But which religion is the RIGHT religion? They all can' t be right, and all the members of any WRONG religions will surely go to hell, right? Please tell me which religion to choose!

Alley, I don' t think that anyone is anti-religion. It just shouldn' t be the basis of decisions made for the good of the entire country. American politics are built on separation of church and state. That is part of the reason that the first settlers here left England and came here.

I don' t want to see fetuses die either, but that research is making serious progress. There are a laundry list of ailments that stem cell research can help. Like Joe said, it can perfect treatments that can save millions. You don' t want to say one life is more than the other, but sacrifices need to be made for progress.

Yes, but America was born upon Christian principles. Joe, maybe you could check it out, you might find some interesting things. It doesn' t hurt to be curious .

I was raised Catholic. I have a great deal of knowledge about the religion. And that makes it easier for me to debunk. But I' m not going to do that here.

You haven' t gotten far enough, plus, Catholicism is taught by the institution' s will. If you' ve taken history classes, they are the reason other Christians terminated all relationships and branched away to Protestantism. Catholicism is tradition and superstition. Period. Even the Bible foretold of the papacy' s desire to be " God on earth" , which they have admitted to saying. Ask an expert and he' ll tell you all about it.

man, i havent been here in a long time but it seems that the forum here has livened up a bit. and i t just so happens that politics and religion are 2 things i like very much, so i reckon i' ll jump into this thread.

first Joe, i would advise you to look to some branch of the christian faith other than Catholicism before (if your thinking about it) giving up on christianity. the catholic church isnt evil or anything like some people would have us believe, they have reformed and i think it is a good way to worship if thats how you want to do it. my best friend is a devout catholic and as far as i can tell, he is firm in his faith. i even went to mass with him some and though i enjoyed it, it was just not edifying for me spiritually. something you have to keep in mind is to not let other people make up your mind about your religion. christianity is about having a personal relationship with God so only you can make up your mind about it. do not condemn all of christianity because of the way one branch of it conducts itself. i dont know if that helps you but, on to politics!

im a republican myself. ill be voting for Bush too. i think he has done a good job as president given what has happened during his administration.

i just cant vote Kerry because hes so shady. his economical plans just dont work, he flip-flops on every thing, he lies out the wazoo. i just dont understand how you COULD vote for this man.

^ Kerry gets a bum rap for being a " flip-flopper" ; this was just something created by the Republican campaign that everyone is falling for. He is called this because he voted for the war once, but didn' t do it again.

There were two bills: one financed the war through deficit spending (a Bush favorite) and the other financed the war through a reduction in the tax breaks. He was voting to support the troops, he just wanted to do it a different way than the majority.

You say that Kerry' s economic plans don' t work. Has Bush' s? Over 1 million jobs lost and the one' s that are being created are being shipped overseas. I am not saying that Kerry' s plans will work, but Bush' s definitely haven' t.

Bush has been an international affair nightmare. The entire world was backing and mourning with America after 9/11 and in the span of a year Bush turned every country except for the United Kingdom against us.

Way to go cowboy!!!

Kerry rightly deserves his bum rap. he really does flip-flop, its not just some propaganda made up by the Republicans. i dont mean just the war, for example, and this is just a simple one, he chose someone to be his VP that he was just before hand completely against.

and Kerry really doesnt know what to do when it comes to defense, nor does he realize apparently that tax breaks help the economy and thus it was less of a loss to use deficit spending to fund the war than it would have been to cut out the tax breaks. Bush is great with economy, the reason the market went down was 9/11 after which Bush made economic reforms which has resulted in the fastest economic growth we have know in decades. you dont hear about it on the news because almost all the big media corps. are liberal, they are what is referred to as the " liberal media" . ever noticed you never hear anything really good but as soon as something goes the tiniest bit wrong you hear " holy friggen crap on a stick! look what happened! this is horrible! someone should pay for this horrible huge attrocity that we are being forced to endure!" . has anyone ever noticed that? and then there is usually the pointing of a finger at someone or at big business or whatever have you. so when the economy went south we got the ol' " holy friggen crap on a stick! blah blah..." line, and who did they point the finger at? Bush. so he implemented some reforms and lo and behold the economy does a 180 and goes shooting back up incredibly fast, but what did you hear about it on the TV? a little seemingly insignificant side note that the economy was on the rise again. and most people dont understand how the economy works or what you have to do to boost it so they have no idea whats happening and the media isnt going to enlighten them about it. they just wanna lead people around like a little flock of sheep, ignorant and believe whatever they are told.

