Religious consciousness in the modern world. Religion and religious consciousness

The existing world is inexhaustible in its diversity, but at the same time it is united in its integrity. Both religious consciousness and science are a reflection of the same objective reality, which ultimately constitutes the only object of consciousness. However, the explanation of the world by science and religion in the process of history turned out to be directly opposite.

The main content of a religious worldview is the recognition of a supernatural force that creates and governs the world. Religion opposes the scientific principle of determinism, the universal causality of natural and social conditions, the pattern of development of material reality, with faith in a miracle, that is, a phenomenon that contradicts the natural course of things, occurs contrary to the laws of nature as a result of the intervention of the supernatural and is incomprehensible to the human mind.

Studying reality, science forms its provisions in the form of hypotheses, theories and laws. Religion forms its provisions in the form of absolute truths. Changing forms leads to changing religions.

The truth of scientific propositions is confirmed by sensory perception, rational analysis, and testing in practice. At the same time, not a single religion can withstand such a test; its main provisions are taken on faith.

The rational role of science as a way of cognition increased immeasurably in the 20th century. And it continues to grow. But the increase in knowledge about the world around us did not lead to the automatic withering away of religion, as was believed from the point of view of the Enlightenment. The interaction between science and religion turned out to be much more complicated. Nowadays, there is an increasing demand not only for scientific knowledge, but also for a moral assessment of this knowledge, especially in the field of human activity, where humanity is faced with acute environmental problems.

In the modern era, theology is undergoing a rethinking of the relationship between science and religion, the relationship between knowledge and religious faith. At the same time, theologians express different points of view on this matter. The most common theological views on the essence of conflicts between science and religion. The opinion that the cause of the conflict is the church itself is based on a statement of misunderstanding of the Holy Scriptures, in which God gave man the right to rule over the world and thereby obliged him to engage in science and to understand the world.

The most common point of view among theologians is that both science and religion are the culprits of the conflict. Here the cause of the conflict is seen in the fact that scientists and theologians have crossed the boundaries of their research and invaded environments where they are not able to express a competent opinion. Scientists, studying the laws of nature, no longer take moral responsibility for the social consequences of their scientific discoveries. From a theological point of view, the church could become a “moral arbiter” in the process of introducing new technologies into production.

In modern theology there is the idea of ​​the possibility of religion and science complementing each other. The basic premise of this idea is that scientific research is based on the principle of causality, while religious interpretation is based on belief. Since human life is not divided into separate parts and is experienced as an integral, interconnected system, therefore science and religion, from the theological point of view, can complement each other.

In theology, there are also attempts to identify science and religion. The main argument is the thesis that both religion and science, in understanding the world, use concepts that are a product of thinking. To deny the existence of God on the grounds that he is invisible is no more false, according to theologians, than to deny the existence of elementary particles of matter for the same reason. Therefore, science and religion, in their opinion, are identical.

In the context of scientific and technological progress, theology tries to reconcile science and religion, trying to keep the basic religious dogmas unchanged. Theologians consider recognition, including by scientists, of the primacy of faith over knowledge and practical action to be one of the forms of resolving the conflict between religion and science, citing the example of the first sin in the world and explaining the reason for the loss of heavenly bliss by Adam and Eve precisely because of knowledge.

The idea of ​​harmonizing the minds of science and religion is based on the theory of the so-called dual truth, according to which there is the truth of faith and the truth of reason, which can exist without coinciding, without contradictions.

The thesis about the special role of the church and religion in the humanization of scientific and technological progress is justified by theologians by the fact that the belittlement of religious faith and the exaltation of reason led to the creation of weapons of mass destruction, the depletion of natural resources, and environmental disasters - all this is retribution for the claims of reason. At the same time, it must be emphasized that the negative consequences of scientific and technological progress are not the result of scientific or technical processes, but of social factors. Today, humanity cannot abandon acquired scientific knowledge and the achievements of scientific and technological progress. The negative consequences of scientific and technological progress can only be prevented by social means.

Theological thesis about the possibility of the existence of science and religion in scientific activity Theologians are trying to justify technological progress with references to the religiosity of some scientists, in whom religious faith and scientific knowledge are supposedly organically combined. It should be noted that among scientists there is a smaller percentage of believers, compared to other strata of society. We know and appreciate a scientist not because he is a believer, but because he is a scientist. The authority of a scientist in the field of science is assessed by his contribution specifically to science, and in terms of the nature of his religiosity, he is no different from ordinary believers. In matters of scientific truth, complete unity of views is established between all scientists, including believers. A scientist becomes a believer not through science, but as a result of his upbringing in childhood; he adheres to religious views due to the traditions of his parents, ancestors, home environment, and compatriots.

In all socio-economic formations, religion is an important factor in the sanctification of existing social systems. For this purpose, it is actively used by the state and the ruling strata of society. In class societies, religion is not only an important component of spiritual culture, but can also become its dominant. In this case, in the system of values ​​of spiritual culture, religious values ​​occupy the main positions, which leaves an imprint on the entire culture and social consciousness as a whole.

Since culture has, in addition to cult, and non-cult content, the relationship between culture and religion should be understood as the relationship between the whole and its part. If we consider a religious cult as an independently integral phenomenon, regardless of culture, then it is legitimate to admit the reality of the uncultural, that is, the existence of a phenomenon that is not associated with nature. However, this is practically impossible, because the very fact of admitting thoughts about the supernatural, the otherworldly is an intellectual process, a purely human one, that is, a cultural act. The idea of ​​God arose in the minds of people and exists as a truly human idea, expressed in cultural form. Therefore, religion is secondary, it is an element of the evolution of culture.

From the point of view of religion, the nature of social relations, life successes or failures depend on the extent to which people and society believe in God, recognize the authority of religion, try to atone for sins, fulfill ritual and cult instructions, at what cost they overcome numerous temptations, move towards spiritual perfection .

