True belief is not about blind submission. It is about open-eyed acceptance, and acceptance requires persistent distance from the truth, and that distance is doubt. Doubt, in other words, can feed faith, rather than destroy it. And it forces us, even while believing, to recognize our fundamental duty with respect to God's truth: humility. We do not know. Which is why we believe.

The good news about me is that my friends and social network is entirely independent of politics.

[Senator] Kerry [democrat MA] is emerging as the worst of all the viable Democratic candidates. He has the backbone of Clinton and the charm of Gore.

The one thing we know about torture is that it was never designed in the first place to get at the actual truth of anything; it was designed in the darkest days of human history to produce false confessions in order to annihilate political and religious dissidents. And that is how it always works: it gets confessions regardless of their accuracy.

[Bush Hating] undermines the good faith necessary for democratic discussion. Which is a large part of what people like Al Franken are all about.

If religion is about truth, why is it so afraid of error?

Bush has legitimized a huge expansion of the welfare state, liberalizing immigration, and using force for democratization abroad. All the next Democratic president has to do to finish Bush's hard work is to raise taxes to pay for it all.