Poll of moral beliefs
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- Published on Tuesday, 05 July 2011 07:00
- Written by John Draper
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Americans' views of what's immoral are scattered and not particularly consistent with their religion. Most of the U.S. is Christian - certainly enough that a Gallup poll of Americans is primarily a poll of Christians - although many may not be strong believers. A poll of Americans should show that most are against sex outside marriage, against gays, against suicide and against divorce. But this is only partly true: 60% think sex outside marriage is OK, 56% think same sex relationships are acceptable, only 15% think suicide is OK but if you do commit suicide, having a doctor assist is OK with 45%. Marriage is obviously still sacred: most (69%) think divorce is OK and most (91%) think having an affair is wrong. I'm not surprised that most Americans support the death penalty (65%) but it's hard to see how that should be acceptable to Christians.
There are a few strange findings - many (39%) think buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur is equally as wrong as having gay or lesbian relations. Overall, my conclusion from these results would be that in most cases, Americans are using their innate sense of morality - developed via evolution - to decide what's right and what's wrong. They are not listening to the pastors in their pulpits The only exception seems to be abortion where 51% think it's wrong. Even so, 39% still think it's OK and 10% aren't sure. It seems that many Americans don't accept the edicts from their Christian Churches although they often talk publicly as if they do.
There are also some issues that Americans take issue with even though they are not mentioned in the bible: Medical testing on animals (38% against); buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur (39% against); cloning animals (62% against). Where did those attitudes come from? Is morality still evolving?
Here are the full Gallup Poll results - see if you can make more sense of it.
| Morally Acceptable % |
Morally Wrong % |
|
| Divorce | 69 | 23 |
| The death penalty | 65 | 28 |
| Gambling | 64 | 31 |
| Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos | 62 | 30 |
| Sex between an unmarried man and woman | 60 | 36 |
| Buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur | 56 | 39 |
| Gay or lesbian relations | 56 | 39 |
| Medical testing on animals | 55 | 38 |
| Having a baby outside of marriage | 54 | 41 |
| Doctor-assisted suicide | 45 | 48 |
| Abortion | 39 | 51 |
| Cloning animals | 32 | 62 |
| Pornography | 30 | 66 |
| Suicide | 15 | 80 |
| Cloning humans | 12 | 84 |
| Polygamy, when a married person has more than one spouse at the same time | 11 | 86 |
| Married men and women having an affair | 7 | 91 |
See the full report from Gallup here