Therefore, corruption, official abuse, drug addiction, crime, promiscuity and other negative phenomena in our life are the result of the fact that people have forgotten God and neglect his commandments. Religion convinces us that social problems can only be solved with the help of morality, that is, it replaces the social with the moral. Thus, the social teaching of the church is based on proof of the priority of the “religious” over the “non-religious”. In Catholicism, in a concentrated form, it is set out in the decisions of the 1st and 2nd Vatican Councils, the encyclicals of the Pope, in Orthodoxy - in the decisions of the Pastoral and Bishops' Councils, in Protestantism - in documents of church congresses and conferences on issues of the direct activities of the church.

Religion (from Latin religio - piety, piety, shrine, object of worship), worldview and attitude, as well as corresponding behavior and specific actions that are based on belief in the existence of gods, the “sacred”, i.e. one or another type of the supernatural .

Let's highlight its elements:

2. a set of principles, ideas, concepts, i.e. her teaching.

3. the core of religious activity is a cult. These are rituals, services, prayers, sermons, religious holidays.

4. In the process of worship and all their religious activities, people unite into communities called communities, churches.

Types of religions:

1. Tribal primitive ancient beliefs. From them come numerous superstitions - primitive beliefs that have much in common with religion by the nature of their origin, but cannot be recognized as religions proper, since there is no place for God or gods in them, and they do not constitute a person’s holistic worldview.

2. National-state religions, which form the basis of the religious life of individual peoples and nations (for example, Hinduism in India or Judaism among the Jewish people).

3. World religions(which have transcended nations and states and have a huge number of followers all over the world). It is generally accepted that there are three world religions: Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.

All religions can also be divided into two large groups: monotheistic, i.e. those who recognize the existence of one God, and polytheistic, who worship many gods.

Christianity- great world religion. Initially united, as you move human history it was divided into three large branches (confessions): Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism.

Christianity arose in the 1st century in Palestine. In the social, state and cultural life of our country, Christianity has played and continues to play an exceptional role.

A peacekeeping role is manifested, which is aimed at shaping a worldview. Christianity is one of the world religions that adapts to changing conditions as much as possible and continues to have a great impact on the morals, customs, personal lives of people, and their relationships in the family.

VI century BC. a new religion was born - Buddhism, which became the earliest world religion in appearance. The founder of the doctrine was Siddhartha Gautama.

The main discovery made by the Buddha is the famous four truths: 1. Life is suffering. 2. There is a cause of suffering - the desire for pleasure, for power. 3. The path to salvation passes through the complete destruction of desires. 4. In order to stop suffering and get closer to the great truth, you need to firmly know the path. This path, indicated by the Buddha, is called the Eightfold Path.

The Buddhist system is mainly aimed at regulating human behavior. It is very important that Buddhism calls for an equal, kind and merciful attitude towards both good and evil people, including criminals and murderers. Observe moral principles here is much more important than worshiping gods or Buddha.

Islam- monotheistic world religion. Muhammad is the prophet of Islam, directed by God to all humanity. Every Muslim has religious obligations - instructions. There are five of them.

1. Confess faith in Allah.

2. During the day it is necessary to perform five prayers (namaz).

3. A Muslim must fast (u raza), which lasts a whole month - Ramadan.

4. A Muslim is obliged to pay taxes and give alms to save his own soul (to the mosque, to the beggar, to the crippled).

5. Every Muslim must once in his life make a pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) and perform a number of sacred rites there.

2 branches of Islam: Sunnism and Shiism. Members of some Islamic sects believe that only they live according to divine laws and correctly practice their faith. Often these people prove they are right using cruel methods, not stopping at terrorist acts.

National religions include:

Hinduism(India); Covers a wide variety of beliefs and practices. Yoga in its various directions. There are hundreds of deities in Hinduism, from small gods of local importance to great gods whose deeds are known in every Indian family. The most famous are Vishnu; Rama and Krishna, two forms or incarnations of Vishnu; Siva (Shiva); and the creator god Brahma.

Judaism(Israel); Judaism originates as the religion of the ancient Jews who settled in Palestine at the beginning of the 2nd millennium. This religion marks the transition from polytheism to monotheism. God acts as Yahweh as the ruler of the whole world. The main source is the most ancient part of the Bible - the Old Testament, which sets out the moral norms of relationships between people.

Confucianism, Taoism(China); The most important cult in this religion was the cult of ancestors, which formed the basis of a value system centered on filial piety, which characterizes Chinese culture to this day.

Shintoism(Japan). Based on the animistic beliefs of the ancient Japanese, the objects of worship are numerous deities and spirits of the dead. The basis of Shinto is the deification and worship of natural forces and phenomena. The main spiritual principle of Shinto is living in harmony with nature and people.

Over the course of history, the situation with religion in the same country can change. A striking example of this is Russia. During the communist system in the Soviet Union, religions as state institute didn't exist. Churches were closed and sometimes destroyed, and free religion was prohibited.

The role of religion must always be viewed specifically as the role of a given religion in a given society and in a particular period. Its role for the whole society, for a separate group of people or for a specific person may be different.

In recent years, the role of religion has been increasingly increasing, but, unfortunately, religion in our time is a means of profit for some and a tribute to fashion for others.

Ticket number 16.

Planning and evaluating the effectiveness of press services.

Long-term planning. Step-by-step planning of the activities of the public service.

The faster we respond to media information, and the faster we provide information about ourselves, thereby maintaining the interest of the target audience.

according to the deadlines for completing the planned tasks for long-term (more than three years), medium-term (1...3 years), short-term (weeks, months)

Depending on the content (breadth, areas of activity and significance) of the issues being resolved, planning is divided into general, strategic, operational (current, regular)

Master planning determines the goals and principles of activity for the long term. It is always long-term and is most often carried out by scientific, less often by design organizations. I can give examples; serve, master plans for the development of cities or rural areas, master plans for the development of new territories.

Strategic planning involves the implementation of the goals set in master plans. It usually covers the activities of a specific organization and determines the ways of development of this organization from the point of view of increasing its efficiency. Such planning is mainly medium- or long-term. As a rule, strategic plans are developed by a construction (design, survey) organization in relation to its conditions.

