_{Tony Blair
'Face to Faith'
June 9, 2009
Photo: Leon Neal, WPA Pool,
Getty Images}

I've reached this conclusion after learning that Tony Blair is calling on all religions to "unite" against the evil forces of "secularism" and "atheists." Yes, atheists and secularism (which, by the way, is supported by both irreligious atheists and religious theists) are so awful in the eyes of Tony Blair that they must be combatted by the combined political, cultural, social, and economic power of all the world's religions. Just how scared are they of us?

The only people who think that secularism is a threat are people who support some form of theocracy. The only people who think that atheists need to be suppressed by religion are bigots.

"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.

Source: Times

This should sound familiar: it's almost exactly the same message that's been pushed over the past couple of years by Saudi King Abdullah. The Saudis have even hosted a couple of "interfaith" conferences designed to bring together represented from multiple religions and get them to work together against secularism, atheism, and the associated freedoms -- freedoms like the freedom of speech, used by people to criticize religion or to try to reform religion.

"I ask representatives of all the monotheistic religions to meet with their brothers in faith," Abdullah told delegates to a seminar on "Dialogue Among Civilizations between Japan and the Islamic World," according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

"If God wills it, we will then meet with our brothers from other religions, including those of the Torah and the Gospel... to come up with ways to safeguard humanity," he added. Abdullah said the country's top clerics have given him approval to pursue his idea and that he plans to get the opinion of Muslim leaders from other countries.

According to SPA, the Saudi king also intends to address the United Nations on the subject. "We have lost sincerity, morals, fidelity and attachment to our religions and to humanity," Abdullah said Monday, deploring "the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world - a frightening phenomenon that all religions must confront and vanquish."

Source: Christian Post [emphasis added]

What if Tony Blair's message read like this: "Arguing that there was "no hope" from Jews who scorn Christ, he said the best way to confront the Jewish agenda was for all Christian denominations to unite against it." How hard would it be for people to recognize such a message as stupid, dangerous, and bigoted? Blair would probably be criticized quickly and strongly, but that's because people today can recognize anti-Semitic bigotry for what it is. People have a much harder time recognizing or even caring about anti-atheist bigotry -- and few seem to have any comprehension of the dangers in anti-secularist politics.

For most atheists, simply not being religious and not participating in any overly religious rituals or activities is sufficient. For some atheists, though, there is the feeling that any connection with religion may be hypocritical and may only be serving to reinforce the assumption that religion is acceptable. They argue that it would be better to strip all religious aspects from their lives, otherwise, they can't claim to be leading truly irreligious, rational, and naturalistic lives.