and shipping jobs over seas is good for the economy as well, drives down costs. and kerry' s plan to tax the middle class less and the people who make 200,000 or more a year and some how invest this money in " job creation, health care and education" , not only that but he plans to cut the deficit in half in 4 years by ending tax breaks. now immediately several things stand out that just arent gonna work witht his policies. let me start with this, one of kerry' s main complaints is that we' re shipping jobs over seas, he doesnt seem to understand that companies ship jobs overseas because it less expensive. know why its less expensive? because they arent taxed by the government that way. the government gives tax breaks to companies to make it less expensive fo them to keep jobs here, however some companies want to save even more money so they export anyway. its not the governments fault or whoever is in power, its the company in question. now, lets talk about his incredible taxing idea! whoo hoo! Kerry knows that the middle and lower classes are his biggest voting base so hes going to appeal to them, or lie which ever you want to call it because this plan can go 1 of 2 ways. first, if he cuts taxes for middle and lowers classes hes lost most of his money there, biggest amount of supporters = biggest amount of money. ok so he taxes the rich more, ok that makes a little more money but not nearly enough to cover what he lost in cutting taxes, oh but wait, hes taxing companies more, so thats more money. but wait again he putting that into the deficit so theres still a lack of money, so Kerry comes up short and has no money to do anything and has to put us back in deficit spending again. so he fails there. and if your thinking hes gonna make more jobs buy giving incentives to companies think again, he has no money to do it and by getting rid of tax cuts for big companies it becomes more expensive for them to keep jobs here, thus a loss of even more jobs.

and i just realized something quite interesting. Kerry said that hes going to give big companies incentives to keep jobs in the US, but then later on he says hes gonna stop tax cuts for them. last i checked the tax cut WAS THE INCENTIVE to keep jobs here. he contrdicts himself and tries to make it look like hes actually doing something good there. lol.

anyway, the second way the Kerry tax cut idea can go is that he just doesnt do it at all because he realizes that it doesnt work, but he promises it anyway. so unless Kerry can create jobs out of thin air hes out of luck, and i guess hes planning on paying for health care with monopoly money or something because he certainly wont have the money for that either. and education, i dont think thats gonna happen either.

by every country hating us i guess you mean france and germany. they dont like us because they have under the table deal with Saddam about oil. and they only way Kerry is going to have them like us again is by striking up some sort of other shady deal. and Kerry' s plan to go the the UN for support. this is our war, Bush made his intentions clear after 9/11, he said that he would go after terrorists and any country harbouring or aiding terrorists. and everybody heard and everbody backed him. congress gave Bush authorization to use our armed forces in any place he deemed to be a threat. he did exactly that. Afghanistan had terrorists, Iraq whether there were WMDs or not was harbouring and aiding terrorists, so the WMDs shouldnt even be that big of an issue because he had verified intelligence from 3 sources, KGB, MI5, and the CIA that there were weapons there. he had to act on that. and just because 2 countries are throwing a hissy fit because we broke their shady deals with a murderous, innocent slaughtering dictator its an international affair nightmare? do you really want your country to be close with Socialists? do you really want your country to opperate in a more socialist form instead of the republic it was founded as? cause Kerry' s way of running things is shaping up to look an awful lot like socialism to me.

and i guess hes planning on paying for health care with monopoly money

lol....

Kerry: " I actually voted for abortion before I voted against it."
Opposes same-sex marriage but would like same-sex couples to continue the
lifestyle.
Threw purple heart in public and still has 1 in posession.

What kind of stand does this man have?

You' ve got Kerry' s facts mixed up, Alley Hater. Kerry' s quote is " I actually voted for the war before I voted against it" . Kerry is Pro Choice, like me. As for the " would like same-sex couples to continue the lifestyle" , I don' t see what you are finding bad with that quote. Are you saying people can simply " give up" being gay?

Did you hear the latest Bush quote?
" Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we,"

" They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Hilarious! Yes, it was a flub, but he never corrected himself and still hasn' t. If Republicans can use Kerry-isms, then Dems can certainly use that! Seriously, the man is a dumbass. But the whole " I am against stem cell research" is what really pisses me off.

