Are You Christian? Do You Support Torture?

[KrazyHorse]

Because 3 > 2. Duh.

[curtsibling]

I don't think the desire to cause pain or torture for whatever means can really be attributed to religious belief or a lack of...

Just my two pence.

[Dinner]

I don't think the desire to cause pain or torture for whatever means can really be attributed to religious belief or a lack of...

Just my two pence.

There have been recent polls in America at least who's results show that the more fundamentalist Christian someone is the more likely they are to support torturing prisoners. Not very Christian but the fundies in the US (evangelicals) have never been very Christian and instead tend to be red neck pieces of poor white trash.

[curtsibling]

Human nature and conditioning blended together into an ugly mentality - It has many parallels in many cultures.

...

[Robert]

Both christian/torture threads have been merged into this one.

[Dinner]

That seems reasonable.

[Sirotnikov]

LOL at Slowwy.

re: WMD syria scenario.

While the absolute truth is that saddam probably never had the weapons he was thought to have, IIRC there have been stealth shipments of unknown nature made to Syria in the events leading up to the US invasion.

What went on there, no one knows, and shortly after the war, it ceased being relevant, so no further investigation occurred.

So while it's unreasonable that a huge project was made to vanish, no one knows what would Iraq want to secretly stash at the Syrian's.

[/threadjack]

[Sirotnikov]

do communists support torture?

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure."

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/01/us-using-communist-tortur_n_110357.html

I think so.

[SpencerH]

I'm a heathen and I do not support torture. OTOH I do support the use of stressful interrogation techniques that some (wrongly) consider torture.

[Wezil]

Let's have some trials so the line will become clear then.

[SlowwHand]

Sure, the lawyer wants trials.

[Wezil]

As you can see from my position earlier in the thread, I'm not particularly found of the idea of trials on these matters. As much as I think the rule of law should be upheld I accept that the political cost of doing so would be huge and, quite frankly, your nation has many serious problems to address at the moment.

The problem I'm having is the support given to the idea of torture so long as it is called something benign like "enhanced interrogation". If it will take a trial demonstrating "enhanced interrogation"" is really just torture by another name in order to get through to the US populous what exactly it is that they are still supporting then so be it.

edit - FYI, I do defence work. I spend my days helping people being hassled by The Man.

[SlowwHand]

I noes waht u do.



(Does this post have "with it" flair, or what?)

[Wezil]

I can bring myself to be serious every now and then.

It general I find it requires too much effort.

[Ben Kenobi]

So being a good Christian, you condone "techniques" that result in severe pain as long as there is no PERMANENT harm.

**** you

Yes, I do.

Can you show me why I'm wrong wrt to my Christian beliefs to condone these techniques in order to obtain information?

Swearing at me is not sufficient to convince me that I'm wrong on this issue.

As far as I'm concerned if someone is willing to go out of their way to kill innocent civilians, then then still have rights with respect to their person that ought not to be violated. I don't support physical torture that cripples, and maims, or kills the person being tortured, I don't think it's effective.

Psychological torture on the other hand, I believe it is effective, and at the end of the day the person is the same as they were. That to me shows considerable mercy, considering that they would not show mercy to their victims.

Biblically, they have a cause for execution outright, ergo I can't understand the perception of those who are against torture of someone who has proven to be involved in killing innocents. As for a trial, here's the way that it works. If you are fighting a nation, combatants must wear a uniform. As soon as they do, they are to be held as POWs, and I think the model should be to care well for POWs, until the end of the war.

Terrorists on the other hand, don't wear a uniform. If someone can be proven to be associated with terror, then they lose the rights wrt to the Geneva convention, because of two things. 1, they carry no identification, and 2, they target civilians. If they choose not to wear uniforms and declare themselves openly, so that people can defend themselves, then that deserves far harsher treatment then a POW.