What you seem to be hinting at is that a bottom-up spontaneous order origin of ethics/ethical behavior is better than a top-down imposed order. I agree wholeheartedly. An evolutionary, emergent process is of course better and more complex than an imposed, stagnant order. See my above URL for some more thoughts along these lines, to which spontaneous order ethics should perhaps be added (and, as an idea, developed).

Are atheist unusually moral – not if the person writing the article claims to be one that is for sure
While in a flippant moment I can certainly see why those who go to church weekly would be more likely to support torture but simply because I have been to a few of their churches . Who in their right mind would want to under go such grueling experiences without sharing the burden with as many souls as possible. In the name of honesty I will also add I am not a fan of church and find it to be cruel and inhumane punishment for suspected terrorist never mind small defenseless children.
. Any time some one uses stats to make a point I am always wanting to know exact numbers before placing any belief in the articles claims I always take the time to actually look for the statistics themselves at the original source Blame it on the fact I am a Virgo
Now on a serious note
I abhor “slight of facts” to promote one’s own point of view. Skewing facts and figures is more annoying to me than finger nails across a chalk board .
However I do give the blogger the benefit of the doubt here I chose to believe that these facts were taken at face value because they were presented by a “credible news source” {unbiased reporting has gone the way of the dinosaur in my opinion } .
If the CNN reporter were being honest in their presentation they would have provided the number of non-church goers who also said the use of torture was often or some times necessary to gain important information from suspected terrorist OR they would have given the stats on the evangelical protestants who also said torture was NEVER an option The fact is they gave only the numbers of how many evangelical Protestants were in favor of torture while offering only how many secular people were opposed . Offering information in this manner is a pretty sure sign of plant food being passed off for journalism
Here is the url address the study I got when I looked for the original study as performed by the pew research center based on the time frame given
. It gives the same dates and the same numbers of respondents but has nothing to do with religious affiliation
url = http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/510.pdf
I began to wonder if such a survey existed so I did a site search on supporting torture based upon religious affiliation. I did find one. Below I have provided the url to the actual study I found from the pew site itself. Once the facts are presented in an objective manner meaning the same information is provided for all groups it is amazing how differently the facts presented really are
http://people-press.org/reports/tables/222.pdf
{Quote from study}
Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain
important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be
justified, or never be justified
Total White Protestant (torture often justified ) 14%
Evangelical 14%
Non-Evangelical 14%
White Catholic 20%
Secular 14 %
Torture NEVER justified
Total White Protestant 34%
Evangelical 37%
Non-Evangelical 31%
White Catholic 30%
Secular 28%
{End Quote}
Looks like there are more Evangelical Protestants who say torture is NEVER an option than there are secular folks who say the same thing – Matter of fact these figures say more Christians are against torture than are in favor of it
Ouch !!!
Hope you weren’t too attached to that theory
My pagan morals say take the time to look for the truth to avoid misunderstandings and prevent the spread of stigmas.. Stigmas and fertilizer are made of the same material which explains the similar scent .
Above all truths I remind myself of this one the most often
Diversity isn’t the enemy fear of it is

This post, Gus, is a good example of why I follow your blog. You give a clear, well-expressed voice to that which I believe. You do it better than I could, and you do so frequently.
Thank you.
I have a good friend who is a Baptist minister. He and I have argued religion (in an amicable way) for years and have dug down through our layers of assumption and mis-comprehensions to find the single most fundamental point of disagreement that could give rise to our differences.
It is the source of morality. I maintain that it is internal, and he maintains that it is external. In essence, we are arguing immanence.
Meical ab Awen

It really does come down to the difference between the self-righteous and the righteous. Those who believe what you say and who you write the check to on Sunday matters more than what you do behind closed door. Why go beyond the book cover to judge when you are deemed by divine right to have the ability to decide that it is the superficial that matters?
I am a Christian living in the Bible Belt where the “higher than just about anywhere else” divorce rate is not to be outdone by those who claim to be good, family values conservative Christians; where charity outside our borders is debated as a bad thing; where after some politician gets caught with his pants around his knees or his hands in the taxpayer cookie jar you often hear “but he was such a good Christian” like that negates all the bad.
Every election cycle ALL the politicians around here try to out-Christian, out-conservative-Evangelical-Christian each other to the point that such a title is worthless. I had a discussion with a colleague that I would love to see an election where no one mentioned: God, Jesus, religion, values, etc. and we had to figure out what type of office holder they would be base on their actions. It will never happen because pandering is too each and too successful.
As far as I am concerned whether you get your goodness from God, you’re internal human soul, Mother Earth as long as you contribute to the human race in a positive way you are all right in my book.

Moral behavior should be base on the behavior itself and not so much on where it originated. The whole actions speak far louder than words thing.

