The Doctor Is In

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Ron Suskind’s article in the NY Times Magazine, Without a Doubt, addressing the issue of the faith of George W. Bush, begins as follows:

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3. The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.

Just in the past few months, Bartlett said, I think a light has gone off for people who’ve spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he’s always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do. Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush’s governance, went on to say: This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can’t be persuaded, that they’re extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he’s just like them . . .

This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts, Bartlett went on to say. He truly believes he’s on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence. Bartlett paused, then said, But you can’t run the world on faith.

There is much to address and analyze in this lengthy article, and no doubt others better versed on the credibility of its sources, the speciousness of its evidence, and its use of unconfirmed hearsay and biased sources will rise to the debate. But I was particularly struck by one line which I believe embodies the heart of the article’s core thesis:

He truly believes he’s on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.

There is a name for someone who believes things for which there is no evidence: a fool.

Listening to the secular fundamentalists at the NY Times expound on the mind and heart of a man of the Christian faith is akin to a man blind from birth describing a rose: you are far more likely to hear about the thorns than the subtle colors and beauty of its petals.
 
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