A Gallup poll designed to measure “religious and non-religious attitudes toward violence 10 years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” found this:

Through interviews with 2,482 Americans, Gallup found that 78 percent of Muslims believe violence which kills civilians is never justified, whereas just 38 percent of Protestant Christians and 39 percent of Catholics agreed with that sentiment. Fifty-six percent of atheists answered similarly.

When Gallup put the question a bit more pointedly, asking if it would be justified for “an individual person or a small group of persons to target and kill civilians,” the responses were a bit more uniform. Respondents from nearly all groups were widely opposed to such tactics, with Protestants and Catholics at 71 percent against. Muslims still had the highest number opposed, at 89 percent. Seventy-six percent of atheists were also opposed.

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

14 replies on “Poll Shows Christians Are More Bloodthirsty Than Muslims, Athiests”

  1. Yeah, same as it was during the Crusades. The Muslim rulers were big on coexistence and treating foreigners with respect and compassion, and the Christian rulers were just trying to take everything for themselves.

  3. No way. Christian holy rollers are the peace-ist of peaceniks, correct?
    There are PLENTY of majority-Muslim nations prosecuting simultaneous wars in Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan, right?

  4. I am saddened that atheists had such a poor showing. I’d have thought they would have more clearly thought through ethics.

    For the record, killing civilians, even killing people in general, is not justified. Except in self-defense when they are coming to kill you.

    @3 – the poll was of Americans, not Arab nations. The numbers may be different there. It is hard to say at this point.

    @2 – FSM is the most sauce-thirsty of all religions. “Brandishing the meatball and the sword!” You people worry me the most. Marching, marching to Omaha… etc.

  7. Wait a minute, who are all these pro-terrorist people? I can’t really see what the other interpretation of “an individual person or a small group of persons to target and kill civilians” would be, maybe there is one? With the first question, I can certainly see people making the argument that collateral damage in a wartime situation is acceptable, but WTF are people thinking with regard to the second question??

  8. @7, I know! I can’t figure out what that question might have been that people are all “yeah, that’s okay”. What was the second question and how ambiguously was it worded?

  9. I wonder how many had World War Two in mind? Civilian targets included armament factories. And all out war is different than we’re used to today.

  10. Not an apologist in any way, but I’m pretty sure that the muslims who are living here are probably the most liberal/tolerant you will find in the world.

  11. I was going to ask why Jews weren’t included in the poll, but then I found the original report.
    http://www.abudhabigallupcenter.com/1487…

    “The Abu Dhabi Gallup Center is a Gallup research hub based in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It is the product of a partnership between Gallup, the world’s leading public opinion research firm, and
    the Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi.”

    Oh.

    Cienna, I see this over and over, and it’s just baffling and very, very frustrating! Why didn’t you find and link the study? Why doesn’t *every* news post about research include a link to the original study? Shallow sound bites like the one you linked are unquestioningly re-posted by thousands, even when so much is left out of the story that it’s misleading.

  12. I suggest as an alternate headline:

    “The Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi, In Collaboration With Gallup, Finds: Christians Extremely Bloodthirsty, Athiests Somewhat Bloodthirsty Compared To Muslims”

    Wordy, but I’m sure you can work with it. Maybe if it was phrased that way, people wouldn’t find the results so surprising.

  13. That first question sounds more like a question as to whether or not you are ok with “collateral damage” in wars. Presumably, most of the respondents would be thinking about our current wars, which all happen to be in Muslim majority countries, so its not terribly surprising that Muslims would be more opposed to civilian death than non-Muslims. As for the second question, which really does seem to point more towards what we would call terrorism, I agree that the number is lower than I would like it to be. That said, I generally work from the assumption that about a quarter of the country is crazy on any particular issue.

  14. Did they control for socio-economic status or education with this? I’m more likely to believe that poor education correlates with a lack of empathy. A sizeable portion of the Muslim population in the US is well educated immigrants (doctors, scientists, etc), whereas a sizeable portion of the US Christian population has been taught to see ignorance as a moral virtue.

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