Intellectually Lazy

The other day I was in a conversation with two of my lawyer workout partners regarding torture. The more vocal friend, whom I like a great deal, believed that torture is useful and worthwhile. Lawyer number two (both actually have the same first name so lets go with numbers), made the argument which seems to be common with many military leaders. We don’t torture because we don’t want our troops tortured. My response- stolen from McCain- we don’t torture because not torturing is not about our enemies. It’s about us. Torture doesn’t fit with who we want to be as Americans. Lawyer 1 refutes those statements and again advocates tortures more passionately. I really had little else to say at that point. ("Love your enemies" didn't come to mind for some reason) I had used my main argument and had nothing else in my mind at the time, except the God card. I was briefly tempted to tell my non-churched friend, “It’s morally wrong. God doesn’t like it.” And I realized I was just tempted to be intellectually lazy by pulling that trump card. I didn’t want to put the effort in to explain why it was morally wrong and why God wouldn’t like it. I didn't say it, but I know if I did it would have almost definately ended the conversation.
It’s easy just to drop a trump card like “God doesn’t like it" or "The Bible says its wrong.” But I think that’s often just an example of being intellectually lazy. We want to hide behind the mystique of a sacred document instead of engaging the message of this inspired book.