Operational planning is a means of streamlining current work and includes the preparation of monthly, ten-day and weekly-daily plans. This also includes daily (hourly) planning, which is carried out “orally” by the foreman or foreman, i.e. without drawing up special documents (schedules).

The problem of effectiveness is a central problem in public relations management. It arises when planning specific programs and projects, when justifying them, and summing up the results of the work.

PR does not imply results “here and now”, but it is important that it is of high quality.

in the work of G.L. Tulchinsky “PR firms: technology and efficiency

Assessing the effectiveness of a PR service’s work with the media is complicated by a number of circumstances:

– the difficulty of tracing a clear relationship between the work carried out with the media and the results of business development;

– dynamic change of problem situations;

– limited time for making management decisions;

– leadership style, usually far from openness;

– an abundance of rules and instructions that deprive the PR service of freedom of action;

– overload of the PR service and other departments with operational and emergency work;

– lack of serious incentives for PR service employees.

To ensure that the demonstration of the effectiveness of the PR service does not give management the impression of wishful thinking, it is necessary that the service employees have a clear understanding of the conceptual content of efficiency, its types and levels.

Types of efficiency:

Efficiency is a fundamentally relative characteristic, depending on which indicators are correlated with which.

Profitability – as the ratio of costs to results obtained;

Effectiveness – as the ratio of the result to the goals pursued (E=P/C);

Expediency – as the ratio of goals to real needs and problems (E=C/P.

In relation to public relations, efficiency is calculated more easily and simply in the field of political PR. The goal of the election campaign is simple - victory in the elections (or a certain percentage of the vote, or reaching the second round). In the case of business PR or administrative management, the situation is more complicated.

In business and management social communications The simplest and easiest way is to calculate cost-effectiveness: take into account costs - financial, material, personnel, time, etc. - and are divided by the unit of the achieved result.

Performance indicators:

The solution to this problem can be specified in the following target parameters that must be taken into account when analyzing the effectiveness of the PR service:

– Increasing the level of public awareness about the company’s activities;

– Public information to promote new ideas and projects;

– The level of provision of the company’s management with the necessary analytical and forecast information about the state of public opinion;

– Ensuring mutual understanding between the company and its social environment, eliminating unpleasant surprises;

– The degree of public satisfaction with the activities of the company and its management;

– Operational contacts with the media, including in crisis and emergency situations;

– Entering new areas of activity and contacts, formulating new ideas and projects that open up new prospects for the company’s activities;

The physical (anthropological) type, physiology (primarily the brain), nervous, endocrine and other systems of the biological and psychological sphere of sapient man differed quite sharply from those that were characteristic of his predecessors. This affected not only the nature of his life activity, his distribution throughout the ecumene, but also the level of his thinking, his abilities for abstraction, strong emotions, imagination, and the establishment of stable logical connections, both true and false. A sapiens person, even a primitive savage, is already a reasonable, thinking person, capable of a certain analysis, comprehension of a specific situation, practical experience, fixed in regular activity. But what was this analysis based on?

An extremely meager supply of knowledge, fear of the unknown, which continually corrects this meager knowledge and practical experience, complete dependence on the forces of nature, whims environment etc. - all this inevitably led to the fact that the consciousness of a sapient person from his very first steps was determined not so much by strictly logical cause-and-effect connections arising directly from experience, but by emotional-associative, illusory-fantastic connections. We are not talking about a “thinking savage”, not about an “abstract reasoning individual”. It is within the framework of a team, for example a small horde of 20–50 people, in labor activity (hunting, getting food, making tools, equipping a home, maintaining a fire, etc.), in constant social communication, in the process of family-tribal contacts and events ( exchange of women and marriage ties, birth and death) primitive primary ideas about supernatural forces commanding the world, about the patron spirits of a given group, about magical connections between the desired and the actual were formed and strengthened. The emergence of this kind of illusory and fantastic ideas can be demonstrated in relation to the Upper Paleolithic sapient savage by two important innovations that were characteristic of his era and distinguished it from the era of pre-sapient prehumans.

Firstly, this is the practice of burials. The caveman sapient buried his loved ones in special burials, and the deceased went through a certain ritual of preparing them for the afterlife: their body was covered with a layer of red ocher, household items, jewelry, utensils, etc. were placed next to them. This means that the one who buried his The deceased collective already had rudimentary ideas about the afterlife. And no matter how vague these ideas may be, it is clear from them that the afterlife seemed to Upper Paleolithic people to be a continuation of earthly life. In other words, in the Upper Paleolithic era, ideas had already developed about the existence, along with real life, of another world - the world of the dead and spirits: it was believed that the dead could somehow influence the lives of the living (which, in particular, explains the special care for the dead) .

Secondly, this is the practice of magical images in cave painting, which appeared precisely with the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, with the emergence of sapiens. The vast majority of cave paintings known to science are scenes of hunting, images of people and animals, or people dressed in animal skins, or even just half-humans, half-animals. These images indicate that primitive people believed in the existence of supernatural connections between people and animals, as well as in the ability to influence the behavior of animals using magical techniques, through the powerful spirits of their deceased ancestors in the world, or through intermediaries between the living and the dead , i.e. various kinds of sorcerers and shamans.

These connections between people and animals, mediated, moreover, by the cult of fertility and reproduction known to Upper Paleolithic man (figurines of a woman-mother with emphasized sexual characteristics are often found at the sites of cavemen excavated by archaeologists), were represented by primitive groups at the stage of their transformation from hordes to clan groups have a very definite religious understanding. We are talking about totemism.

Totemism arose from the belief of one or another group of people in their kinship with a certain type of animal or plant, most likely, initially precisely those that formed the basis of the food of this group. Gradually it turned into the main form of religious ideas of the emerging kind. Members of the clan group (blood relatives) believed that they descended from ancestors who combined the characteristics of people and their totem (i.e., half-humans, half-animals, half-humans, half-plants, various kinds of fantastic creatures and monsters). The totemic clan group usually bore the name of its totem and sacredly revered it. At first, veneration, apparently, did not exclude, but even assumed the use of totemic animals and plants for food; Moreover, it was precisely this fact (i.e., the consumption of totem meat) that could give rise to the idea of ​​kinship between a person and his totem - after all, both of them ultimately consisted of the same substance. However, this kind of connection between people and totems dates back to the deep past, and only ancient legends can indirectly testify to their existence, such as, for example, the myths preserved among the Australian aborigines, testifying to the original close connection between totemic ideas and hunting with its hunting magic and disguising people in animal skins.

