That old-time religion still draws us in

Our age is enamored of the new. There's an almost instinctive assumption among most of us that whatever is new is better. This presupposition, however, is of relatively recent origin. Most people, throughout most human history, have seen the world quite differently.

The idea of technological, social and moral "progress" — that human society is steadily advancing from brutish primitive antiquity to the modern Golden Age — originated only in the 19th century. Its origins can be linked in part to the fact that technological change is now progressing exponentially, so that a person born before radio, automobiles and airplanes can die in an age of personal computers, atomic weapons and space flight. Most earlier people would have lived their lives in precisely the same way their grandparents and great-grandparents had. Today we will all, in one lifetime, see the entire social and technological order utterly transformed not once, but several times.

Before the rise of this modern Cult of Progress, the standard assumption among almost all cultures was that God, in the primordial past, had established a pure, pristine set of beliefs and practices that had slowly degenerated over the centuries. The Golden Age of Mankind wasn't to be found in a future born of technological revolution, but in a dim, nearly forgotten past. This theory of "devolution" is reflected in the "Four Ages" or "Four Kingdoms" myth found throughout the world — among Persians, Aztecs, Indians and many others. In Greek mythology, to choose one illustration, the Four Ages are associated with the decreasingly valuable metals gold, silver, bronze and iron.

Much of the history of religion is intertwined with the search by great sages and prophets to rediscover and return to the primordial religion of the Golden Age. However revolutionary his ideas might have been in actual practice, for example, Confucius always claimed that he was simply reiterating the "Way of Heaven" which the ancient kings of China had understood and followed, but which rulers of his own age ignored. Similarly, Muhammad did not claim to create a new religion, but to restore authentic Islam —"submission" to God — the pristine religion of Abraham. In Arabic, "bid'a" means both "innovation" and "heresy."