Now that he doesn’t need the evangelicals to get elected (and now that John McCain doesn’t need them either), George W. Bush can safely say the the Bible is “probably not literally true.”
In a recent interview on ABC with Charles Gibson, Bush freely admits that Muslims can go to heaven.
CHARLES GIBSON:Do Christians and non-Christians and Muslims go to heaven in your mind?
President Bush: Yes, they do. We have different routes of getting there.
Bush also that belief in God is compatible with the theory of evolution.
Here’s some advice for the next time fundamentalists try to get a politician to give assent to something absurd, such as their claim that the Bible, which is obviously riddled with contradictions and vague passages, is “literally true.” Or when fundamentalists who haven’t any inkling of the mechanism of natural selection, try to convince a politician that natural selection has no factual basis. That politician should tell such fundamentalists to go to hell.
The circumstances suggest that Bush is now speaking what he believes. Consider, though, the damage caused to science curricula by the fundamentalists over the past eight years. Consider also the massive number of harsh words spoken and written in our eight-year culture war.
Like the Iraq debacle, it could have all been prevented with a bit of honesty.
The president was asked leading questons about matters which to him are matters of personal faith and belief. He is not a theologian nor a hard core scientist, as he states it, "I'm just a simple president." I take that to mean he's not difficult to try to figure out and he doesn't have much to hide either. GW hasn't morphed over night.
Ask these same questions of Obama and you will propbaly get similar answers, as Obama says "There's still some questions above his pay scale." Not answering those type questions keeps people hoping one way or the other.
These answers are not new concerning President Bush, he is still evangelical whether you believe it or not.
I'm not defending President Bush, I don't believe every last word is literal either, I've said this before. There are often more ways than one to interpret passages, that means they can't all be context specific and literal, but the clear witness concerning the nature and character of man as well as the nature and character of God is true.
I'm asking that the DI readers get a little bit more of this in context, seeing as the approved writers still detest the man and his policies.
More from the Drudge Retort article:
But "evolution is an interesting subject. I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life," said the president, an outspoken Christian who often invokes God in his speeches.
Erich, you keep editing matters that you have every right to edit but which leaves me at a lose to comprehend your personal value system.
[Admin: Karl: I linked to the original sites which offer the exact quotes. Therefore, I chopped out redundancies and paraphrases.]
Erich you did quote, and you trust everyreader to read every link you give in its entirety. Bush presented a dicotomy in the statements he made. You should have indicated that more carefully in your original quote, that is what I was trying to clarify.
You know readers will not likely read links they agree with carefully.
I've found people only read links carefully when they diagree with the extracted "lifted" qoutes that don't sit well with them. People should look for the context of quotes, but you know they will cut and paste as they choose.
Errrm, the Accuracy Fairy told me the Charlie Gibson interview with the quote about Muslims is from 2004….
On the other hand, there are 2 different versions of W's "born again" experience, one involving Billy Graham and the other a more down-market evangelist called Arthur Blessit:
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/11/08/hou…
Both stories have been called into doubt.
Karl may be interested in this account of why Bush is not a bona fide born again because he committed the Unpardonable Sin while a student at Yale:
http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n1398.cfm
It's quite an eye-opener. Scroll down for the Unpardonable thing.