In our present world, the cosmological and the sociological functions have been taken away from us. Our image of the cosmos is totally different from the image expressed by the religious traditions in which we have been brought up.
Likewise, the social order today is totally different from what it was in the days when these laws of Moses and so forth were composed. Today, we think of morality is something that human beings can judge, not in immutable truth handed down from the mountain: change the circumstances and the moral order changes.
. . .
These practical and scientific and sociological processes are riding along, evolving on their own, whether you like it or not. The basic psychological problems of youth, maturity, age, and death–and the mystical problem of the universe–these, however, remain essentially unchanged. Consequently, it is largely from the psychological standpoint that one can reinterpret, reexperience, and reuse the great mythical traditions that science and the conditions of modern life have rendered useless, uncoupled as they are from the cosmological and sociological reference points.
Joseph Campbell (Pathways to Bliss, 25)
