World religions are threatened by forces both from within themselves and from the wider world, said Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, today.

…

Christians and Muslims represent about half the world’s total population between them.

…

“Each was made to feel an outsider. Each stood out against the conventional teaching of the time. Each believed in the universal appeal of God to humanity. Each was a change-maker.”

…

“We face an aggressive secular attack from without. We face the threat of extremism from within.”

Arguing that there was “no hope” from atheists who scorn God, he said the best way to confront the secularist agenda was for all faiths to unite against it.

He said: “Those who scorn God and those who do violence in God’s name, both represent views of religion. But both offer no hope for faith in the twenty first century.”

(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6864775.ece)

Upon reading this piece, this came to mind:

We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture

— Rev. Ray Mummert (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/3/29/101723/142)

What Tony Blair’s saying is that religion is under attack. He’s then effectively conflating the damage done to religion by the non-religious with the damage done to religion by the religious extremists. The two are not equivalent. The key proponents of the non-religious attack on religion use logic, reason and observable reality to critique religion, its institutions and its pervasive influence in society. The key proponents of religious extremism use violence and intimidation in an attempt to further their own brand of religion. This conflation is, however, not a surprising tactic. Criticising religion has long been taboo and now that there are some who are more vocal in their criticism, many of the religious are worried that religion will lose its privileged place in ideaspace. This leads to people such as Tony Blair turning to tactics such as linking non-religious critics of religion to religious extremists in order that people will conflate them with each other: “Oh, they’re just like extremists, they’re not very nice or polite, so we shouldn’t care what they have to say.” It’s cunning, but it’s also repugnant.

Tony Blair also tries to paint the religious as a somehow marginalised group. This is another common tactic. It’s a way of spreading fear and creating a bunker mentality where it’s “us against them” and “they’re out to get us, so ignore everything they say because they’ve got an agenda”. Unfortunately for Tony Blair the facts don’t stack up. The religious are the majority of the world’s population. They have a huge influence on society and its institutions. They are not a marginalised group in society when considered in aggregate. Furthermore, the key proponents of the non-religious perspective don’t tend to argue for marginalisation of the religious. They don’t tend to argue for proscriptions against religion and the religious. They tend to argue for religion not impacting upon others lives where those others haven’t got a say in the matter. They tend to argue for secularism and evidence-based policy in terms of governance. Given that secularism protects those of all creeds and that evidence-based policy is best practice, these are not attempts at marginalising the religious. They are attempts at making sure the non-religious and those who are not of the majority religion in whichever country are not marginalised.

Tony Blair, just fuck off. You’re irrelevant and you always will be.

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