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[displacedtexan]

GOD AND MAN AT TEMPE

14 minutes ago

Op/Ed - Richard Reeves

By Richard Reeves

NEW YORK -- I must admit that I did not expect the winner of all three presidential debates this year, Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), to list among his qualifications for the nation's highest office that he was an altar boy. But then this has been that kind of year.

The man from Massachusetts was forced into saying that during the debate in Tempe, Ariz., because the moderator, Bob Schieffer of CBS News, asked him his reaction to reports that some Catholic archbishops are saying it is a sin to vote for the Democrat because he supports choice on abortion and supports stem-cell research. If significant and mainstream churchmen had started that in 1960, John F. Kennedy never could have been elected. One argument for separation of church and state is that it helps clergymen avoid making fools of themselves.

snip

He (Bush) is certainly the most aggressively religious president of my adult lifetime, much more than, say, Jimmy Carter, who introduced some of us to concepts like "born again." If memory serves, I had heard the phrase only once before. I was sitting on an airplane, and the guy next to me said, "Are you a Christian?"

"Yes," I said. But I don't talk about it with strangers.

"Are you born again? Have you found Jesus in a personal way?"

I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought about saying I didn't know Jesus was lost. Forgive me. But I decided just to change seats.

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[acmavm]

1. The most dangerous human being is the one who wears his religion

on his sleeve. Religion is a personal issue, between you and God. Religion cannot be forced on somebody. Intimidation may bring a facade of religion to someone's actions, but in their hearts if they don't truly believe, nothing in this world can change that.

Hell, bush* isn't really religious. He's just a crazy person who justifies his actions by claiming that he is. Mother Theresa was religious, Ghandi was religious, the Dali Lama is religious, the Buddha was religious, etc. Nothing in bush*s personality in any way resembles the actions and spirituality of these people.

[grasswire]

2. gah

"The culture needs to be changed," he told the Christian editors. "People can understand what I'm talking about, changing the culture from one that says, 'If it feels good, do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else,' to a culture in which each of us understands we're responsible for the decisions we make in life. I call it the responsibility era. ... I can be a voice of cultural change."