The point is that she's gone to church basically every Sunday of all her years (she's about 70), claims to be a religious person, but doesn't know simple facts outside the tiny realm of her own denomination.

I'll easily admit to not being strong in the Catholic faith into which I was raised. However one thing I will say is the (all male) Catholic high school I went to did offer (require, actually) a comparative religions class so that each student got at least some level of understanding of religions and of major Christian denominations. I think they did a good job of it.

It was a good enough school that we had a good number of non-Catholics; At least one person in my year and one in the year before me were practicing Jews, and the one in the year before me rode my bus, so we got to see how many religious holidays he missed On the other hand, I didn't know any practicing Muslims while I was there.

Despite becoming considerbly more liberal than I was in those days, I'd probably consider sending my sons there, if I planned to have any. It was a balanced education, even the hot buttons: we talked about evolution in biology, and health class included sexual education which included but was not biased to abstinence as a means of birth control. I wouldn't go so far as to say college was of no use, but given what I'm doing with my life, the undergraduate degree I got will never be of much use to me, and the non-major coursework didn't really help either.

Oh, and high school was fun, whereas college crushed my soul. But now, instead of being "merely" off topic for the thread I am considerably off topic. Sorry.

Why does every political discussion on this BBS devolve into a religious one?

So religion is a lower order of discussion, eh?

Ideally, charities and faith-based groups will support those that cannot afford health care.

Do they get to discriminate? If it's a conservative religious organization can they discriminate against someone who got AIDS through homosexual activity? Of course, it gets better than that: can they ask about homosexual activity, if they don't know?

I went to private schools my entire life...the students there don't want to be taught any more than their public counterparts.

So did I (However, my school district's gifted student program was held in several public schools over the years I participated). My wife attended public schools in 2 adjoining school systems over her career. One of my SOs when I was in high school went to the public high school in my district. My impression, which I base only on interaction with other students inside and outside class settings and on discussions I had after I got to college, was that the education you got was what you made of it. Going to a "better" school was neither necessary nor sufficient to learn more. It also wasn't necessarily indicative of the level of support being offered at home.

- most of his evironmental programs are setup to encourage responsibility,

I see the exact opposite of his environmental programs. By weakening the programs, he's encouraging lack of responsibility. The role of a business is to make money, and it's easier to make money if one doesn't have any regard for the environment. No need to install any of those things like air filters. Take a look at the state of some of the towns in Texas that are nearby petro-chemical plants. Bush weakened the environmental laws there, and what happened? The environment got worse, not better, and corporations just blithely ignore the fact that they're destroying people's lives. His environmental programs are set up to return favours to the companies that help bankroll his campaign. Nothing more, nothing less.

- He endorses keeping Healthcare private

Having dealt with both private, and public health care, let me assure you, this is not such a good thing. In the two years I've been here, I've spent the last 8 months battling a huge, inefficient, and incompetent insurance nightmare.

- He endorses letting faith-based ministries take over some of the responsibility for welfare

The only way I can support the endorsement of allowing faith-based ministries take over parts of welfare is if all religions are included. Do you think GWB will be letting Muslim charities have a slice of that pie? Wiccans? Not bloody likely. What he's endorsing are Christian based ministries. Regardless, people in need should not have to be subject to proselytization to have their need fulfilled.

In the two years I've been here, I've spent the last 8 months battling a huge, inefficient, and incompetent insurance nightmare.

What makes you think they're inefficient and incompetent? They've successfully not paid you so far. That sounds pretty efficient to me.

What makes you think they're inefficient and incompetent? They've successfully not paid you so far. That sounds pretty efficient to me.

Actually, I refused to pay the bill, because it was supposed to be covered by insurance. I knew that if I paid the bill out of pocket, I'd never see my $1400 again. It got sent to a debt collector. There's a thread about it somewhere on here. It was eventually paid by insurance.