Chapter XXIII

SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATION OF ATHEISM

Section five

The main features of the religious worldview. Religion as a social phenomenon fulfills the function of a mass worldview in society. K. Marx called religion "a perverse worldview."

The value of the worldview in the life of people is due to the social nature of a person. The need to navigate the changing social and natural environment gives rise to the need for every person, for the class, for humanity as a whole in a generalized system of views on the world, on their place in it, on the meaning and purpose of life. The worldview reflects the attitude of a person, social groups, classes to the world around them, their aspirations and interests. History shows that in antagonistic socio-economic formations, the interest of the ruling class is manifested in the implantation and consolidation of perverse, illusory systems of worldview.

In our country, on the basis of socialist transformations, the scientific-materialist world outlook has become dominant and for the first time in history. The new edition of the CPSU Program, adopted by the 27th Party Congress, notes: "Socialism ensured the dominance of the scientific worldview in the spiritual life of Soviet society, the basis of which is Marxism-Leninism as an integral and harmonious system of philosophical, economic and socio-political views."

The religious worldview, spontaneously formed in ancient times, changed depending on the general

"Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union New edition. P. 52

social changes, while remaining dominant in all pre-socialist socio-economic formations. There are many varieties of religious beliefs. All of them share, albeit to varying degrees, some common characteristics and characteristics.

The most essential feature, the main principle of any religious worldview, is the recognition of the real existence of supernatural forces and spheres, God or gods. The real existence of nature and society is not questioned, but changes in them, as well as in the fate of people, are explained by the direct or indirect intervention of supernatural, otherworldly forces. The relationship with God or gods is considered as the main fact of being that determines the fate of people and all things.

The religious worldview is characterized by the recognition of the creation of the world (creationism), the expediency and purposefulness of the phenomena of reality, the beginning and end of which God is recognized (teleology), the idea of ​​a divine guiding force in the management of the world (providentialism).

The ideas of the divine creation of the world, who were present in the ancient myths of all peoples, are dogmatically defended by theologians today. So, the Judeo-Christian doctrine of the creation of everything that exists from nothing by God completely contradicts scientific ideas, and nevertheless, modern theologians continue to defend it.

Closely related to the ideas of creationism is the characteristic of the religious worldview the doctrine of the expediency and purposefulness of the phenomena of nature and society. Everything in the world from this point of view is created and operates in accordance with an intelligent divine plan. Teleology is an attempt to explain from a religious-idealistic point of view the really existing order, regularity and universal connection of phenomena.

Affirmed by a religious worldview principle of providentialism means that God not only created the world for the sake of certain goals, but also constantly controls it, predetermining all events and the fate of people. The social meaning of theological providentialism lies in the fact that all the calamities and adversities that befall people are justified by the fact that they supposedly express

the highest divine justice and expediency, inaccessible to human understanding. Providentialism and teleology were and remain one of the main methods of religious interpretation of social reality, aimed at justifying all the injustices of class society.

The religious worldview is also distinguished by a special interpretation of the place and role of man in the world, expressed in the concept of anthropocentrism. Man is declared the center of the Universe, the crown of divine creation, the image and likeness of God, the connecting link of the divine world and the earthly world, created. Anthropocentrism ignores the actual history of the formation and development of man, and the socially conditioned properties of his consciousness, his thinking, moral, aesthetic and intellectual feelings are declared manifestations of the divine principle. In the light of this concept, there is a shift in the interests of a person from the public sphere to the sphere of purely personal, individual, among which personal salvation is declared to be the main one.

The religious worldview reflects and consolidates human lack of freedom, dependence on natural and social forces. It cannot serve as an effective means of transforming the world on the basis of reason in the interests of people, and all attempts of modern theologians to modernize it do not affect its essence.

The idealistic metaphysical essence of the religious worldview. For the characterization of any worldview, the decisive factor is the solution of the question of the relationship between the material and the spiritual. The materialistic worldview, relying on the historical practice of mankind and scientific data, asserts the view of nature, matter as primary in relation to consciousness. “... The world is moving matter - it can and should be endlessly studied in endlessly complex and detailed manifestations and ramifications of this movement, movement this matter, but outside of it, outside the "physical", external world, familiar to everyone and everyone, nothing can be "2. There is nothing in the world except moving matter, and the world is one in its materiality. “The real unity of the world, - wrote F. Engels, - consists in its materiality,

2 Lenin V.I. Full collection op. T. 18.P. 365.

and this latter is proved not by a couple of magic phrases, but by a long and difficult development of philosophy and natural science ”3. The movement of matter according to its objective laws at a certain stage led to the emergence of life, man and his consciousness, reflecting this world. Science knows no other consciousness besides human.

