crossbeam above him, my heart sank, and I knew what was next - of course, the raven poked his eye out and ate it for lunch. That's the gist of the whole Christian doctrine of substitutionary atonement - Jesus took the beating so that we wouldn't have to, and let us off the hook for our sins so we don't have to go to the other place. In other words, God had his son tortured and killed to die in our place. I have a friend who is a metaphysical New Age preacher who says that if Jesus himself taught substitutionary atonement, the parable of the Prodigal Son would have, in its final scene, the wayward son running back into the arms of his father, but just before he gets there his father says, "Hold on and wait a minute - I gotta go out and have your brother tortured and killed so I can welcome you back."

[blkmusclmachine]

11. So much for god being all-knowing. That shakes the very foundation of RW religion to its core.

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Monotheism is dangerous.

[JDPriestly]

7. For most, Christianity is a social function -- the pot-luck dinners, the choir, Sunday School

picnics, dressing up and greeting each other on Sunday morning. Sorry, but as one raised in a church, attending several functions a week, that's the truth of the matter. They don't think about what Christianity, that is the teachings of Jesus, demands of them.

[BrotherIvan]

9. I wish religion would go back to that

Instead they have turned into proselytizing, hateful, political screechers. People are lonely, they miss all the community that that a church could offer in this day and age. But the religious leaders have taken advantage of that, twisted it to create an army of insane, bloodthirsty authoritarians. Some people need the safety of a community and organization, but those same people are easy prey for the evil and greedy--same as it ever was I suppose.

[markpkessinger]

10. Here is an interesting FB exchange I had related to this with a retired Presbyterian pastor

The retired pastor was the pastor of my family's Presbyterian church when I was in high school in the late '70s. First, here was my status update:

I am continually amazed that people -- many of whom call themselves Christians -- defend torture that was carried out against both known terrorists as well as innocent detainees as being justified because terrorists are "sub-human." Funny -- in the Christian ethics I was always taught, failing to regard the full and equal humanity of any person, irrespective of any wrongs that person may have committed against oneself or anybody else -- was never an option under any circumstances.

And the pastor's comment:

I don't believe torture in any form can be justified. So it was with astonishment that I learned from evangelical Christians in the congregations I served, that they came to church to be chastized, disciplined, and condemned for their sins. They were almost proud of their ignorance of God's grace; they believed that people should properly behave out of their fear of God and that fear and guilt are the real motivators for living a good life. All that is faintly remeniscent of my 5th grade teacher who used a wooden paddle to discipline us; and then we secretly laughed at her because we knew better even at that age

[olegramps]

12. The Romans considered Jesus to be a terrorist threat to the empire.

Just as they treated others who represented a threat, Jesus was tortured and then hung up on cross as a warning to anyone who would question the supremacy of Rome. In their eyes he was instigating rebellion. The Gospels are misleading in there attempt to shift the blame entirely to the Jews since they feared alienating the Roman authorities. However, some of them are not entirely blame free since they were little more than Roman puppets. It is mind boggling that the majority of American Christians would condone torture or any kind in view of what was done to Jesus. Evidently, they share the same warped beliefs that Cheney and his evil henchmen worship.