Hitch, Blair, and the non-event debate on “religion”

A hat-tip to Doug in a comment in his post: Hitch, Blair, and the non-event debate on “religion”. The hats-off-in-respect is for this paragraph:

“Religion” is not only a slippery concept, but in this particular modern use is fundamentally also a secular one that assumes “religion” is one of a variety of activities or behaviours that humans can choose to engage in. That definition begs the question of the presumption of a neutral place to stand, it flattens to the point of absurdity the differences, say, between Islam and Buddhism, and it ignores the long-standing traditions of polemic against false “religion” in many major “religious” traditions

I've been trying to express all of that succinctly in a variety of fora for a good while, so I wanted to make sure I could find that bit again for future use. The only thing I'd want to do with it as of this moment is perhaps to expand a tad the 'neutral place to stand' bit to make explicit that the secular standpoints are themselves philosophical actors on a par with 'religion' in the public space.