Thoroughly modern Millie--er, Davie

I've been thinking about the Modern Age (or, perhaps, the Postmodern Age--are we there already?). Despite all of its neurotic and crazy qualities, I think there's a lot to be said for modernity. In fact, I would go so far as to say that "traditional, old-fashioned" ideas about the world are often both dangerous and scary.

We live in a world that bases its understanding of the cosmos, human behavior, and social issues on (often bizarre) evidence and reasoning that sometimes dates back to antiquity. Want to know the right stance on gay marriage? Check the Bible! Need to know what the proper role of women is? Study the Quran! Will I have a good day? Read today's horoscope! After a while, one begins to see that our understanding of many things is not enhanced by tradition, but is, rather, very much messed up by tradition--by source material that is inevitably flawed, misguided, or downright weird in one way or another. (If some Bible passages don't strike you as weird, then I don't know what to say....)

For all of its faults, the modern intellectual world has at least offered a modicum of rationality to our knowledge of things. With the exception of some moral and ethical issues--which to some extent transcend time--I have become increasingly skeptical that "the ancients" have much to offer us in the way of "truth" at this point in history. And who can really blame those old farts? It wasn't their fault--they were operating off of a limited, embryonic data set. The gospels were written decades after Jesus died, and no one could "go back to the video." They didn't have microscopes back then, or carbon dating, or knowledge of DNA. And the planet did not possess an army of physical and social scientists who have explored just about every facet of existence. As "backward" and short-sighted as our contemporary thinking can be, I still think we are light years beyond the many generations that have preceded us. Christopher Hitchens makes a similar point when he writes,

"One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter is made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. . .Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion...." (God is Not Great, p. 64)

So I say, "Three cheers for the modern world! Thank goodness that I'm living in the 21st century, and too bad I won't be around for the 22nd!"