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Religion is a force for good - Tony Blair

4,932 views · Published 2 March 2014 · 7:14 · Indexed 12 November 2026

Channel: RighteousLiving40 · 2014 · Education

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Blair (Edited & Shortened): It is undoubtedly true that people commit horrific acts of evil in the name of religion. It is also undoubtedly true that people do acts of extraordinary common good inspired by religion. Almost half the healthcare in Africa is delivered by faith based organisations, saving millions of lives. A quarter of worldwide HIV/AIDS care is provided by Catholic organisations. There is the fantastic work of Muslims and Jewish relief organisations. There are in Canada thousands of religious organisations that care for the mentally ill or disabled or disadvantaged or destitute. And here in Toronto, barely one and a half miles from here, is a shelter run by covenant house, a Christian charity for homeless youth in Canada. So the proposition that religion is unadulterated poison is unsustainable. 
That people are inspired to do such good is the true essence of faith in serving and loving God, through serving and loving your fellow human beings. The values derived from this essence of religious faiths offer to many people a benign, positive and progressive framework by which to live our daily lives. Stimulating the impulse to do good, disciplining the propensity to be selfish and bad.
If faith is seen in this way, science and religion are not incompatible. Rather science educates us as to how the physical world is and how it functions, and faiths educates us as to the purpose to which such knowledge is put, the values that should guide its use, and the limits of what science and technology can do not to make our lives materially richer but rather richer in spirit.
I say that a world without religious faith (in its essential form) would be spiritually, morally and emotionally diminished. I ask you not to judge all people of religious faith by those people who have used religion to do terrible things any more than to judge politics by bad politicians or journalists by bad journalists.
The question is, along with all the things that are wrong with religion, whether there is also something within it that helps the world to be better and people to do good, and I would submit there is.

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