Linkmeister

It would be interesting to see the party affiliations of those religious people.

Surveys can have a lot of errors depending on the sample population of the respondents. 742 is a very small sample for the US population and thus this research has a very wide range of “margin of error” in statistical terms. The problem is the media likes to sensationalize researches on religion especially when they are so negative without really checking the possible validity and reliability of the research. Another research should cross-validate the data on the news with a bigger population sample from different parts of the US. As for me and most statisticians this recent kind of research is most likely unreliable, invalid, and has a very wide range of “margin of error” aside from other variables that could have affected the outcome of this research. Most likely the one who did this research has a hidden agenda/motive against religious people, particularly Christians who are Evangelicals and Catholics.

Bren, you're accusing the Pew Research Center of anti-religious bias? It's one of the most respected survey organizations in the country.

Here's their full report, including the question's wording.

Also, if you're a professional statistician, with whom are you affiliated? Depending on methods, even fairly small sample sizes can be reflective of broader opinion.

By the way, the survey was actually conducted nationwide with 1,507 respondents; the 742 were interviewed based on their response to the first form question.

Come on, the CNN leadline, that has since been changed, was extremely biased. Someone at CNN has been grinding an anti-Christian axe every day or two. I am a Christian, United Methodist, and there is nothing in the Gospel of Jesus Christ condoning torture. I do not know of one sincere follower of Christ who would condone any kind of torture under any circumstances. I live in Carmel IN, a suburb of Indianapolis.

Well, mark, CNN didn't do the study, Pew did. Taking you at your word, you're in the (admittedly large) minority of churchgoers on the ethical side of the issue.

AHEM!

You're generalizing a bit yourself, with that title.

The answer to your question, I suspect, lies in the human propensity for group identity. If the group we identify with self-labels as religious, and supports torture, we'll do both of those, too. It's very hard to go against the ingrained practice of our identity group. Note that these people probably quote 1John in all kinds of contexts, but that isn't a key part of the identity of the group.

This sort of thing is what makes anthropology and sociology so fascinating.

(Note that I can get to you from Caribou. I hate Comcast.)

Bren: Do you have data to back up the allegation of intentional bias?

I mean, it's sort of hard to skew a poll the way you are alleging... it would require one of two things, both unlikely. The first would be a way to filter the respondents in advance, the other would be to discard; in secret, the answers which don't accord with the planned results (because if you are alleging that sort of bias, then the results skew was planned).

At that point, the easiest thing to do would be to just fake the poll.

If that were the case I would expect to see a more divided end result, and a larger sample size, with smaller margins for error, and better questions.

(if you want to see my opinion of the questions you can look here).

There are a lot of things to question about that poll. Things which are observable, not assumed. All in all, this poll seems to be in keeping with a number of other polls on the subject.

This poll has a margin of error of =/- 4 percentage points (to a 95 percent certainty, which is perfectly in keeping with modern polling conventions for statistical modelling). That's not a large margin of error. It's smaller than a fair number of polls with larger sample sizes.. The sample was a limited set from a larger sample (they don't explain the methodology for Form 1 versus other form respondents).

These polls (on attitudes toward torture) may be flawed instruments, but I see nothing to suggest the intent was to malign a religious group. What is sad is that so many Catholics (such as Scalia) seem to be of opinions on torture which are at odds with the teachings of the Church.