The State & our corporately-run consumerist economies rely on adherence to a specific framework of ideas for their functioning and very survival.

• First it is important that the majority of people agree (or rather don't disagree) that corporate profit maximization leading to economic growth should be the primary goal of industrial society.

• Secondly, we should believe (or be resigned to the idea) that our functioning as 'cogs' within this economical system is the best way of leading a worthwhile, fullfilled life. Ideally, we should believe that "success", as defined by society is critical to our happiness & well-being. This "success" should be defined in terms of "status" resulting from the accumulation of monetary wealth & material possesions, which inturn is made possible by conspicuous conformity to the economic system.

• Thirdly, we should believe that mass-consumption is the most sensible, sane and realistic means for finding happiness. Because this consumption neccessarily involves consumption beyond the necessities of life, mass consumption is required to emphasize the desirability of status prouducts and luxury. Once again it is vitaly important that we come to believe that status & luxury are the key to happiness.

Fourthly (and perhaps most importantly), the system has an interest in our believing that we freely choose these goals. The level of effort required to maintain a complex technological/industrial society will be forthcoming only where the mass of people firmly believe they are freely persuing their own happiness (no one should believe that they are persuing their happiness under duress). The increased efficiency of this system over the totalitarian alternative (of the former Soviet Union, for example), resides precisely in this notion of voluntary participation in, and (ideally) dedication to, the system for personal gain. In the end, this system depends on the notion that freedom from coercion is commensurate with full freedom, that free decisions can meaningfully be made under conditions where the powerful institutions of society have the ability and motivation to manipulate what we think.

It does not matter that dedicating our lives to the service of this system makes us angry, miserable, sick and isolated. The collective systemic power that requires us to live self-destructive lives is usually sufficient enough to make us supress both our own doubt and that of those around us–an infinately more effective system of control to totalitarian force.

Fundamentally, the overriding goals of this system require that we accept its values, that we fail to seek better alternatives, that we fail even to see the existence of a problem to be solved, that we therefore live according to an entirely inadequate set of values, that we therefore live in complete confusion, that we therefore suffer profound and devastating psychological, physical and environmental dis-ease; that we suffer and, if necessary, die for profit.

Extracts from Free To Be Human, by David Edwards, Green Books, 1994

With its naive, unyielding emphasis on the empty, pointless nature of existence, on the lack of all meaning, on the lack of all intrinsic value in life, the world and the universe–atheism has provided the ideal religious dogma to fuel the infernal fires of consumerism and rampant industrial 'progress' over the last 150 years.

Of course, we like to imagine that the cold light of hard science and technology has shooed away all the shadows of earlier, 'primitive'. superstitious thinking. No chance: the idea that we are really just machine like lumps of meat, that the world is just a resource to be consumed, are superstitions clutched with fanatical conviction by all with an interest in promoting mass-consumerism and the illusion of progress. For these social goals require maximum consumption, and maximum consumption requires maximum belief in ourselves as fleeting, uncomplicated, 'lumps of meat' who may as well satisfy our physical needs, desires & lusts as soon as possible, for as long as possible, because beyond the neon-lit room of self-gratification, there lies only an abyss of dark despair. Like so many superstitious religions, the false religion of consumerism lures us with the promise of 'heaven' through consumption and threatens us with the hell of desperate emptiness beyond.

The young today are quite literally warned not to think too much, not to go 'to deep', not to be too serious, not to place the cares of the world on their shoulders, because their parents and peers really have been persuaded to believe that, beyond consumerism, there lies a sort of dark hell of meaningless and desperation. Self-gratification through consumption is seen as a sort of existential life jacket. It is commonly expected that any deep thought will end in depression, suicide or madness, that the devil of desperate reality will pounce on our sinful, non-consuming souls.

'Progress'–which has come to mean little more than the progressive satisfaction of desires–demands a zealous commitment to, and total faith in, the value of immediate self-gratification in the name of the rhetorical question 'Is there more to life than 'fun?' Anyone who has been condemned for being concerned with subjects deemed a bit serious', or 'deep', knows what it is like to be a heretic. Faith in fun and the self-gratification of desires & lusts is every bit as religious, every bit as irrationally fanatical as any belief in a Cosmic Father Figure or Cosmic OverLord. Indeed, as we have said, it is utterly convinced that it is not belief, but the final, unsentimental, rational truth beyond belief–'we are just machines, so we might as well get on with consuming as much as we can'.

By encouraging us to abandon all philosophical and religious speculation and get on with the day–that is gathering our corporately-grown rosebuds while we may–atheism creates the perfect void into which the philosophical muzak of 'progressive' corporate consumerism may enter. To hell with the possibility of expanding human freedom through radical doubt, to hell with the possibility of expanding human freedom through simple living, loving, meditation, creativity, abstinence and , above all, radical, unlimited questioning; to hell with the sense of wonder at this universe–atheism gives us permission to abandon this escapism and furiously seek the pleasure, fun & excitement of consumerism in the short time left to us.

Agnostics, quite reasonably, propose, that we cannot know the truth of life, but atheism goes much further–it demands meaninglessness, and this, as formulated by modern society, turns out out be a simple recommendation for irresponsible, immediate gratification. The combination of atheism & consumerism was bound to lead us to the modern environmental crisis, because according to its credo, nothing matters beyond the moment (actually, not even the moment matters, but at least the experience of pleasure offers some distraction).

To be convinced of this can only be viewed as a sort of sickness, a madness; it is impossible to imagine that any civilization, any species, could survive for very long believing this en masse. To empty life to this extent is to create a giant hollow centre in human culture that must eventually collapse under its own weight; much as a star, having spent its nuclear fuel, can collapse under the weight of its own gravity. Assuredly this point will be reached when modern consumerism, having eaten the heart out of its inhabitants & the environment, will become a 'supernova', collapsing under the weight of its own frivolity.

We see all around us people who do not care about anything–the great issues of religious, philosophical, political and economic life, the present, the planet, the future, themselves, or others. This is not merely passive indifference, it is a religious stance. Atheistic consumerism, as espoused by the social conditioning system (through endless adverts, films, TV shows, magazines, newspapers etc) has convinced us that it is sentimental fantasy and even dangerous to think to deeply, to care about the world.

Extracts from Free To Be Human, by David Edwards, Green Books, 1994 pp69-71