I don’t necessarily agree with all of Steve Taylor’s points in his article, but these are spot on as far as I’m concerned:
…”Many of the world’s cultures have myths that refer to an earlier time when life was much easier, and human beings were less
materialistic and lived in harmony with nature and each other. In ancient Greece and Rome this was known as the Golden Age; in China it
was the Age of Perfect Virtue, in India it was the Krita Yuga (Perfect Age); while the Judeo-Christian tradition has the story of
the garden of Eden. These myths tell us that, either as a result of a long degeneration or a sudden and dramatic “Fall,” something “went
wrong.” Life became much more difficult and full of suffering, and human nature became more corrupt. In Taoist terms, whereas the
earliest human beings followed the Way of Heaven and were a part of the natural harmony of the Universe, later human beings became
separated from the Tao, and became selfish and calculating. Many of these myths make clear references to the hunter-gatherer way
of life – for example, the Greek historian Hesiod states that during the Golden Age “the fruitful earth bore [human beings] abundant fruit
without stint,” while the early Indian text the Vaya Purana states that early human beings “frequented the mountains and seas, and did
not dwell in houses” (i.e. they lived a non-sedentary way of life). The garden of Eden story suggests this too. Originally Adam and Eve
ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, until they were forced to leave the garden and forced to “work hard and sweat to make the soil
produce anything.” It appears that, at least in part, these myths are a kind of “folk memory” of the pre-agricultural way of life. The
agricultural peoples who worked harder and longer, had shorter life spans and suffered from a lot more health problems must have looked
at the old hunter-gatherer way of life as a kind of paradise.”…
