ahh, the age old debate! filled with so many myths and over-simplified definitions and generalisations that all have one thing in common; they completely miss the point. It is really only simple high-school physics, but then I guess most people didn't really understand much of that either - especially the ones that ended up being interested in cars!

here are a couple of simple facts to get you started:
* torque is the (only) force an engine produces. It is the only useful thing an engine makes, everything else is a by-product.
* horsepower is not a force. It is not something you can directly measure from an engine or car. It is simply a measure of an engine's ability to do work with the amount of torque it generates. In real world terms, that rate of work is accelleration.

I won't try to explain it all, it's been done many times in a much better way than I can. Have a look at this article on torque and horsepower

there's not much accurate info on the internet and most stuff you read has to be taken with a big grain of salt, if not totally disregarded, but this article is an exception. Read it and think about what it is saying. Trust me, it is correct.