I was NOT surprised by this.

Am I the only one who remembers the sociopathic snuff film known as "The Passion of the Christ"?

These people don't just approve of torture, they want video, with dubbed-over screaming, and slow motion pans over an excess of blood.

I suspect empathy (or lack thereof) is the underlying culprit -- which itself is a marker of intelligence level. (the more highly intelligent have more fertile imaginations, and consequently are less prone to over-simplify questions and their solutions, and more likely to empathize with "the other"). Knowing that religiosity and IQ (as imperfect a measure as that is) are inversely correlated, I'd expect the results Blitzer and Co. reports.

What is troubling is the sheer number of torturers and torture-enablers, even in the non-religious camp.

I don’t find this ironic in the least. People who believe in religion are obviously going to be easier to convince into believing any fucking thing, like that torture is useful and the sort of thing we should be doing as a nation.

The emails read were pretty fun. Why Blitzer and Cafferty were so surprised by the results is anyone's guess: my best one is that the network didn't want them to come across as anti-religious.

Duh - Old Testament on enemy combatant's asses. Spare the rod and spoil the terrorist.

Plus what y'all have already said.