On Faith

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

Maybe this is true. But I keep thinking about the Catholic priest that did jail time for protesting the war in Iraq, and now spends his days at a US airforce base covertly talking to troops who are doing midday bombing runs, often against civilians, in Afghanistan. They fly out at night and are back the next day for lunch with their families in the US. And he talks to them, every day, to get them to realize there is another way. And he does it because of his faith, and is fully supported by the Church.

Or there's the US special prosecutor, of Irish extraction, who also asked his Catholic priest what to do about his role as a special prosecutor in Gitmo. And his priest told him to get out because it was morally wrong, so that was what he did, and he started speaking out against torture and rendition.

Religion sometimes gets people to think about morality in a way that they otherwise wouldn't. Its useful. Sometimes its just a badly wielded ideology, and sometimes it helps. It all depends on your approach, but all of those wise people didn't show us the way for nothing. They are all heroes, savants, sages. They represent the best in us. And right now, the best is what we need.