Abortion is wrong PERIOD. Anyone thatis prohoice shouldn' t be in office, it' s supporting murder.

Yes, Bush is a dumb ass. He is a puppet president. Cheney and his people pull his strings.

Call911, you must have the same chip in your head that Bush does. No president is truly responsible for the economy. The economy is more cyclical than anything else. Our economy dropped because of 9/11, the rise in oil prices, and overseas investments. Bush' s tax breaks didn' t do squat.

You look at indicators like GDP and all of that to justify this upswing in the economy. Sure companies are making more money by shipping jobs overseas. But if they don' t pay taxes on that money (a Bush tax break for foreign investment) and they don' t create jobs in the US (no money for consumer spending), then what is the point for America. We get to make money for the top executives of these companies and their big shareholders. Yeahh!!! The rich get richer.

Kerry' s plan for this is to close the tax loophole that gives these companies money to fire Americans and outsource overseas and to create tax breaks for companies that keep jobs home. That is win-win, companies get an incentive for hiring at home (lower cost) and Americans are hired (that thing called jobs that Conservatives don' t care about).

You Conservatives are ridiculous. As soon as someone talks about balancing wealth to better the country. you start calling people Socialists. This country is strong because we all support in. Let' s cut all taxes and let people build their own roads and hire their own police forces.

^ Also, going into Iraq early was BS. The UN said that if the weapons inspectors found anything, they would back America 100% with troops, money, etc.

What do we do? Bush kicks the inspectors out of the country, so he can go in with just American troops and oust Saddam. I am not saying that Saddam getting out of power is bad, but if he would have waited for the inspectors to do their jobs, then there would have been no reason to go in b/c there were no WMD' s and no terrorist ties. Waiting for that we would have known the truth and not sent the thousands of soldiers into harm' s way.

Bush is not a dumb ass, how you can call him one and not Kerry is amazing. Bush isn' t a puppet president, cheney running things and Bush being a puppet is no more than a lie trumped up by whiney liberals who want to think Bush is stupid. he' s not stupid, he' s human, every one messes up a speech here and there. and thats where the idea came from that Bush was dumb anyway, he just a nervous speaker. and once the liberals get you to think that Bush is dumb you start believing it and start seeing only what someone else wants you to see.

maybe a president is not truly responsible for the economy in the sense that he controls it, thats not what im saying. but if you have taken a government class you have to at least know that he can institute plans that will change and shape the economy, thus the president is fairly responsible for the state that our economy is in.

hold on, wasn' t it your party that was saying that Clinton was so great for the economy and it was because of him and the Dem. party that the economy was up? interesting, well now you have 2 choices, 1) admit that both Clinton AND Bush where good for the economy and they had a direct impact on it, or 2) that the economy has come around because of the Rep. party controlling the national purse.

the tax break did a lot. you know the line of logic behind a tax cut right?

less taxes means people have more money, which means they buy more stuff, which means companies have more money, which means companies hire more people, which means more people have money, which means more people spend money, which means companies have more money, which means companies hire more people. i think you get the idea. tax cuts are good, every liberal i talk with says tax cuts are bad, they cant back up why its bad but they all just spout the same nonsense at me, which leads me to believe that ya' ll just dont understand economics or you just went to a different economics class than the rest of us did.

you can not point the finger at Bush for tax breaks. the tax breaks help in theory. however it is the companies decision to outsource jobs not the presidents.

besides, we ship the low paying jobs out of the country because they dont require an education. thus all the jobs in America pay more because they can be done only by specialists. yet again, more money for people means more money for companies and more jobs which means more money.

and what are we supposed to look at to know the economy is going up? the GDP is what you look at! what, am i supposed to look at the unemployment rates? cause its down by 2/10 of a percent from 8 years ago.

or maybe im supposed to take my shoe phone and just call up Allen Greenspan and go " hey Allen, just check' n up on how the economies doin' " . lol.

we say socialits because thats what it is. it is socialism. some of the terms you Dems like is Social Wellfare or social health care. it is socialism!

there were and are terrorists in Iraq! tey were there when we went in they were there before we went in and Bush said we would go after countries like that, he didnt need any approval from the people or the UN or anyone else. he had complete authority over the armed forces to take them anywhere he percieved there to be a threat.

