Wow, when I read that there was going to be a SC opening, I assumed it was RBG.
On an entirely different subject - I've heard so many times how atheism is evil because it would leave us with people who are only in it for themselves, with no compassion for other people since, without God, we are just amoral individuals whose only motivation would be self preservation.
That doesn't seem to jive with
this observation. The more you go to church, the more likely you are to be okay with torture. The group least likely to support torture are people with no religious affiliation.
Now, we could go back and forth about how it's not a matter of religious people not having compassion, it's about preserving a way of life that they consider superior. I won't argue against that (too strongly), it's a valid possible explanation for why their percentages would be higher. I'm not pointing to this study as a damnation of religion, per se. I'm more interested in the fact that it seems to debunk the "amoral atheist" assertion. Whatever the reasons for the high acceptance of torture among the practicing religious aside, it's completely counter to the claim of atheists having no reason to have compassion for other human beings. If it were the case, they should support torture in FAR greater numbers as the only reason to not support it is compassion. If it were purely about selfish self preservation, ateists should be all about any-means-necessary.
Of course, the rest result does not surprise me in the least. Religion's great achievement is the breeding of "in-group vs. out-group" mentality. It's a useful and understandable survival tool for societies as, lacking other protections, it's a convenient way of ensuring that you are surrounded by people you trust. But the side effect, by necessity of the construct, means that anyone deemed an outsider loses their humanity and is no longer "deserving" of the compassion and caring religions purport to value.
And please assume the standard disclaimers that individual attitudes and individual examples of good religious people and/or bad non-religious people are not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about large-scale trends and attitudes, the kind of aggregate effects demonstrated by societal action and surveys like the one posted.