Blairigion: the route of all evil?

I had the unfortunate pleasure of listening to a certain man being interviewed while traveling in the car for a brief period on Tuesday evening. Due to my utter fatigue of the Chelsea-Liverpool saga (got that one right!) I continued listening to the interview with one Mr T Blair and it reignited all the contempt that I have for the man. First of all there is the sheer arrogance of the man, not content with turning the Labour Party into a populist shell he seems to want to do the same to Catholicism. My first issue though is not with his attempts to 'reform' the Catholic Church, it is with the idea which he propagates that faith is somehow an essential part of what we as a country in our case, or the world in Mr Blair's case, can do to promote values that give us the peace, soundness of mind and cohesion that we all desire. Not withstanding the fact that Mr Blair lecturing on how to promote understanding between faiths as a way to a more peaceful and prosperous world is like a syphillitic old man writing a manual on the virtues of chastity, I take issue with the idea that this is the role of religion. As I earlier mentioned pretty much all of us share the values that we want order, tolerance and (at least for those on the left and centre right) a more egalitarian society. When listening to the likes of Mr Blair spouting about how religion plays a 'crucial role' in achieving this one is struck by the fact that it implies that somehow those that do not believe in some sort of deity somehow lack the wherewithall to possess human empathy, still less the drive to achieve it. Well I hate to break it to Mr Blair and his messiah complex but many people either do not believe in God, or do not hold him/her as crucial to their lives and yet still hold the moral values that he wants to espouse.
Before it seems as if I am being anti-religious I would say that although I personally am an athiest the same theory would apply to agnostics, or even to those for whom religion is a private matter. We have a universal code that promotes tolerance to all, even those whose views we disagree with, that holds that certain things are right and certain things wrong and that, when adhered to seeks to increase the pleasantness of the whole human experience. Of course our morality is not perfect, it is a strange mix of what were originally religious tenets, the work of various philosophers as well as plain biological common sense, but the important thing is that religion no longer plays a 'crucial role' in it. This should be our basis, not religion. One only has to look at the members of Mr Blair's own church, despite his 'modernising' efforts, and others who discriminate against homosexuals, and often in some denominations of Christianity those who do not believe that their exact word is the truth (Islam and other faiths have these tendencies too) . This to me shows that it is not religion to whom even the religious should be looking towards but universal humanist values, that some religions may share, but as often as not don't. In fact relying on our religious beliefs for moral guidance and understanding is a regressive step, we can get along without religion as a guiding force due to our greater understanding of science, politics, phhilosophy and ethics. It is time to relegate religious belief to the status it should have, that of personal belief. Our values may have come from religious practice but as Nietzsche said, first we sacrificed animals, then ourselves, now we must sacrifice God, at least when it comes to drawing up a worldview. So Tony, don't claim a special place for yourself or religion, and I can honestly say that you are below Didier Drogba on my radio preferences, and that does take some doing.