No terrorist ties in Iraq? LMFAO!!! I guess the $10,000 Saddam was paying families to offer their sons as suicide bombers was in no way related to terrorism. This was all over the news in the summer of 2003 yet nobody seems to remember this.

We can also look now at all the suicide bombings taking place in Iraq at anyone who is American. All the beheadings, the shootings, the kidnappings... is that not terrorism?

Call911 is right on so many points. I actually like hearing Bush talk. His faults make him look more human. He comes off as a regular person. That is the type of guy I want in office, not a person that shows no emotion, faults, and is basically an actor.

I' d also like to throw in a laugh about the comment that tax breaks did nothing. That is hilarious. That' s like saying Greenspan has no control over the economy. Greenspan lowers interest rates to let people retain more money to spend on more things. This is what a tax break does. People suddenly have more money to spend and that boosts the economy. Recently we had such a boom in the economy, one not seen in a long, looooong time that Greenspan had to jack up the interest rates again because the economy was growing too fast. Our economy is thriving thanks to Bush.

You guys sound like your brain is tuned to FoxNews and your mouth is the speakers.

His tax breaks are helping the economy? Here are excerpts from a CNN article published today:

" From January 2001 through December 2003, 5.3 million long-tenured workers were displaced from full-time or part-time jobs they had held at least three years, according to a new report released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "

" ...65 percent had found either full-time or part-time work by January of this year, when the BLS survey was conducted. Another 20 percent were still unemployed and 15 percent were not in the labor force..."

" But 57 percent of the group who had lost full-time jobs and found new full-time work reported that they were now earning less than what they earned in their old jobs. Indeed, about one-third of those with smaller paychecks were being paid at least 20 percent less"

These are signs of your booms in the economy - give me a break. At least those tax breaks let them save money from their lower paying jobs.

Every shred of intelligence since we went into Iraq has said that no terror ties have been found. The 9/11 Commission and other Senate commissions have found nothing. But you guys know something that we don' t.

Bush makes you feel comfortable?!?!? The leader of the free world can' t answer a question unless it is prescripted and given to his speech writers and he can' t even read his teleprompter right. You are right though, I hate presidents that seem smart and competent too.

There are no ties between Iraq and 9/11. Iraq probably has been responsible for some terrorism here and there. But not 9/11. No WMDs. If he got rid of the WMDs across the border, there is no evidence that he did. Even Bush admits that.

taking out any country like Iraq is a good thing. At least there is less negative effects in the world. if u want peace you have to be prepared for war. i guess you Kerry people would let communist regimes thrive in the last century if you were leaders back then? wmd' s or not, Saddam out is a good thing. rather take them out before they get out of hand, for example, the news confirmed NK now has more missiles that could reach the US.

war costs money and depression. there' s no surprise that the US is in a situation of job losses after going to war. remember the Great Depression of early 1900s? if we can get through that we can get through this.

Bush is human, he makes mistakes. politicians need a few laughs here and there. anyways, we are smart enough to see through Bush' s mistake; we know what he meant.

Bush is not completely responsible for the economy. he makes plans and companies execute them. i believe he made a good thing or two to push the economy up. how else would you gain support?

As for the " would like same-sex couples to continue the lifestyle" , I don' t see what you are finding bad with that quote. Are you saying people can simply " give up" being gay?

yes, gay is not a disease, it' s a choice, if you' re attracted to the same gender, something' s wrong with you, you know it' s abnormal and you continue to live it, it' s a choice, a choice that people should not make. homosexuality is shameful, even animals mate with the opposite sex, you have intelligence lower than animals? shame on you

^ Wow Alley, that last remark was pretty archaic. If you think that being gay is a choice, why do people choose to be ostracized and hated by others who are heterosexual? Do you think that gay people like to be picked on and treated as sub-human? That has got to be one of the most ignorant remarks that I have eve heard.

Shame on you

About Bush, I agree that he was bad for his people and bad for society as a whole. But should we use military force, against the wishes of our alliesm just because we think that it is the right thing to do. Also, the president has a responsibility not to put his military force (young Americans with a right to life) in harm' s way, unless it is to protect the country from a true threat.

A country with a tattered military does not count.