Dear Gus:
The findings of the PEW polls, and other polls, indicate that the center of ethics in American is not to be found in the Churches. For decades now, Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have hammered the country with the view that they are the ethical ones, that they are saving American from sin and immorality. It turns out that the opposite is the case, that it is actually the unchurched who are saving American from sin and immorality.
I am almost sixty. When I was in college religion and spirituality were exciting areas to investigate and drew large crowds of young people. Today my sense is that young people are, to a significant degree, simply uninterested. They have other things to do. My view of this is that the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have given religion and spirituality a bad name. Beginning with Reagan, and reaching a shrill crescendo under Bush 2, religion was defined in fundamentalist terms. If that’s religion, what reasonable person would want any part of it. If being religious means launching a war based on lies and deceit, if it means supporting torture, then no reasonable person would want any part of religion. I think it will take many years to undo the damage that the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have done to the spiritual domain. Meanwhile, we can find inspiration among the unchurched.
Jim

Please, for the love of GOD. STOP using double spaces in-between sentences! That was not needed since the last typewriter was put in the trash bin.
Sheesh…

To Mead-
Thanks for the information, if not the tone, assuming it is accurate. But so far the information leads to a PDF claiming to be the poll, but with no evidence that it is.
On the other hand, PEW states rather unequivocably that their poll findings are what we have been told they are:
See
The Religious Dimensions of the Torture Debate
April 29, 2009
Updated May 7, 2009
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=156
Further, the Associated Baptist Press seems to have no problem wih the report, discomfited as they are by its findings:
http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4052&Itemid=9
So until you do a better job of backing up a PDF, I’m afraid you have yet to make your case.
That said, as I mentioned in the original post, the poll was crude in its classification – but it seemed in keeping with the other information I posted, which is not statistical, but historical. So while I am not in love with my theory, I’d say a this point it still is well worth taking seriously.

Hootie1fan, thanks for being so open-minded. I have not been so fortunate as to meet Christians who believe as you do. The ones who have thrust their opinions on me have told me that any good done by people like me is actually the “work of the Devil” trying to deceive me and others like me. It seems to stem from the Christian “Jesus is the only way” dogma that shuts out all other religions and belief systems as being of their Satan.
I must tell you though, that the Christians I have met would not consider you to be a “true believer” because of your open views on the matter. Obviously you’ve been influenced by some Satanic reasonings that have put stumbling blocks in your path; you might want to watch out for those (teasing you with tongue stuck firmly in cheek).

Cheryl perhaps it’s because I am Catholic. I’ve been told down here on more than one occassion that I am not a “REAL” Christian.
I’ve always believed that your action nad NOT your words defined who you are. Of course I also don’t beleive that everyone who doesn’t practice the same religion I do is automatically condemned to hell or wherever.

Glad to have found this blog!
I live in KS where everyone is, as I like to call it, “churchie.” But strikingly, being “churchie” absolutely does NOT seem to coincide with simple politeness, kindness, thoughtfulness, or any other positive qualities one would assume it should. I especially agree with Jim’s comment – the angry fundamentalists give “religion” a bad name. Unfortunately, I currently live surrounded by these types, and I often feel very isolated.

From what I gather, the argument is that there seems to be a correlation between whether one sees ultimate authority coming from without or within (whether Authority is transcendent or immanent) and moral development. I question this correlation, not because I think it is necessarily incorrect (I suspect there may be some truth to it), but because I think there is another correlation that may be made that does not necessarily coincide with this one.
I would argue that there is a correlation between the wideness of one’s ability to identify with the “other” and one’s moral development. Very simply, in order to treat someone “immorally” (whatever that means), one must first have an identity disconnect from the other that prevents empathy. On the other hand, the more one can say “I get you,” the less likely they are to act immorally toward that person.
My key point here is that identification with “the other” is a narrative event, not an event related to one’s ideology regarding the structure of Authority. I believe it would theoretically be just as possible to identify with the other if one viewed Authority as transcendent as if one viewed Authority as immanent. But it would not be as possible to act immorally toward one with whom one identifies, unless another narrative erodes that identification by creating a stronger identification that stands in opposition (such as the call to the patriots to save the world from “them”).

I could not possibly agree more that the degree one enlarges his or her heart to include others is key to acting in a good way.
But what leads us to enlarge our hearts? The more I think about it the more I am skeptical that commands will do it very well.
John Locke was the first important English thinker to advocate religious toleration ever for Pagans and Muslims. But he could not bring himself to offer similar toleration for atheists. Why? As he put it in his Letter Concerning Toleration, “Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist.” http://www.constitution.org/jl/tolerati.htm
Given Locke’s toleration for Pagans, he seems to have believed that belief in an outside power to enforce moral action.
Yet it appears we see no big difference between the behavior of atheists and believers in one transcendental religion or another, unless it be in favor of the atheists. I suspect this is so for several reasons beyond the one I mentioned – that thinking about the right thing to do leads more often to doing the right thing for the right reasons, than simply following what one regards as a command by an omnipotent force.
One additional reason addresses xiananarchist’s point. To identify with another is far easier from an immanentist perspective: we share at some level a common essence which is good. But from a transcendental perspective, we are fundamentally different from the good, and are so ‘all the way down.’ Further, if belief in original sin is factored in, (which is not required from a transcendental or even Christian perspective) what I most share in common with another is bad, and bad is defined in terms of self-will. I think this discourages trying to really understand another, and leads easily to their demonization.
Interestingly, I have heard a secular version of this argument. We are all descended from a common ancestor, and so we should be able to empathize with more than even the human, even. We should be able to empathize with all life, and so treat other beings with greater consideration. Darwin, for one, held views similar to these. He as also pretty clearly morally light years ahead of those Christians who supported slavery for Biblical reasons while Darwin strongly opposed it.
I am not saying that all people following an immanentist tradition will be more moral/generous/caring than those following a transcendental position. That is factually absurd. But one starting out point is probably superior to the other in this respect.
The only counter examples I can think of are the Amish and the Hutterites. But the strict rules they live by are enforced with the bonds of living in a tight knit community that minimizes interaction with the outside world.