Whereas the nations of the world believe that man was created as an ape and has only been improving since then so that the further back in time you go the worse it was, we feel the exact opposite; the further back we go the BETTER it was.

Throughout the generations those who did not keep the Torah have always had this distorted perception about "old-fashioned" Jews living in the dark ages who persist in clinging to their outmoded ways and do not want to see "the light of day" i.e. live a modern life; to them religion was considered to be the opiate of the uneducated masses.

All those "enlightened souls" never understood that the only way for a human being to be "human" was if he kept the mitzvos as laid down by the Torah - seven mitzvos for the b'nei noach and six hundred and thirteen mitzvos for us Yidden. Without that there is nothing to stop a human being from doing whatever he pleases to the detriment of all those around him.