Totemic ideas played a huge role in the process of formation of clan society: they most of all contributed to the delimitation of a group of relatives from the rest, the emergence of a clear idea of theirs, that is, those who belonged to a given totem, to whom the norms and customs already developed over centuries were strictly applied, and strangers who did not belong to this totem and thus seemed to stand outside all the accepted norms and customs of this group. This is important social role totemism also affected the nature of the evolution of totemistic ideas. Over time, as the clan structure strengthened, the idea of ​​the totemic ancestor with its mixed zooanthropomorphic appearance, the totem as a close relative, and the marital ties between a person and his totemic relative began to come to the fore. Finally, the idea of ​​reincarnation arose, that is, the possible reincarnation of a person (in particular, a deceased ancestor) into his totem and back. All this led, on the one hand, to the strengthening of the cult of dead ancestors and belief in their supernatural capabilities, and on the other, to a change in attitude towards the totem, in particular to the emergence of prohibitions on eating the totem. A system of prohibitions and taboos arose, the most important of which related to the prohibition of eating a totem, with the exception of those cases when the consumption of totem meat was of a ritual nature of communion with it and thus reminiscent of ancient norms and rules.

The custom of tabooing, which arose along with totemism, became in the conditions of a primitive tribal community the most important mechanism for regulating social and family relations. Thus, the gender and age taboo divided the collective into strictly fixed marriage classes and thereby excluded sexual relations between close relatives. The food taboo no less strictly regulated the nature of the food that was intended for the leader, warriors, women, children, etc. A number of other taboos were intended to guarantee the inviolability of the home or hearth, regulate the rules of burial, and fix the rights and obligations of certain categories of community members. All these taboos were unusually strict. Thus, during periods of initiation, that is, the initiation of boys and girls into the ranks of adult men and women, a taboo forbade women to be present at men’s rites, and men to attend women’s ceremonies. Some things that belonged to the leader, including food, were also sometimes taboo. Researchers provide examples of how taboo breaking was perceived.

Once, quite recently, one of the tribal leaders in New Zealand left the remains of a dinner, which was picked up and eaten by a member of his tribe. When the latter found out that he had eaten the remains of the leader's meal, which was taboo, he began to writhe in painful convulsions and soon died. Examples of this kind are far from isolated, and they all indicate that the prohibitions enshrined in taboos were revered by primitive man as sacred and immutable, the violation of which was inevitably punishable by death. The very fact of awareness of a violation of a taboo paralyzes the will of the violator, the ability of his body to live, and inspires him with the need to die.

Thus, totemism, with its belief in a totemic ancestor possessing supernatural powers, with the cult of one’s own as opposed to others, and a system of prohibitions and taboos, turned out to be historically one of the first forms of religious ideas of the emerging social community - the tribal community. At the early stage of the formation of human society, totemism performed the main functions of religion - integrating, regulating and controlling, and even compensating to a certain extent. True, this last function was performed much more fully at that distant time by another early form of religious beliefs and ideas - animism.

Animism – this is a belief in the existence of spirits, the spiritualization of the forces of nature, animals, plants and inanimate objects, attributing to them intelligence, capacity and supernatural power. The beginnings of animistic ideas arose in ancient times, perhaps even before the appearance of totemistic views, before the formation of clan groups, that is, in the era of primitive hordes. However, as a system of fairly conscious and stable views of a religious nature, animism was formed later, almost in parallel with totemism.

In contrast to totemism, which was focused on the internal needs of a given clan group, on its differences from others, animistic ideas had a broader and more universal character, were understandable and accessible to everyone, and were perceived quite unambiguously. This is natural: primitive people deified and spiritualized not only the formidable forces of nature (sky and earth, sun and moon, rain and wind, thunder and lightning), on which their existence depended, but also certain noticeable details of the relief (mountains and rivers, hills and forests), where, as they believed, there were also spirits who had to be appeased, attracted to their side, etc. Even a single noticeable tree, a large stone-boulder, a small pond - all of this, in the imagination of the primitive savage, had a soul, a mind , could feel and act, bring benefit or harm. And if so, then all these natural phenomena, mountains and rivers, stones and trees should be treated with attention, that is, certain sacrifices should be made, prayer rituals and religious ceremonies should be performed in their honor.

The belief, dating back to animism, that the souls of people, especially the dead, continue to exist mainly in an incorporeal form, served as a connecting link between group totemistic and universal animistic beliefs and rituals. By paying tribute to the souls of their deceased ancestors, primitive people thereby hoped for the protection and patronage of the dead in the gigantic world of otherworldly forces.

Thus, animistic and totemistic beliefs and rituals merged in the practice of the primitive collective into a single, inseparable complex, within the framework of which the harsh realities of everyday life and the difficult struggle of the collective for existence were reflected. This reflection was illusory and fantastic, and the function of bringing it into line with real life fell to the lot of magic.

Magic – This is a complex of ritual rites aimed at influencing supernatural forces to obtain material results. Magic arose in parallel with totemism and animism so that with its help it was possible to realize imaginary connections with the world of spirits, ancestors, and totems.

The theory of L. Lévy-Bruhl with its logical and pre-logical thinking was mentioned above. Based on it, we can conclude that human thinking (especially primitive thinking) consists of two sectors. One of them follows the strict laws of logical thinking and causal relationships. As knowledge about the world accumulates, its importance increases. The second sector has a different character: it is associated with problems of a random and probabilistic nature, the solution of which depends on the play of chance or unknowable incidental circumstances (whether it will rain; whether the hunt or war will be successful). It was this sector that dictated primitive man to rely on the help of supernatural forces, and it gave birth to paralogical magical thinking, which played such a noticeable role in the development of religious understanding of the world.

