Las Vegas is a caricatured symbol for a culture that is full of mirages. It's what modern advertising is all about — the skillful promotion of mirages. Desert mirages appear to be water, which is desperately needed but they are an illusion — a trick of sun, heat, and sand. When you see a mirage, you head toward it, moving faster and faster, until finally, you plunge headlong right into it! But all you get is a mouthful of sand.
Advertising is the false spirituality of materialism, promising what it can never deliver.
— Jim Wallis, The Soul of Politics