I don’t think that’s it. Or rather, I think that’s a side effect and not a root cause.

There have always been people who were positive that sometime in the past there was a wonderful Golden Age and that as we get further and further from that time, things get worse. It doesn’t matter if things seem objectively better now than they were a century ago, or fifty years ago, or whatever. What matters is that once things were perfect and now they’re not.

Christianity has made this a tenet of faith with the whole idea of The Fall. But the Greeks believed something pretty much the same and independent of the Hebrew scriptures. (I wonder sometimes if there was cross-pollination one way or the other, or if they both developed it independently. I could see it working either way.)

I personally think it comes from the fact that when we’re kids things are “objectively” better than when we’re adults. Most of us have few worries, our world is sufficiently small in size that there are few “mysteries” about it, and we have protectors who guard us from anything bad that could happen to us. As we get older we find out that the world isn’t like that at all, and to some degree with miss the security of that world. The more well off a society is, the more that attitude breeds. My suspicion is that the whole idea of a Golden Age and “times were better then” attitude is a projection of that insecurity onto the world as a whole.

(I’ve also noticed that the more conservative someone is, the more they believe that “times were better/simpler back then”. I think that’s just inherent in conservatism as a whole – they hate/fear change and want it to happen as little as possible. The past was better for them because no one argued about the stuff that people want to change now – everyone agreed with the “conservative” position. Hence better.)

I find it rather disgusting that the Clarion printed this letter, hoax or not, just to see what kind of reaction they would get.

Like some of you have said that it’s to prove a point, to show a miracle to the ignorant but why such a miracle that makes the so-called-god’s actions seem almost human? (ie human/animal drinking milk). If God started drinking milk like the rest of us then he must do a lot of other things that us humans do…then such a god is no less a human being than you and i are. Which boils down to the fact that God is far above human that’s why he’s God.

Those are just my two-cents. I chose not to disrespect anyone or their respective religions.

And I totally agree with Scott! “Let grace do the work, and be happy living what you know to be true.” I couldn’t have put it better.