Having originated in ancient times, magic was preserved and continued to develop over thousands of years. Usually, magical rituals were performed by special people - sorcerers and shamans, among whom, especially in ancient times, women apparently predominated. These sorcerers and shamans, usually people of a nervous and even hysterical nature, sincerely believed in their ability to communicate with spirits, convey to them the requests and hopes of the collective, and interpret their will. Myself magical ritual communion with spirits (shamanic ritual) consisted in the fact that through certain ritual actions, special in each case, the shaman, with muttering, singing, dancing, jumping, with the sounds of a tambourine, drum or bell, brought himself to a state of ecstasy (if the ritual was performed in public, The spectators who followed his actions usually reached a state of ecstasy along with him, becoming, as it were, accomplices of the ritual). After this, the shaman often fell into a trance, did not see or hear anything - it was believed that it was at this moment that his contact with the world of spirits took place.

In ancient times, magical rituals were perhaps more general in nature and less differentiated. Later their differentiation reached significant proportions. Modern ethnographers, in particular S. A. Tokarev, divide magic according to methods of influence: contact (contact of the bearer of magical power - a sorcerer-shaman or a magic amulet - with an object), initial (a magical act is aimed at an inaccessible object, due to which only the beginning is carried out desired action, the end of which is provided to supernatural forces), partial (indirect effect on hair, food, etc.), imitative (impact on the likeness of an object). According to the purposes of influence, magic is divided into harmful, military, commercial, healing, etc.

In general, magic as a series of ritual rites was brought to life by the real needs of society, which, due to certain unpredictable circumstances of existence, dictated this kind of path of communication with the world of supernatural forces. However, at the same time, magic played a significant role in consolidating pre-logical thinking in people’s minds, which played an important role in the process of forming religious consciousness. Indeed, as magical thinking developed, it began to seem more and more obvious and self-evident to a person that the desired result depends not so much on purposeful action, but on incidental circumstances shrouded in the magic of the supernatural. And this led to the fact that many specific phenomena and even individual objects began to be perceived as carriers of magical power.

Primitive arose fetishism, the essence of which boils down to attributing magical powers to individual objects that can influence the course of events and obtain the desired result. The idea of ​​a fetish arose as both harmful (a corpse was considered as such, which was what caused concerns about burial, tabooing of a corpse, the rite of purification after the funeral rite, etc.) and useful.

Fetishism manifested itself in the creation of idols - objects made of wood, clay and other materials and various kinds of amulets and talismans. Idols and amulets were seen as objectified carriers of particles of that supernatural power that was attributed to the world of spirits, ancestors and totems. Sorcerers-shamans often dealt with fetishes of this kind when they influenced the likeness of an object according to the techniques of contact and imitative magic.

Fetishism was, as it were, the final stage of the process of formation of the entire complex of early religious ideas primitive man. In fact, animism with its spiritualization of nature and ancestors and totemism with its cult of the same dead ancestors and totems meant that in the minds of primitive people there appeared the idea of ​​the existence, along with the world of real things, of an illusory, supernatural world, and within the framework of this second world with of all the incorporeality of its inhabitants, the mind of primitive man saw the same indisputable reality as in the first. In practice, this meant that the primitive collective placed responsibility for actions and events that were not determined by obvious cause-and-effect relationships and depended on the will of chance on otherworldly forces of the supernatural world. To communicate with this world, to attract its forces to their side, primitive people turned to the help of magic, the reliance on which greatly strengthened the sector of pre-logical, magical thinking in their minds. And finally, the emergence of fetishes showed that magical power not only has the ability to move in time and space, but can also end up in objects of the real world.

Thus, in the consciousness of primitive people, in the process of the formation of tribal society, a fairly clear, harmonious and extensive complex of early religious ideas was developed. Its essence boiled down to the fact that the supernatural world with its enormous potential, free will and magical power is an integral and almost the main part of the real existence of man. It is the forces of this world that regulate the laws of nature and society, and therefore due respect for them is the primary duty of the collective if it wants to exist normally, be provided with food, and be under someone’s protection. Over time, this idea of ​​the world became self-evident, natural; the entire spiritual life of society flowed in its mainstream for many tens of thousands of years - at least until the Neolithic era, and for more backward peoples much later, in some cases right up to the present day. .

Primitive mythology. The complex of beliefs and ideas of primitive man, as well as his whole real life with all its difficulties, problems and achievements, were reflected in the oral tradition, which, becoming entrenched in the minds and acquiring fantastic details over time, contributed to the birth of myths, the emergence of primitive mythology.

Mythopoetic creativity has always been closely connected with the spiritual life and religious ideas of people. This is easy to understand: since the basis of the spiritual life of primitive man was his relationship with a totem, the cult of dead ancestors, the spiritualization of the world or the transfer of magical power to idols and amulets, then it is not surprising that the central place in mythology was occupied by zooanthropomorphic ancestors or deified heroes who could any miracles. The names of the so-called cultural heroes in myths were usually associated with the most important inventions or innovations, be it the making of fire or the establishment of forms of family and marriage, the manufacture of weapons and tools, or the establishment of rules of initiation. Cosmogonic subjects also occupied a large place in primitive mythology, that is, legends about the origin of the earth and sky, the sun and moon, plants and animals, and finally, man. The influence of totemism is clearly visible in myths: spirits often have the magical ability to reincarnate and change their appearance; Marital ties between a person and an animal, or even a fantastic monster, are considered commonplace.

In primitive mythology, in figurative form, those most important connections between life and death, nature and culture, masculine and feminine, which were previously comprehended by man in the process of his observations and study of the laws of the world, were usually captured. The analysis of these most important confrontations, as well as the main mythological plots in general, is now one of the important sources for the reconstruction of the most ancient stages of human history, for the knowledge of those important patterns that were characteristic of the life of primitive man. In particular, this analysis allows us to raise the question of the large role played by cultural influences and borrowings in primitive society.

