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Poll: Americans see faith's influence waning: A big change

Two-thirds of Americans think that religion is losing its influence on U.S. life—a sharp jump from just three years ago when Americans were nearly evenly split on the question, according to a new Gallup Poll.

Sixty-seven percent of Americans think religious influence is waning while just 27 percent say it is increasing. That perspective demonstrates a continuing downward trend, Gallup said. But the 27 percent figure is still higher than the record low, set in a 1970 poll, when just 14 percent of Americans thought religion was increasing in influence.

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Bush voices moderate faith views in interview: Doubts the Bible is literally true

President Bush said he doesn’t know if God wanted him to be president, doubts the Bible is literally true, agrees you can believe in God and evolution simultaneously, and believes Christians and those of other faiths pray to the same God.

On ABC’s Nightline program aired December 8, Bush said he is “not so presumptuous as to be God” in knowing whether God picked him to be president. “I’m not that confident in knowing the Almighty to be able to say, ‘Yeah, God wanted me, of all the other people.’ But, you know, did God want me to be president? I don’t know.”