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For a somehat light rejoinder to this queston, see http://michaelmoore.com/
17 reasons...while the topic couldn't be more serious, we can all use a little lightness; "Is it hot in here, or is it me?"

Looks like the page moved. It's now at http://michaelmoore.com without the trailing /17....

But now I'm staring at two coffee covered monitors...

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Sadly, I've been voting against the lesser of two evils since I was old enough to vote. If Loren thinks 16 years are bad, try nearly that many administrations--not that I actually despised them all---but it does appear that if anyone this great country produces has the sense and moral fiber to be a worthy president of it, s/he also has sense enough to have no desire to be one. Certainly, with the scrutiny of each instant of their private lives and beliefs that's now demanded, I can't imagine anyone with either holding such aspirations!

True - political ambitions should disqualify a candidate. Which means that probably the best way to select polititians would be a lottery - something like jury duty.

But this also illustrates another peculiarity of American political life: you actually don't have political parties as we in Europe understand them; it's more like two teams in continous play-off: tactics continuosly changing, players being traded, but essentially just two franchizes doing their lucrative job. We more or less have four or five slots across the political spectrum (demo-christians, social democrats, liberals...) plus some folklore; the difference is in conrete issues, and you pretty well know where each party stands. Granted, the situation is getting a bit more fluid recently on issues like social security, country-wide collective bargaining, immigration...

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Hillary will be here next election to make it all better...

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And Kerry was the one who publicly told a citizen (during the 3rd debate) that regardless of what his religious beliefs were, he felt it wasn't right to legislate them and force them on those who didn't agree. He was, granted, speaking to the topic of abortion when he said this, but I feel it would be fair to assume that smae concept would carry through to other religious beliefs.

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Especially given the fact that according to the Bible, nobody is born without sin, and therefore, one could assume, nobody is born innocent.

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So, Jeff, how many cells does it take before "life" comes flowing in?

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The most orthodox of the Jews will collect spilled blood and scraps of flesh because the feel the body must be whole to go to heaven.

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Especially given the fact that according to the Bible, nobody is born without sin, and therefore, one could assume, nobody is born innocent. Granted this comes from the non-Christian's knowledge of the Bible, though I have read it...

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So, Jeff, how many cells does it take before "life" comes flowing in? The most orthodox of the Jews will collect spilled blood and scraps of flesh because the feel the body must be whole to go to heaven. So when does life start? And do I need to keep my fingernails until I pass on? Please tell me.

Jeff acknowledged somewhere that this argument hinges on when you consider that human life begins. I could understand that someone with a notion of mystical "soul" being "breathed" into us making us distinct from animals believes that this happens at the moment two haploid cells merge their nuclei to form a zygote (however the idea of zygote with a soul might look strange ).

However, that is not the main problem I have with 'pro-lifers': as our kayaking psychologist Jean among others noted, right is doing nothing to lower the number of abortions: on the contrary. They try to supress sex education in schools (except "just say no"), withold money for condom popularization efforts (even as an AIDS-prevention measure), cut money from child care and other support for young single mothers.... And they continue to call pro-choice activists 'pro-abortion'. Liberals are not pro-abortion; abortion is the last resort, and only women involved know the emotional price of it. It is 'pro-lifers' who, in effect, are working to increase the number of abortions (and make them more dangerous for women). But they certainly have the best of intentions, so the consequences don't matter, right?

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Also, there is evidence that children who die are sent to Heaven

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You remind me of a local journalist, a nemesis of our Catholic church apparatus (which has strong political ambitions). The guy is very eloquent, experienced, extremely well versed in christian theology (among other things), and atheist. Always fights on their terrain.

Ummm.... Is that a good thing?

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Also, there is evidence that children who die are sent to Heaven

Evidence!? Please, Jeff, enlighten me (and when considering what constitutes evidence, keep in mind that I am by training physicist).

No insult intended, of course.

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You remind me of a local journalist, a nemesis of our Catholic church apparatus (which has strong political ambitions). The guy is very eloquent, experienced, extremely well versed in christian theology (among other things), and atheist. Always fights on their terrain.

