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.

Blair wants to be Pope

At least, he seems to think that his "recent" conversion to Catholicism qualifies him to tell the Pope what to do.

He said: "Organised religions face the same dilemma as political parties when faced with changed circumstances.

OK - I'll go with that, go on, Tone.

"You can either A: Hold on to your core vote, basically, you know, say 'Look let's not break out because if we break out we might lose what we've got, and at least we've got what we've got so let's keep it'. Or B: You say 'let's accept that the world is changing, and let us work out how we can lead that change and actually reach out'."

Right. Let's see how that worked.

CofE - progressive views, dwindling membership. Catholic Church - entrenched views, soaring membership (including one ex-PM). Islam - entrenched views, soaring membership.

Labour Party - progressive views, dwindling membership. Tory Party - progressive views, dwindling membership. BNP - entrenched views, soaring membership.

Yeah - that really works, Tone.

Darwin's dangerous idea?

Over the last few weeks the BBC has been paying homage to Darwin as if he was the only person from the Victorian era who had an impact on the world. He wasn’t – indeed, his idea probably had less real impact than that of many others, but he is, quite probably, the only one whose idea progressives feel they can support.

They feel that way because it gives them a chance to rubbish the thing that they believe holds back their cause; religion - specifically, Christianity.

The trouble is, I don’t believe Darwin’s ideas do rubbish Christianity. If anything, his idea supports the Bible version of creation. It just depends on how you interpret it.

The first thing you have to consider is that The Bible version of creation was written some 3-5000 years before Darwin came along. As very few people even a hundred and fifty years ago had the slightest inkling of the concept of evolution it’s not surprising to find that those who wrote the Bible had even less – and yet they manage to describe it in surprising detail though within the context of the times.

It starts off with the basic idea that God created light. Well, we now think that the universe started with a “Big Bang” – but given the absence of anything for sound to travel through there would not have been a bang – just an awful lot of light. Am I the only one who thinks that for someone to have predicted that 5000 years ago was quite a remarkable achievement?

Perhaps they just got lucky. OK – well, next they say that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Impossible? Of course – if you think of “days” as earthly days. I don’t – instead I believe the “six days” were actually the six major eras which ended with mass extinctions. The seventh day is the modern era which will end with mans extinction – Armageddon. During this “day” God leaves us to our own devices until the time comes when we either blow ourselves to kingdom come or die out naturally.

Again, considering that there is no way that those who wrote the Bible could know about the six major eras and mass extinctions isn’t it natural that they would have put it into a context they understood? And it remains a remarkably accurate overview of the development of the universe and earth.

Still not convinced? Ok – how about the fact that the Bible claims that every living thing came out of the sea – including the birds and insects? We now believe that life did indeed first evolve in the sea and that even the birds and insects evolved from creatures that emerged from the oceans and took some first tentative steps on land for some reason. How did those who wrote the Bible know this?

What about the idea of Adam and Eve being the first man and woman? The Bible doesn’t say they were. Indeed, it clearly says they weren’t. What it does say is that Adam was the first man who God endowed with a “soul” – the first self-conscious, rational thinking human animal. Long before we get to the story of Adam and Eve we hear how God gave man “dominion” over the other creatures – and we know that humans were indeed exploiting animals for their own progression long before the Bible was written. The Bible also tells us that Cain – the surviving son of Adam and Eve – goes out and takes a wife. Where do you think this wife came from if there weren’t any other humans around?

Finally, there is the story of the apple and the “Tree of Knowledge”. You don’t have to be a scientist to work out that the “Tree Of Knowledge” is science. What the Bible is saying is that before we started to use science for advancement of the human race, God “provided” everything we needed – food, shelter and so on. As long as we didn’t use science we would be able to exist quite happily – but by no means as successfully.

As soon as Eve takes a “bite” out of the apple – she starts getting ideas. This is the point at which God says – OK, you don’t need me any more – you’re on your own son. The Bible suggests this was a reproach – but I believe that this was always what God intended. Much like a parent will care for a child, but always intends that that child will, eventually, make their own way in life without their parent.

The Bible gets it right on the “Big Bang”, the six “days” of the major eras ending with mass extinction and life originating in the sea. It also explains how the birth of science – starting with clothing – was the point at which God took a bow and left us to it – he rests on the seventh day and we are living in that day.

Sure, he makes a couple of other appearances to other people – basically to try and keep us on the right path just like any parent would – and when things get real bad he sends his son to remind us of what he is all about, but other than that God lets us pretty much get on with what we want.

Darwin’s dangerous idea? I don’t think he was the first to think of it.

He's in with the in crowd

Nothing gets a progressive liberals knickers in a twist more than someone having a go at one of their pet victim groups - ethnics, wimmin and gays. Thus we have Iain Dale getting all bent out of shape by the pope condemning homosexuality as "damaging to the future of the world as the destruction of the rain forests".

In defence of the pope, the statement is quite clever - i.e. it depends on how damaging you think the destruction of the rain forests is to the future of the earth to make a judgement on how damaging homosexuality is - some might say "not very", but they aren't likely to be liberals.

Dale wonders why the pope hasn't done more to root out homosexuals from the Catholic priesthood - conveniently ignoring the fact that Catholic priests are celibate so it doesn't matter whether they are gay or straight. Either way they can't procreate. But Dale makes this assumption ....

Perhaps he thinks it's OK as long as they keep themselves to themselves. Except that most of them don't.

.. and then goes on to make this leap of faith.

