Tony Blair: world needs more religion

[Are_grits_groceries]

For those who wondered why a seemingly intelligent person like Blair was so close to Bush, here it is. The man who helped launch a war that opened up religious strife in one of the most tense areas in the world is back to lecture us on the need for more religion. Great. After the last eight years of religion being shoved down our throats, this is the last thing I want to hear from a Western political leader. The upside is he's out of power so there's only so there are limits to how much time he gets in the news. Go pray for someone else and keep me out of it. Keep your damned religion out of my government while you're at it.

Tony Blair gave an extraordinary speech about the global importance of religion yesterday, telling an audience which included the newly-inaugurated President, Barack Obama, that faith should be restored "to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future.

http://www.americablog.com/

Tony seems to have wandered close to the edge of the Earth. Bush and Blair - God's Governors
I think they actually were trying to start the Crusades again.
Starkers they both are!!

[Donnachaidh]

1. There's no better way to control the mob, than with the shackles of religion

Welcome to the New Dark Ages.

[elleng]

6. 'Opiate of the people,'

I recall someone said.

[Kolesar]

2. Is lying a venal sin or a mortal sin?

(In the context of petro-imperialistic warmongering)

[karynnj]

20. By his own church's definitions, he agreed to an unjust war

In early 2003, the Pope, who he considers infallible on religious issues, said invading Iraq would not be a just war. The invasion occurred when there were still potential diplomatic opportunities and the inspectors were succeeding in getting unprecedented access. This was not a war of last resort. (A war not being a last resort is one condition of it being a just war - which is why making the statement that the war was not a last resort is about as strong a statement you can make other than to just say it was immoral or not just.)

[ladjf]

3. Maybe Blair was just crazy all along. nt

[Dennis Donovan]

4. I was just about to post: did he have a nervous breakdown at some point?

:shrug:

[WCGreen]

5. Mind control to Major Blair....

You know, I really thought we were getting beyond silly superstition as we approached a new millennium. That we would let rational thought usurp the irrational minds of the true believers. That people would not turn a blind eye to all the scientific evidence of say the age of the world.

But I guess I was wrong.

[Neecy]

24. excellent Space Oddity riff

[SoCalDem]

7. World:..We need less Tony Blair,,n/t

[RTFirefly]

8. Irony: Al-Qaeda likely agrees.

There's just that pesky detail of who's religion the world needs more of.

[marmar]

9. The world needs less Tony Blair......

n/t

[LeftishBrit]

26. Too true!

And Britain could have done without ten fucking years of him...

[riona]

10. Sure thing.

We could use a few more wars over religion. :crazy:

[ixion]

11. No Mr. Blair, we need sanity, not the converse... and you, sir, belong in the Hague

because despite all your 'religion' your remain nothing more than a war criminal.

[Ganja Ninja]

12. Yeah the worlds just not superstitious enough.

:argh:

[terisan]

13. Then why are we expanding the Faith-Based Initiatives Office and putting it in the White House?

Blair joined the Catholic Church after he left office.

I am not concerned about Blair . He is not in office anymore . I am concerned about Obama's White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Initiatives and the guy who is in charge of it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. And he attacks secularism, linking it to religious fundamentalism

Today, religion is under attack from without and from within. From within, it is corroded by extremists who use their faith as a means of excluding the other. I am what I am in opposition to you. If you do not believe as I believe, you are a lesser human being.

From without, religious faith is assailed by an increasingly aggressive secularism, which derides faith as contrary to reason and defines faith by conflict. Thus do the extreme believers and the aggressive non-believers come together in unholy alliance.

http://tonyblairoffice.org/2009/02/full-text-of-tony-blairs-speec.html

Chicken Yoghurt has got it right:

How about this:

It is that humbling of man’s vanity, that stirring of conscience through God’s prompting, that recognition of our limitations, that faith alone can bestow.

Where was the humbling of vanity and the stirring of conscience and the recognition of limitations in March 2003? Bound and gagged in the basement to stop them getting near a bible, presumably.

[trotsky]

16. Again the old triangulation scheme.

Gotta love the reasoning - "Religious fundamentalists are bad, but really they just believe in religion strongly. I believe in my religion too, but I know I'm sensible. Therefore there is another extreme, the EVIL SECULARISTS who are the polar opposite of the religious fundies, which puts me right in the sensible middle where I knew I was. Ta-daaa!"

When Blair can point out one of these secularists who's done anything like 9/11, an abortion clinic bombing, etc., maybe he'll have the inklings of a point.

[bdamomma]

15. oh crap, Tony Blair STFU

[madrchsod]

17. tony`s been "religious" for years

it`s just no one realized he was....

http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2009_01/blair.html



is it any wonder why england has become orwell`s vision of england in his novel 1984?

[mwb970]

18. Religion is the most corrupting, corrosive force in the world today, and always has been.

You don't have to read very much history to realize the damage to the human condition done by our insistence of making up and then worshipping different false gods than the folks over the hill. (You see, then we have to kill them.) As an evolutionary experiment, humanity is fatally flawed by whatever part of our makeup turns so many of us into religious fanatics. When we become extinct, it will be because of religion, I guarantee it. Hopefully the next creatures to emerge and dominate the earth will sort through the rubble and figure it out.

[pipi_k]

31. Cockroaches...

I've heard for years that cockroaches would likely be one of the few/the only creatures left if mankind ever managed to blow the world to shit.

If they're smart, they'll stay away from religion altogether.

[Solly Mack]

19. ffffffffffff

fuck blair

[bermudat]

21. What he really means is that the world needs 'his' religion.

[ShortnFiery]

22. Yeah, Tony. You go ahead and have "an Opus Dei" - I don't want THAT.

:evilgrin:

[Hubert Flottz]

23. "faith should be restored"

A hell of a lot of people had faith that Bush and Tony were telling the truth about Iraq but we see now that they were liars.

Tony has a hell of alot of blood on his greedy hands, just like the neoCons do.

[Odin2005]

25. Me: World needs LESS religion.

I hate bigots that think us non-believers are the cause of all the world's ills. At least Obama respects us non-believers, unlike War Criminal Tony.

[LeftishBrit]

27. Sigh. No it doesn't - at least not in public life.

The mixture of religion into politics just encourages war and violence. "My God can beat up your God! BOOM!"

[FarCenter]

28. I would agree, so long as the religion is Buddhist

They probably have the best record of not killing other people.

[gabby garcia]

29. world unfolding

a thousand slings and arrows
aimed at a world unfolding
will not change the change
we're facing ..


learn to live without the
pieces of your life
that have no meaning
but to drag you in the mire


there is a creed
a moral if we glean it
and can come together
minus gods and fear


a thousand slings and arrows
aimed at one world unfolding
will not change the change
we're facing ..

[NeedleCast]

30. More Christian Persecution Complex