Ummm.... Is that a good thing?

Err, isn't that obvious? He is my favourite.

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Well, that would be a picturesque combination, but I am affraid that USA is far from being ready for a woman president and non-white vice-president, even without the recent sliding to the right.

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Evidence!? Please, Jeff, enlighten me (and when considering what constitutes evidence, keep in mind that I am by training physicist).

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Sorry, that was a misstatement. To another Christian of similar beliefs, in context this would have been understood to mean "biblical evidenct", which means a biblical passage to support a theological belief.

I realized this the moment I fired the post, but decided to let it be. Sorry.

So, Dante was wrong?

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Although, hasn't Jesus taken care of the original sin?

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However, that is not the main problem I have with 'pro-lifers': as our kayaking psychologist Jean among others noted, right is doing nothing to lower the number of abortions: on the contrary. They try to supress sex education in schools (except "just say no"), withold money for condom popularization efforts (even as an AIDS-prevention measure), cut money from child care and other support for young single mothers....

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And they continue to call pro-choice activists 'pro-abortion'.

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Sorry, that was a misstatement. To another Christian of similar beliefs, in context this would have been understood to mean "biblical evidenct", which means a biblical passage to support a theological belief.

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Back again to the "we're not worrying about the life that's here, only the putative life to come" issue.

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I really admire your wide knowledge of our (USA; I'm with the Canadians amd Mexicans on resenting"American" as exclusive for us) history, political system, and issues.

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There is considerable evidence...

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...that high school kids graduating in Virginia, across the river from DC, can't name the last 5 presidents or the current vice-president (isn't THAT an appropriate play on words...), and that much of the rest of the country is worse, though at least the current polarization has waked a few people up....

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Hillary will be here next election to make it all better...

I'm a liberal. I already have some of my liberal friends saying "You know what? We should all hope that Hillary runs next time, and we can have a Clinton/Obama ticket!"

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I suspect you are funnin' with me.

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So, who do you think is going to win in Iraq?

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as compensation for banning tobacco. The savings in health costs alone would pay for this

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Work production would drop sharply

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I'll agree that the church has done a poor job of supporting its stance on abortion

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How contraception fits into this in your opinion?

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You seem to imply that there's one unified church.

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In fact, if I guess correctly, the single church organization you're a part of, the Southern Baptist Convention, has had severe rifts in it in the past couple of decades due to the conservative takeover in leadership.

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How contraception fits into this in your opinion?

I forgot to answer this earlier. Most protestants I know, myself included, have no problem with contraception (as it's pre-conception). The Catholic church has a tradition of being against contraception (except for "natural means") and I know of one protestant minister who is against it (he says he knows of only three others).

I have to agree, this does seem to be largely the domain of the Papacy and Catholic adherents, though certainly there are some more (conservative isn't really the right word, and neither is radical) Christians who keep their children out of health classes for reasons of/related to it.

I can tell you that before college I spent 13 years including kindergarten in Roman Catholic schools, (and nursery school at a Presbyterian church) and I was required in high school to take health class, and sexual health was part of that curriculum; A survey of world religions was also required during that 4 years. Biology was one of the subjects I didn't care for, so I probably didn't take as much away as i did from Physics or Chemistry, but I can also tell you that I don't recall a denial of evolution in my science classes.

In that regard, my religious education was perhaps more "liberal" than (if all the hype is to be believed, and I'm not sure it is) a public education in, say, Kansas.

Now, the flipside is I can certainly remember an opposition to abortion during that time as far as what we learned, and, at least in religion class, we were encouraged in the direction of abstinence. So in that regard, I guess it was rounded, a "here's how you should live your life, here's what you need to know about life" education.

The surprising thing is that during high school I had a corporatist, fiscally and socially conservative philosophy, which went against the current of the social justice type of class I took as a junior, and now, years later, I'm on the other side.

I am 31. In view of the quote variously attributed here I am heartless *and* brainless.

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This is probably another example of a wrong context word usage. "The church" is routinely used among evangelical Christians to refer to the overall body of Christ