There is not a single people who do not know religion, and, therefore, the emergence and development of religious ideas as such, regardless of their specific semantic content, is associated with some socio-psychological properties or needs of a person, which are satisfied in one way or another various options specific religions. In this sense, it is customary to talk about religious consciousness as one of the forms of social consciousness. The concept of a religious form of social consciousness, thus, emphasizes the fact that the presence of religious ideas corresponds to the spiritual needs of a person, but at the same time, the objectivity of the needs themselves does not mean the objectivity, the truth of those religious means by which these needs are historically satisfied. Religion was the central form of social consciousness for more than two millennia until the Age of Enlightenment, in which first philosophy and then science and ethics began to compete with it. This is how atheism arose as a doctrine aimed at refuting religious views that continue to deeply influence culture up to the present day. Atheism is not an independent form of social consciousness, but, as it were, a socially sanctioned counterbalance to religious consciousness.

The essence of religious consciousness is the illusory doubling of the world, i.e. recognition, along with the real, natural and social existence of a second, otherworldly world, in which, according to all world religions, all the contradictions of earthly existence that trouble the human spirit find or will find their ideal resolution. An attribute of religious consciousness is a specially cultivated moral and emotional act - act of faith. Faith is a property of human consciousness, manifested not only in religious, but also in many other forms of consciousness (for example, faith in ideals in any type of worldview). The specificity of religious faith is not the very fact of its existence, but the fact that it is here that it is accepted as a fundamental spiritual act called “religious experience.”

The central object of religious faith is the idea of ​​God, the main and most valuable idea from which all other content of religion is derived. The idea of ​​God for the bulk of believers has always been not so much a philosophical or generally rational principle, explaining, for example, the origin of the world from the divine first impulse, but rather an idea that was primarily associated with the moral sphere, with the problem of the meaning of human life. According to religious views, if a person has carried out an act of faith in himself, i.e. accepted the idea of ​​the existence of God, he thereby gave meaning to his own life, overcame its spontaneity and tracelessness, substantiated the idea of ​​goodness and justice. God for religious consciousness is, despite all the imperfections of earthly life, the guarantor of the indispensable triumph of light principles in the eternal antinomies of evil and good, injustice and justice, permissiveness and morality. A believer in God will live “in a divine way,” but unbelief, from this point of view, is tantamount to the loss of all high moral principles and therefore leads to confusion and nihilism.

Religious consciousness in its generalized sense is aimed at satisfying a person’s need for a system of absolute and indisputable moral values ​​that must be adhered to, to give meaning to individual human existence, to guarantee one way or another the triumph of justice. At the same time, religion provides an illusory satisfaction of these needs and, in essence, removes from a person the burden of conscious responsibility for the surrounding reality, promoting, in principle, a passive-contemplative attitude towards life.

According to K. Marx and F. Engels, religious consciousness will eliminate itself when “a real resolution of the contradiction between man and nature, man and man, a true resolution of the dispute between existence and essence, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and race."

Religious consciousness is one of the oldest forms of social consciousness, and its subordination to specific socio-historical conditions is completely obvious. Religious consciousness corresponded to the objective needs of the human spirit. These spiritual needs must be met. The desire to reject religion should have been accompanied by the creation of a system of universal human values ​​that could replace a person’s corresponding spiritual and religious needs. Religion expressed not only man's fear of the formidable and incomprehensible forces that dominate everyday life. In religious rituals, spells, and sacrifices, people tried to serve supernatural forces and, to some extent, control them. In addition, with the help of religion, norms of human behavior were consolidated. Religion served as a means of achieving social stability. Religion is not an accidental phenomenon in the culture of mankind, but a naturally occurring, historically and socially conditioned form of humanity’s awareness of the world around it and itself. Religion is a reflection (albeit fantastic) of the surrounding reality, therefore it develops and changes simultaneously with the change in life itself. In modern philosophy, three stages are distinguished in the history of religion: 1) religion based on its deity in natural forces (god of the Sun, god of the Earth, etc.); 2) religion, recognizing the omnipotent “God-master”, demanding obedience to him; This also includes religion as simple morality without God; 3) religion of redemption, arising from a sense of sinfulness. Religious consciousness as an element in the structure of religion is interconnected with its other elements: religious activities, relationships and organizations.

Religious consciousness is specific. It is characterized, first of all, by faith, emotionality, symbolism, sensory clarity, the combination of real content with illusions, dialogicity (dialogue with God), knowledge of religious vocabulary, imagination, fantasy. Religious consciousness is distinguished by the fact that, along with recognition real life, it retains the illusory doubling of the world, the belief in the continuation of spiritual life after the cessation of earthly life, and the belief in the other world. It is impossible to logically prove the existence of this world, therefore religious consciousness is based on faith. Faith is an integrative part of religious consciousness. It does not need confirmation of the truth of religion from reason or feelings. Religious faith means the need for appropriate behavior and activity and the hope of supernatural virtue through the grace of God. In religious faith, the main object is the idea of ​​God; the content of religion is based on it. For believers, the idea of ​​God is a solution to the problem of the meaning of human life and a moral support, a desire to highlight the bright and good principles in life. Sincerely religious people strive to live in compliance with universal moral standards. A certain ideal is established in the religious consciousness, supported by faith in it. This ideal is God. A person’s religious duty lies in humility before God, in striving towards him as an ideal, and for this one must renounce one’s human will and not contradict the Divine will, humbly do the work to which one is assigned, and reason as little as possible.

In most cases, the dominant religion acts in alliance with the state, with political power. Religion is a concrete historical phenomenon. It can disappear only when there is no need for it, when social relations that give rise to belief in supernatural forces and the need to preserve this belief are destroyed

Sergei Khoruzhy

“A whole choir will tell you that faith and freedom of thought are two mutually exclusive concepts... Why, however, do they think so? But because all concepts have become distorted and confused.” Yuri Samarin

1. To ensure that the answers are not mere journalistic verbiage, it is necessary to build a conceptual context and framework. The questions themselves do not ask him. They refer to archaic paradigms and are poorly articulated; but it is clear that the center of the problems put forward is religious consciousness: its nature, its situation in Russia and in the world and its relationship with creative consciousness.

