The Rachel Maddow Show Blog has the article to which I have given the title from some of its opening words, A Closer Look at Public Opinion as it Relates to Americans, Religion, and Acceptance of Torture

The article is a discussion of the following graph

The following quote is one of the conclusions of the article:

The results in response to this question were even more striking: “All in all, do you think the CIA treatment of suspected terrorists was justified or unjustified?” For most Americans, the answer, even after recent revelations, was yes. For most Christians, it’s also yes. But for the non-religious, as the above chart makes clear, the torture was not justified.

I think this graph puts the lie to the idea that you have to believe in God to be a moral person. The idea that you can’t be an atheist and be a very moral person probably has no stronger refutation than this chart.

I can imagine a twisted interpretation of this issue that says that the people who believe in torture for some people have the moral point of view and the people who don’t believe in torture have no morals. If you believe that, you are welcome to take your belief to The World Court in The Hague and see how well that goes over. Alternatively, you can imagine what the prosecutors and judges at The Nuremberg Trials after World War II would think about this justification for torture.