{"id":675,"date":"2011-05-12T00:42:49","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T04:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=675"},"modified":"2011-05-12T00:45:17","modified_gmt":"2011-05-12T04:45:17","slug":"poll-americans-think-bin-ladens-in-hell-but-would-jesus-want-us-to-celebrate-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/poll-americans-think-bin-ladens-in-hell-but-would-jesus-want-us-to-celebrate-much.html","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Americans Think Bin Laden&#8217;s in Hell, But Would Jesus Want Us to Celebrate (Much)?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This month&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/index.php?\/polls\/two_thirds_of_americans_say_bin_ladens_in_hell\/\">Public Religion Research Institute\/Religion News Service poll<\/a> asked how Americans \u00a0feel about Osama bin Laden&#8217;s death, whether the Golden Rule applies to terrorists, and other questions that probe the grey area between Christian belief and behavior.<\/p>\n<p>No surprise (unless, like<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/06\/dont-judge-stephen-protheros-god-is-not-one-by-its-cover.html\"> &#8220;God Is Not One&#8221; author Stephen Prothero<\/a> says in my story, you thought it would be higher): <strong>two-thirds of us think bin Laden will spend eternity in hell.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Other findings include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A slim majority (52 percent) of Americans say the<strong> U.S. should follow the Golden Rule and not use any methods on our enemies that we would not want used on our own soldiers<\/strong>.\u00a0Support for the Golden Rule principle was strongest among minority Christians, Catholics and religiously unaffiliated Americans (above 50 percent), but less so among evangelicals (47 percent) and mainline Protestants (42 percent).<\/li>\n<li>Religiously unaffiliated Americans (57 percent) are significantly more likely than Christians to say <strong>torture can never be justified<\/strong>. Catholics, at 53 percent, are the Christian group most likely to say torture can never be justified.<\/li>\n<li>Majorities of white evangelicals (54 percent) and minority Christians (51 percent) believe <strong>God had a hand in locating bin Laden<\/strong>, compared to only a third percent of white mainline Protestants and 42 percent of Catholics.<\/li>\n<li>A majority of Americans (62 percent) agree that <strong>it&#8217;s wrong to\u00a0celebrate the death of another human being &#8220;no matter how bad that\u00a0person was,&#8221;<\/strong> including 67 percent of white evangelicals, 64 percent of\u00a0minority Christians, 62 percent of Catholics and 55 percent of white\u00a0mainline Protestants.<\/li>\n<li>Americans are divided over whether <strong>killing bin Laden will help or\u00a0hurt America&#8217;s image in the world<\/strong>, with 52 percent believing it will\u00a0help, 20 percent believing it will hurt, 13 percent believing it will\u00a0be a combination of both, and the rest responding &#8220;neither&#8221; or &#8220;don&#8217;t\u00a0know.&#8221; Most white mainline Protestants (60 percent), white\u00a0evangelicals (53 percent), and Catholics (51 percent) think it will\u00a0help, compared to just 46 percent of minority Christians.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/05\/11\/survey-most-americans-say-its-wrong-to-celebrate-bin-ladens-death\/\">CNN&#8217;s Belief Blog <\/a> has also covered the poll results, with a bonus <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/05\/11\/my-take-poll-on-bin-ladens-death-reveals-a-disposable-jesus\/\">&#8220;My Take&#8221; from Prothero<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Two interesting points from Prothero that didn&#8217;t make it into the final version of my story:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>On why some Americans \u00a0celebrated bin Laden&#8217;s death, while others didn&#8217;t: &#8220;I was struck in speaking with my students that it\u00a0really had much more to do with temperament and personality (than religious beliefs), and even\u00a0with the way our memories are wired. People who upon hearing of his\u00a0death and thought of 9\/11 found it to be sad and reflective and\u00a0contemplative, and people who saw it as a victory in the War on Terror\u00a0saw it as a celebration.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>On why Catholics are more opposed to torture than other Christians: &#8220;Catholics have a strong social teaching in the church telling them\u00a0that torture is wrong. Evangelicals don\u2019t. There are progressive\u00a0evangelicals who say that, but the main teachings in the Catholic\u00a0church is against torture. It\u2019s that whole ethic of life. You\u2019re\u00a0opposed to abortion, you\u2019re opposed to capital punishment, you\u2019re\u00a0opposed to torture.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat <\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<strong>follow Belief Beat on  Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This month&#8217;s Public Religion Research Institute\/Religion News Service poll asked how Americans \u00a0feel about Osama bin Laden&#8217;s death, whether the Golden Rule applies to terrorists, and other questions that probe the grey area between Christian belief and behavior. No surprise (unless, like &#8220;God Is Not One&#8221; author Stephen Prothero says in my story, you thought&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[137,179,20,14,13,181,11,180,7,134,36,178,146],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-al-qaeda","tag-al-qaida","tag-catholics","tag-christianity","tag-evangelical-christians","tag-golden-rule","tag-islam","tag-mainline-protestants","tag-muslims","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-protestants","tag-stephen-prothero","tag-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Poll: Americans Think Bin Laden&#039;s in Hell, But Would Jesus Want Us to Celebrate (Much)? - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/poll-americans-think-bin-ladens-in-hell-but-would-jesus-want-us-to-celebrate-much.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poll: Americans Think Bin Laden&#039;s in Hell, But Would Jesus Want Us to Celebrate (Much)? - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This month&#8217;s Public Religion Research Institute\/Religion News Service poll asked how Americans \u00a0feel about Osama bin Laden&#8217;s death, whether the Golden Rule applies to terrorists, and other questions that probe the grey area between Christian belief and behavior. 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