Consumerism is the new opium of the masses

Religion, as Karl Marx once claimed, was the opiate of the people.

What he was trying to say is that religion fills a void in people's lives when they become disaffected and disillusioned - unhappy - and creates an "illusion" of happiness.

Of course, Marx, being a revolutionary atheist, didn't understand that what religion - or, specifically, Christianity - actually did was provide the comfort and contentment through which people attain real happiness rather than an illusion of it.

However, in our modern world where Christianity has been all but abolished by secular atheist militancy, it is no surprise that people turned to other things to try and fill the voids in their lives and provide the contentment and comfort which leads to happiness. And, as is the way of the modern world, the people didn't turn to something which requires thought, discipline and time but turned instead for quick fixes.

For a lot of people that means real drugs - hard drugs - but for many millions more they use something else. They use the quick fix of consumerism. Go out and buy something and, for a brief, fleeting moment you will attain happiness. What else explains the reaction to the launch of Apple's iPad - with people queueing up overnight to buy one and describing themselves as "elated"?

It's a quick fix to a problem that won't go away. The "high" induced by buying something new will quickly wash away and the consumer junkie will be compelled to go out and find their next "fix" as they search for that elusive peace and contentment which so many people find is missing from their lives.

Consumerism has become the new opium for the masses - but unlike religion which really can provide comfort and contentment, consumerism creates a truly illusory delusion of happiness and one which requires ever higher dosages to fill the void. It is also certain, ultimately, to fail.

As a nation we've turned to consumerism as a quick fix to the problem of attaining happiness. We build our temples in the form of out of town shopping malls - ever larger, ever more grand - and worship at the altar of our new gods - Ikea, Next, Sony and so on - every Saturday and Sunday. We give generously of our wealth in return for a shiny, new possession which we will display and worship at home.

Welcome to the new secular atheist religion - the new opium for the people. Unlike Christianity, it won't help you achieve happiness and you'll end up deep in debt, but at least you'll be able to be miserable comfortably. For a while, anyway.

We live in strange times

Liz Hunt on The Telegraph recounts an unsubstantiated anecdote to explain why she thinks nurses shouldn't offer to pray for sick people.

Caroline Petrie, the community nurse who offered to pray for an ailing pensioner, has failed in her duties, and the Royal College of Nursing is wrong to back her in the forthcoming disciplinary hearing.

Failed in her duties? Because she cared about someone? As far as I'm aware there was no question of Ms. Petrie providing an insufficient level of care - which, as a nurse, is her duty. Hunt uses her own experience as a "pre-registration student" at a teaching hospital to explain why she thinks this is so.

Each of us "pre-regs" was assigned a mentor. I was lucky: "Martin" was a dedicated pharmacist with a wide breadth of therapeutic knowledge, and a warm way with patients. I looked forward to shadowing him on the wards each week, as he blended anecdotes from his career with knowledge about drugs that is acquired only through long experience in a clinical setting and never from a textbook.

Of course, Martin had my respect, too – until one particular day. A theatre nurse arrived at the dispensary hatch with an emergency request for a drug used to terminate pregnancy. Martin, the most senior pharmacist present, went into a very public melt-down, refusing to dispense the drug because "I'm a Catholic and abortion is not something I can condone".

I'm not sure how old Liz Hunt, but it sounds as if this took place quite a long time ago. If it is true and had been a relatively recent thing then we'd surely have seen poor old Martin spread across the front pages of The Grauniad and Independent by now.

I understood Martin's conflicted feelings – I'd spent seven years at convent school. What I didn't understand was him putting his religious principles before the wellbeing of his patient, and insisting on such a grandstanding fuss about it all. The man I had thought of as the ultimate professional had failed in my eyes – just as Caroline Petrie has done.

Hmm - putting "religious principles before the wellbeing" of a patient, eh? Well, let's just consider the case of Ms Petrie in respect to this anecdote. Ms Petrie at no time failed to provide the level of nursing care required as far as I understand it. She showed exceptional levels of concern and care for her patient to such an extent that she offered to say a private prayer for the patient if they so desired. That person wasn't the least bit put out by that - but someone else, not the patient, was.

So, what we have is someone - not the patient, nor the nurse involved - having a "meltdown" and putting their "religious principles" ahead of the wellbeing of a patient just so they could score points for being more diversity sensitive.

And Liz Hunt thinks that is OK?

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has been in hospitals and care homes and seen patients left sitting in their own excrement for hours at a time - probably because the nurses and carers were all busy with diversity training - and I have many personal anecdotes I could share about the level of care my father received and the way his dignity was stripped away in the last days of his life, but those are private and are staying that way. Let's just say that my father's lifelong belief in the NHS failed him the one time he actually needed it.

But what really annoys people like Liz Hunt are people who pray. The world really has gone mad.

Ranting Stan's Slogan Contest

A new atheist promotion will see buses on London streets bearing the slogan "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Apart from the fact that claiming that there is "probably" no God as opposed to "possibly" is something which even Einstein and Darwin would not subscribe to - they preferred agnosticism rather than atheism as they believed, rightly, that there was just no way of knowing. And as the chances of the universe happening, this planet forming and going on to bear life all by accident are so indescribably remote as to be virtually none, the assertion that there was "probably" no Creator is a massive assumption.

The thing that bugs me about it far more than any of this is that the claim goes against every liberal progressive doctrine. Using this slogan as a guide you could come up with many equally or even more pertinent statements.

For example - "You're probably not going to crash your car today, so don't wear your seat belt and enjoy the freedom."

Or - "There probably isn't a paedophile waiting at the school gates, so stop worrying and let little Tommy walk home all by himself".

The point is that it in a sane world, it would be every one's right to make their own mind up about these things - but liberals insist on imposing their rules on us. So they make us wear seat belts in cars and crash helmets on motorbikes even though we probably won't crash.

Anyway - a prize* to the commenter with the best slogan along the lines of the British Humanist Association's anti-God slogan that demonstrates the hypocrisy of liberal progressives.

* There probably isn't a prize, but stop worrying and have a go anyway.