So - religious consciousness and its situation today. The topic about them is relevant: both the current reality and, to an even greater extent, the emerging prospects clearly speak of the need for a new understanding of them. The era is a milestone in many ways, but we can confidently say that the most profound and decisive are anthropological changes. If previously it was customary to describe the existence of humanity as a process of socio-historical changes that dominate anthropological ones, now this is becoming increasingly impossible. Man himself began to change greatly; more and more he is no longer a substrate, but a subject, a hero of ongoing changes, and anthropological dynamics, accelerating, become a leading factor. But what are its nature, scale, limits? Understanding this new, unknown dynamics brings to the center the problem of the Anthropological Border: the boundaries of the very kind and mode of human existence, the area where the very constitutive features and predicates of this method begin to change.

The Anthropological Border is a difficult concept. It is clear that the discourse of the border must also say something about the Other, the foreign; the discourse of the Anthropological Border must be constructed from a meta-anthropological perspective. And here before us is the notorious ontologische Differenz, the difference between ontic and ontological, existing and being. Is the meta-anthropological perspective drawn on the ontic or ontological, is the foreign constituted to man in existence or in being? Answer: both. The Ontic Boundary obviously exists; a person is ontically beyond the border - the experience of madness, the experience of transgression. There is quite a lot of attention to them these days; the discourse of the ontic Border is intensively developed by psychoanalysis and adjacent currents of thought. But this is not the whole Border. There is human experience in which the Boundary serves as an object of aspiration, is tested, and is achieved as an existential boundary, a boundary of transformation of the fundamental predicates of the existing way of being. It is he who occupies us. For the discourse in which the Anthropological Border is thematized as an ontological border is the discourse of religious consciousness. In other words, religious consciousness can be defined as consciousness (dispensation, structure of consciousness), endowed with an ontological, or meta-anthropological (which in our context is synonymous) perspective.

Religious consciousness unfolds as a variety of discourses, builds a branched economy: in theology, philosophy, mysticism, cult, spiritual practice... Within the framework of this economy, “faith” is formed, the “Church” is constituted. Having defined religious consciousness “in the discourse of energy”, energetically and actively, as a type of strategy, we must rethink these phenomena also in this discourse. What is "faith"? - following a “believing strategy”: one that is adequate to the special types of energy organization inherent in the meta-anthropological perspective - the synergetic system, in the dictionary of Orthodoxy, or the synergetic regime, in the vocabulary of science (“adequate” means: oriented towards them, but, generally speaking, does not necessarily belong to them anymore). In the essentializing discourse common to European thinking, “faith” was reduced to substantial contents and identified with the arbitrary acceptance of certain unprovable propositions; but even when faith itself summarizes itself in a certain Credo, apparently a set of essential postulates, it is not by chance that the Credo bears the name “Creed”: it is by no means the faith itself, but what symbolizes it, the system of its symbolic signs. Likewise, “Church” here appears as the realization of intersubjectivity in a meta-anthropological perspective. The latter introduces fundamental differences from ordinary intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity, carried out in the ontological thematization of the Anthropological Border, faces the problem of integrity and completeness and, in the thematization of these predicates, conceptualizes itself as an aporia (cf. identification of aporia of integrity in existential analytics) meta-empirical pan-subjectivity. As such, it no longer constitutes simply a dialogical being-communication or communication space, but a kind of being-communication that unites the features of the mystical Church and the historical Church. This ontologically thematized inter-pan-subjectivity turns out to be close to the concept of conciliarity in its initial development by Khomyakov.

2. This is the approximate framework or, if you like, the rhizome of religious consciousness. The questions concern its relationship with the principles of freedom, culture, creativity; and these principles, as can be seen from the production, are all conceived in opposition to it, as its other. However, such an understanding - we need to start with this - is not only not necessary, but primitive and outdated, corresponding to the long-outdated Enlightenment paradigm. The obsolescence, even the danger, of this view lies in two main features: it corresponds to ideological and binary thinking, which, like primitive consciousness, stands on binary oppositions and dichotomies of reality. The task of deideologization and deconstruction of such structures is relevant for all spheres of consciousness and culture, equally religious and non-religious. The sketched "energy discourse" approach is one way to do this; he is alien to ideology and binary from the very beginning. Religious consciousness in its true nature is not ideological, but strategic, it does not carry out the functions of dictate, does not act as a “limiter of freedom,” but establishes specific relations of its discourses with any of the discourses outside its sphere - as relations of practices, types of energy structure; and in such relationships the criteria of closeness or alienness, compatibility or incompatibility are not ideological, but anthropological, personal and operational. Like, say, a long time ago known fact difficult compatibility, tension in the relationship of religious consciousness with the art of acting, acting, is not rooted in ideology, but in deep differences in personal strategies. There is another important tension. Pure and maximalist self-realization of religious consciousness is spiritual practice. This is a discourse or strategy of a special kind, a holistic “practice of oneself” that carries out a step-by-step organization and transformation of the entire complex of human energies into the mentioned synergistic system. For such a total discourse, its combination, compatibility with any other is a problem: and this is a tension known from ancient times, mutual otherness and polarity of “feat”, “monastery” - and “world”, “spiritual” and “secular”. This tension should be fruitful, as an indication of the “other world” that awakens the “world,” but it can also turn out to be destructive...

