“ Things seem to be going backwards,” muttered Zeus. “Society was more liberal in our heyday than now. Your mortals seem to love taboos but the only real one should be challenging our existence.” I pointed out that this island paradise is not the only haunt of passéists clinging blindly to ancient tenets – but I had to admit that there are forces that keep harping back to a highly selective set of ancestral values.

Every society needs some form of universal values, transcending time and space, but even they are hard to define. In Athens, they were applicable to freemen citizens rather than women and slaves, and foreigners, however rich, were unable to buy local statehood. Mind you, selling passports is quite a clever dodge to bring in funds without having to kow-tow to foreign governments – although a couple of million dollars or more might better reflect the great advantage of holding a Mauritian passport. Whatever you’re selling, it’s worth putting a decent price on it, even if all you have to sell is your grandmother, which must be less taboo nowadays judging by the way some treat the elderly – and the growth of care homes.

Anyway, to please Zeus, let’s look at some deepseated taboos that high-income societies are fast discarding. Less than half a century ago, Ireland was the most religious-bound society in Europe but has recently voted to liberalise its stringent anti-abortion laws. It has also managed to get itself a gay Taoiseach, of mixed race to boot. Might be a while before all that happens here as politicos daren’t upset the might of sectarian lobbies and the religious right.

Abortion was accepted in both ancient Rome and Greece and throughout history has rarely been illegal. Religions love quoting sacred texts but even the Old Testament never condemned it on moral grounds. While it has passages that refer to abortion, they deal with it in terms of loss of property and not sanctity of life. The New Testament doesn’t explicitly deal with abortion. However, there is a basic question of when life begins, historically presumed to be when the foetus first moves (after four months or so or at birth). Not that that greatly influenced Ancient Greek attitudes, where even new-borns were sometimes discarded.

Logically, anti-abortionists should consider every sexual act a waste unless it’s an attempt to procreate. However, sexual activity has more purposes than procreation and modern science suggests that it’s generally beneficial. The gods, of course, simply can’t understand why scientists are needed to state what we all found obvious. At least, the main local religion is a bit more pragmatic on abortion, favouring the action that will do least harm to all involved.

Many religions still oppose any sex outside marriage, invented by society to structure family life, a not invaluable concept but hardly an immutable one. Some even go as far as to condemn birth control – despite the globe being destroyed by overpopulation. Ironically, the latest call is for parents to produce more children to support the economy but that may lead to more unemployable youngsters without a decent roof over their heads and no income to support them.

 Of course, having more children has always suited religios bent on increasing the number of their followers. What does it matter if those likely to have more children are those least well-equipped to look after them? It’s a topsy-turvy world in all respects, not least when a daemon is limited by time and space – but we’ll have a further look at some more enduring no-go areas shortly.