Another religious crackpot thinks he can save the world.
Former prime minister Tony Blair has promised to “spend the rest of my life” uniting the world’s religions
God help us! Well, I would hope so if he existed, but as there’s no evidence that he does, it’s likely that he won’t (given that he’s done bugger-all for over two thousand years).
He said faith could be a “civilising force in globalisation”, bringing people together to solve problems such as malaria and extreme poverty.
Is that the civilising force that gave us the inquisition, holy war, the burning of heretics, the crusades, jihad, dhimmitude, killing non-believers, intolerance, refusal to effectively combat AIDS in Africa, and bigotry, then? Remember, Tone – they all think their way is the true way and they can’t all be right. It’ll be a bun fight.
Mr Blair, who is now a peace envoy to the Middle East, told Time magazine that religious belief had given him “strength” while in power.
Oh, Christ, God help us! Oh, I did that one already. The narcissistic bastard will be having visions next. Look where it got Saint Joan. On second thoughts…
Mr Blair, who recently converted to Catholicism, said: “Faith is part of our future, and faith and the values it brings with it are an essential part of making globalisation work.”
Never mind that many of us can get along perfectly well without it, this arrogant sod has decided that it is a part of our future. Well, sunshine, it is not a part of mine.
If Tony wants to believe in God, that’s fine by me. If others want to believe in Allah, Ahmun, Odin, Apollo, the flying spaghetti monster or whatever; that, too, is fine by me – just don’t tell me that the rest of us need this stuff; we don’t. And, what we really don’t need is some religious zealot on a mission from God to bring together religions that have little in common but their differences and the little matter that they are right and the others are all wrong. There is no need to bring them together (not that they will anyway, they haven’t yet). What is important is keeping religion out of politics. It is a private matter, it should remain that way.
I totally agree, and I’m a believer in the sky fairy (as a deist, not as a member of a particular religion).
Unite the world’s religions? What a joke. They’d start out with the idea that we’re all children of God, and then ten minutes later they’d be arguing over the exact meaning of the verse Hysterectomy 13:12, or even if it was relevant, given that the real prophet died centuries before the book containing it was written, therefore making it the Word of Man rather than the Word of God.
I personally always feel safer when our leaders are atheist or agnostic. At least then you know that they’re never going to start a nuclear war over something that they think that God has told them.
Do not worry my friend. Mighty Thor will crush Blair like a puny cloud giant.
Antipholus Pappss last blog post..Let’s Take The Piss!
Well, it’s not fine by me! These cretinous bigots are dangerous, and there is no such thing as non-political religion. As for Tony Blair, pass the sick bag, Cherie.
the flying spaghetti monster. Outstanding.
regards John gibson
Anticant, I’m pretty relaxed about peoples’ beliefs, providing they don’t proselytise and providing they don’t try to use legislation to make me comply with their belief system. Having read your piece on the deeply odious Mary Whitehouse, I can understand why you might take a less liberal approach 😉
I would like to think that Mary Whitehouse (and Ian Paisley, come to think of it) is a dinosaur of a more intoelrant age and we’ll progress but I don’t think we will. Man’s thirst for general bigotry and intolerance toward those who they see as ‘lesser’ is unquenchable. The Government are talking about banning anime porn now, for heaven’s sake…
John: Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is a recognised movement, don’t you know? See for yourself.
You are so right. The religion only separates the humans. Most Christian people are horrible. They are mean and gossip others, are highly intolerant and selfish. And the god is for me the symbol of evil! Just as you said there were so many murders in the name of god, that it is so hard for me to understand why is somebody still supporting that organisation for massacres.
And look what that religion thought us: we are the masters of nature and we can do what we want to do, kill and destroy everything we see, we can kill other people, who are other colour of skin (aboriginal, black slaves,…), because we do not know if they are real people and so…
Not less liberal, less tolerant – there’s nothing liberal about tolerating intolerance!
Mary Whitehouse and her husband were ardent supporters of the [American] Buchmanite Moral Re-Armament sect which, starting from the perfectly reasonable premise that sanctity and salvation were personal matters for which each individual must take responsibility, peddled in the 1950s an extremist McCarthyite diatribe against “Communism, Atheism, Subversion ]which they depicted as treachery to democratic values stemming from the first two]and Perversion [by which they meant any form of sexual liberalism].” The mainstream Church of England were well aware of the crankiness, bigotry and fanaticism of these people, and indeed commissioned an illuminatingly damning report about them. But when Whitehouse got up steam behind her campaigns, and became a very redoubtable and litigious operator, the bishops and more liberal clergy kept very quiet indeed.
Mary Whitehouse was no laughing matter. She was taken up by Margaret Thatcher [herself personally liberal on sexual issues] as a useful purveyor of the ‘lace curtain vote’, and for several years was the second most powerful woman in the country [not excluding the Queen].
Bad choice of words on my part.
John: Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is a recognised movement, don’t you know? Paul thanks. If I had not seen it I would never have believed it.
As a Christian myself I would be very wary of anyone coming forward professing God, especially those who believe that breaking the first commandment is ok to advance some perverse political/globalisation goal.
Whilst I cannot speak for Mary Whitehouse’s faith I can say that it should remain a deeply personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ; attempts to meld his teachings with global politics have ALWAYS met with disaster and compromise; no more or less so than what happened with Mary Whitehouse or what will happen with Mr. Blair, a man who has forwarded an illiberal, unchristian and evil agenda as any man in a generation.