Do we learn anything significant from the religious orientation of people in favor of torture?

Valerie Tarico discusses the question here, referring to this Pew study.

The answer to the question in my title, and other titles of that sort, is generally: maybe. For example, believers in a Torture Creed revealed from Heaven can be plausibly described as having views on torture which are causally connected with their faith. But in another scenario, believers in a No-Torture Creed might suffer from cognitive dissonance on this particular issue, due to other political commitments. In the case of chuchgoers, we might suppose for example that they are generally anti-abortion for religious reasons, and this causes them to strongly support the Republican party, and this affiliation itself makes it more likely that they support torture. I find something like this very plausible, although I think it’s difficult to establish a causal cognitive connection like this with genuine evidence.

I am extremely unimpressed with one explanation Tarico cites, which suggests (disapprovingly) that support for torture is actually related in a deliberate complex way to a theology of suffering connected with the crucifixion. I find this implausible because I don’t think there’s any evidence that people generally even have beliefs about a theology of suffering. Maybe some Christian academics will support torture for this reason, but that’s it.

Lastly, I do not find it at all shocking that right wing beliefs are correlated with Church attendance. I would have predicted this result. Why are some acting like this is surprising? Church attendance will correlate with opposition to stem cell research also, and support of tax cuts.