The trouble is that bigots like "His Holiness" (it's almost a joke writing those two words in this context) continue to believe that homosexuality = paedophilia. If you're gay, you must a) be promiscuous and b) be attracted to anything in shorts, no matter how young. He could not be more wrong.

So one minute he is saying that gay Catholic priests can't keep their hands to themselves, but then goes on to claim that it's the Pope who thinks all queers are kiddy fiddlers? Maybe Dale thinks it's something to do with the dog collar that turns ordinary gay men into unrepentant sex offenders - or the Holy Water maybe?

He also believes that homosexuality is a choice. It is not. It is in theory true that you can choose (if your resistance to temptation is stronger than most) not to practise it, but its existence within you is not a matter of choice.

All sexuality is a choice. It's the ability to choose that makes us different from the other animals. The "I was born that way" is the same argument used by paedophiles to justify their disgusting perversion and if Dale is seriously suggesting that we can not be expected to control our base sexual urges then we may as well legalise that (not that we're very far from that anyway).

Dale goes on to say "[t]he Pope is entitled to his view, and he's entitled to express it. But I am also entitled to say that I find his views repellent and disgusting." - well if the Pope were aware of who Dale was he might say the same thing about him, but I doubt that he'll be too bothered.

As someone who is totally ambivalent towards homosexuality I don't particularly care what people say about gays anymore than I care what anybody says about crocodiles. I'm not offended by the Pope's comments and I don't particularly care if he upsets Dale or anyone else by saying it - but what does bother me about Dale's post is the last line.

PS I do hope the LibDem bloggers who were so 'outraged' by my comment yesterday (see below) will be just as vociferous in their condemnation of the Pope's comments.

Hmmm - sounds like Dale is trying to win back some favour with certain people.

Who's a clever boy, then?

As a general rule I have a mistrust of anything which has the word "social" in it.

As soon as someone starts muttering about "social inclusion", "social cohesion" or "social justice" my inner self triggers a warning mechanism that tells me - beware, loony leftie about. It still amazes me that people are unable to equate people who talk incessantly about social this and social that as being social - ist. David Cameron is one of the worst offenders in that respect - always harking on about his "social agenda". Just admit it, Dave - you're a closet commie.

Anyway, nowhere does this mistrust of the word social manifest itself more with me than in the "social sciences".

It's one of the many peculiarities of this post modern world that if you stick the word "science" up against something then people suddenly seem to think it's factual, pertinent born out of solid research, empirical evidence and observation.

Don't get me wrong - some of it (far too little, in my opinion) is based on sound common sense, but the vast majority is just intellectual bullshitting. The trouble is a lot of people like intellectual bullshit and Daniel Finkelstein writing in The Times appears to be one of those when he discusses "social psychology".

[A]n intellectual revolution is under way that will change the way we think about public policy just as the free market economists did in the 1980s. I wonder whether one day soon a future party leader will turn round to his agent and say: “Finally, I've got it! Human behaviour.”

No shit! The trouble with human behaviour is, just as you think you have it figured, someone comes along to completely contradict you. There you are, post 1918, thinking we've had the war to end all wars and that the League Of Nations will ensure that nothing like that will ever happen again and then up pops up some turd with a tache. Human behaviour is such a bummer.

The breakthrough came with E.O. Wilson's controversial work Sociobiology, first published in 1975. Since then a number of academics, including familiar names such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, have illuminated aspects of human behaviour by explaining how they arise from our Darwinian struggle.

Brilliant! OK, never mind the fact that the "Darwinian struggle" itself remains an unproven hypothesis surely it's obvious that you can still draw valid conclusions from an erroneous starting point? If not, then the IPCC are in deep shit.

The second stream of thought is behavioural economics. For twenty years now, some economists have been looking at the psychology of economic decision-making. Instead of seeing humans as rational calculating machines, behavioural economists have been conducting experiments to assess how real choices are made.

Uh oh - I can see where this is going.

On paper, two alternatives may look economically identical. But the way that they are framed and the context will, in the real world, determine the choice.

Astounding. So this intellectual breakthrough consists of revealing that people make different choices depending on their circumstances. Did we really need anyone to tell us that? Nevertheless, Finkelstein thinks he's on to something here.

The most important step forward has come with David Cameron's correct insistence that social change is as likely, or more likely, to come through influencing behaviour as it is through regulation.

Yes, yes - go on, Danny boy - you're are getting there. And .......

[T]he work of social psychologists on the power of public commitments is entirely absent from the debate on marriage and on reducing delinquency; and our struggle to overcome our tribal instincts doesn't figure in the discussion of immigration.

Damn - he lost the plot again. For a start, there is plenty of input from "social psychologists" to the debate on marriage and delinquency. The trouble is, progressives won't listen to them because they tend have titles like "Bishop of York" or The Pope".

And the only people struggling to "overcome our tribal instincts" are progressives. Most of us just accept that that is human behaviour - always has been and always will be. It doesn't matter how much you struggle to change it you never will - and if you try then I guarantee that one day it will come back to bite you on the arse very very hard. Ask the people of the former Yugoslavia if you don't believe me.

Finkelstein has fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Taking something old, repackaging it before selling it on as "new and improved" and charging twice the price for it. You see, "social psychology" is just another way of saying "religion" and we've just had fifty years of progressive policy to eradicate religion and the moral authority, personal discipline and individual responsibility it provided from policy making. Now they've discovered it's essential?

Wow - aren't you the clever one, Danny.