D.A Carson has a helpful comment on ‘plausibility structures’ – patterns of thought that are taken for granted within a given culture – and how these change over time:-

As western culture progressively drifts from its Judeo-Christian heritage, new challenges to accurate and forceful communication are erected. It is sometimes helpful to think in terms of ‘plausibility structures’. A plausibility structure is a social structure of ideas that is widely taken for granted without argument, and dissent from which is regarded as heresy. For a long time the plausibility structures of our culture were in large measure Christian. It was widely accepted, without debate, that there was a difference between right and wrong and between truth and error; that human beings have been made by God and for God, who will one day be our Judge; that God sets the rules; that he sent his son Jesus. Even if people were a little fuzzy as to who Jesus was or what he did, these were among the ‘givens’. Today, however, as empirical pluralism develops, there are fewer and fewer plausibility structures in most western nations, but the ones that remain are tenaceously held. And these are anything but Christian: no religion is superior to any other religion; God exists primarily for my satisfaction and fulfilment; God is so much a God of love it is unthinkable that he could be angry; all religions say much the same thing anyway; religion is not a matter of objective truth but of subjective faith.

Carson, in When God’s Voice is Heard (eds Green & Jackman), 153f