I consider these associations of QOL improvements with mythical characteristics attempts of narrative control, with which religious leaders could exert power over new developments. My assumption is that previously, organised religions were powerful and agile enough in their narrative that those new development could be held in control of the religion, but with the beginning of exponential and distributed knowledge production they were kinda outnumbered and became as weird as they are today. I have no motivation or sources to back this up, though.