A priori, religious consciousness is freer than non-religious consciousness; de facto it often turns out to be less free. It is more free, because, having a meta-anthropological perspective, it has a fundamentally different, incomparable range of self-realization. But there is a constant danger of slipping into essential discourse - the objectification of faith, the institutionalization of the Church - and then it turns into consciousness, in a bad sense, dogmatic, one of the most unfree types of consciousness. As for “culture”, “creativity”, “creative consciousness”, before clarifying the attitude of religion towards them, it is good to note that today they really need to clarify their relationship with themselves. The opposition Religion - Culture corresponded to reality and expressed the formulation of the problem in the world before the First World War - equally in the West and in Russia, where silver Age devoted countless collections, evenings and readings to this problem in favor of insufficient students and crippled soldiers. Since then, a lot of ink has flowed, and even more blood. “Culture” is no longer pronounced with aspiration - except perhaps in the editorial office of Znamya. “Culture is a rotten head,” Andrei Bely said back then. “I don’t like this pompous word,” Pasternak said in the 50s. Then there was even less excuse for pomposity, and even more excuse for rottenness. Today, the first problem of culture is not in relations with religious consciousness, but in the deep disintegration process of its self-awareness. The semantics itself has shifted, the singular number has turned into an empty sound, flatus vocis, and there are cultures and practices - nat, sex, crimi and all other minorities, practices of transgression, cultures of mushrooms, bacteria ... - and according to the supreme ruling principle of P.C., all cultures are equal, but some - at this moment of feminism and transgression - are noticeably more equal. Having inverted the Hellenic tetractys, the square of the beginnings of the ancient cosmos, postmodernity affirms the square of the ends: Death of God - Death of the Subject - End of History - End of Text. It is clear that this series of deaths contains many more; and the Death of Creativity should also be included in the complete set of demise. Like all postmodernist discourse, such theses are not at all without exaggeration, not without shocking rhetoric - and yet in some essence they are not false.

The old oppositions do not help to understand this general pestilence. The demise of creativity, like all others, is not caused by the machinations of religious consciousness. We must return to what was said at the beginning: the era is experiencing radical tectonic shifts, where we are not just talking about a change in the “cultural paradigm” or “social formation.” Behind all social and political structures, behind the directions and paradigms of culture lies what was previously seen as a substrate, motionless in itself, changing only from “changes at the top”: man himself. He is neither a phenomenon nor a noumenon, neither a “base” nor a “superstructure,” he is the focus of reality and its nexus, the beginning of connection. This focus of reality began to change. The man started moving - and they moved with him, all levels, floors and roofs went. Anthropological dynamics take priority over social and cultural dynamics: the millennium of Man Himself is coming. We cannot discuss here the essence of this dynamic, the anthropological shift, which embraces everything - somatics, psyche, perceptions, intellect - but we can see their vector: of course, it is directed towards the Anthropological Border. The experience of Borders occupies more and more space in human experience. The border is being tested, examined more and more persistently, more passionately, more closely; and we understand that the entire ensemble of postmodern deaths is also part of this process, the fruit of the desire for the Border.

So, Boundary practices or strategies become the leading ones. They are of three kinds: virtual strategies (the Border as a virtual, under-embodied reality) - strategies of the Unconscious (ontic Border, or the sphere of “madness”) - religious strategies (ontological, or meta-anthropological Border). And it is they who will play the entire game of the Third Millennium among themselves. In their combination and interaction, all forms of human self-realization acquire a new appearance; and Creativity and Religion re-establish relations, serving together on the Frontier. The divergence and tension between them will remain: being reflected as boundary strategies, they are still different strategies because creativity does not at all associate itself only with the ontological Boundary and does not orient itself purely into a meta-anthropological perspective. However, the fundamental difference is that their relationship will certainly not be a binary opposition, moving from an ideological to a dialogical paradigm. Having passed through death in postmodernism, creativity also absorbs the experience of the ontological Boundary, and no longer looks at the “other world” as a new gate; The “birth of the reader” that is found in the “death of the author” already has a certain similarity with the paradigm of Spiritual practice. And this dialogical relationship between creative and religious consciousness is the decisive condition for the non-catastrophic nature of anthropological dynamics: so that Man, having started, moves not into madness and nothingness, but into the space of new life and reason.

3. In our discussion, we have not yet touched upon Russian characteristics at all - and this is justified, since the characteristics are not so cardinal (besides, when conceptualizing the sphere of religious consciousness, we were partly guided specifically by the Orthodox type of religiosity). All the general features, the main elements of the religious situation and problems are the same, and Russian reality only adds its own details and flavor to them: the flavor of painful severity, the sharper crisis of all processes and all conflicts. An immanent feature of the very way of life, the self-reproduction of spiritual tradition, is the struggle between protective and renewal tendencies, “conservatism” and “modernism.” This struggle is the most visible factor in the religious situation of the moment, a factor in itself natural, inevitable and healthy. To it are added, however, two other factors: a comprehensive deep crisis - of power, economy, socio-cultural sphere, as well as the extreme underdevelopment of religious life itself, which just yesterday was forcibly reduced by totalitarianism to a pair of primitive forms, the institution of rituals plus the servile hierarchy. As a result, both poles, “conservatism” and “modernism”, are presented in poor versions, causing shame for the spiritual history of the country. Further: again, it is not only a Russian feature that “conservatism” appears today, first of all, in the form of anti-ecumenism, and anti-ecumenism is experiencing a clear growth and rise. Here the Russian Church and Russia follow the mainstream of the pan-Orthodox trend; and although there are internal factors stimulating it, it is not as pronounced in our country as in Serbia or even Greece.

But are these features strongly related to our topic? It would be a mistake to follow the obvious path, considering “conservatism” an inert obstacle to creative consciousness and “modernism” a bright outlet for it. There is no doubt that the current Russian security forces would willingly ban everything that Katkov, Pobedonostsev and A.P. Tolstoy combined have ever banned or only wanted to ban; however, “modernism” did not put forward anything creative, remaining imitative and superficial. As always, the true spiritual task is beyond the flawed binary, and its essence today is also clear: it is the restoration of the authentic intellectual tradition of Orthodoxy, the “Eastern Christian discourse.” Based on classical patristics and ascetic anthropology, developed in the energetic theology of Byzantium, this discourse was not transferred to Rus' - which became one of the main reasons for the fatal weakness and inorganicity of religious culture in Russia, the gap between Orthodoxy and enlightenment. However, in the diaspora, Russian thought and the Church brilliantly began its modern development, which revealed the richness and relevance of the human model embedded in it, its consonance with many conclusions of modern experience. Successfully begun work must be continued on Russian soil; and here, in this continuation, creative and religious consciousness can jointly find a way to understand the shifts that are now taking place in the mysterious focus of reality: in man.

G. I. Uspensky. Full collection op. in 14 volumes - M.,
1949.- T. 8.- P. 385, 388 (“Willy-nilly”).