Religion is based on opposite principles. Recognition of the primacy of spirit, consciousness in relation to the material world makes it related to all directions philosophical idealism. F. Engels in his work "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of German Classical Philosophy" showed that the origins of the idealistic solution to the fundamental question of philosophy are rooted in early religious ideas.

There is a close union between religion and philosophical idealism, which is based on the coincidence of interests in the struggle against the materialistic worldview. This alliance is constantly supported by the efforts of both sides. Religious ideologists borrow the conclusions and arguments of idealism in favor of the primacy of the spirit, the limitations of human knowledge, use philosophical categories to give a more modern, scientific look to traditional religious views. Modern philosophical idealism, which has split into many small schools, sees in religion a more general and broader ideological basis and increasingly closely merges with religious irrationalism.

Religious worldview metaphysically in both senses of this concept: it recognizes that along with the natural, "physical" world there is a supernatural, supernatural world; it is also metaphysical in the sense of anti-dialectics. The most clearly metaphysical religious worldview is manifested in its dogmatism, in the recognition of divine unchanging, absolute truths concerning the principles of the structure of the world and human existence. The features of the religious worldview noted above have in religion the meaning of dogmas, that is, unchanging truths given from above. The metaphysical nature of the religious worldview is manifested in the fact that movement is divorced from matter and the ultimate causes of all changes in the real world are carried out of it; God, spirit is declared to be such a reason.

3 Marx K., Engels F. Op. T. 20.P. 43.

In contrast to this scientific outlook considers the world as a variety of forms of moving matter. Matter does not exist outside of motion; motion is the way of its existence. The basic laws of materialist dialectics reveal the source of motion, show how and in what direction development takes place. Especially great is the ideological significance of the law of unity and struggle of opposites, which constitutes the essence of dialectics and reveals the inner source of self-motion of matter. Ignorance or deliberate disregard of this law leads to the fact that "remains in the shadow by itself movement, its motor power, its source, its motive (or this source is transferred outside - god, subject, etc.) "4. Defenders of the religious worldview, contrary to scientific evidence, continue to consider matter as a kind of inert mass that does not possess internal source self-movement and self-development. This is done in order to declare God to be the source of all development.

Attitude of theologians to the problem patterns, orderliness of the development of the world remains controversial. There was a time when theology did not recognize the existence of laws in the world, seeing in every single change and event a manifestation of the creative act of God. Advances in science forced theologians to admit the existence of laws in nature. But the latter are interpreted by them as divine principles, as the thoughts of God, which arose first in the divine mind and then embodied at his will in nature. However, even this recognition of laws in the spirit of objective idealism comes into conflict with the principles of religious worldview, in particular with the principle of providentialism. Indeed, if we assume that God established laws and allowed the world to develop on their basis, then one should abandon the understanding of God as a providential and miracle worker.

Religion cannot refuse to recognize a divine miracle without striking a blow to its positions. Therefore, along with the recognition of patterns, theologians insist on the reality of miracles, placing them in the field of phenomena that have not been sufficiently studied by science. Thus, Protestant and Orthodox ideologists speak of the miracle of the inner

4 Lenin V.I. Full collection op. T. 29.S 317

transfiguration, allegedly taking place in the soul of the believer when "touching" the deity. The followers of Thomas Aquinas try to substantiate the reality of a miracle by referring to random phenomena. Considering chance as something independent of natural causality, they pass it off as a manifestation of divine free will. Accidental phenomena are, in their opinion, miracles constantly performed by God. In fact, chance obeys the law of natural causality, it is a form of manifestation of necessity, and accidental in one respect may be necessary in another.

The failure of the religious teaching on the superiority of faith over reason. The opposition of the scientific and religious worldviews is also manifested in the solution of the question of the nature and capabilities of the human mind, of the goals and forms of cognition. Materialistic philosophy considers consciousness as a product of highly organized matter - the brain and recognizes the ability of man to infinite knowledge of the world. An irrefutable argument in favor of a materialist understanding of the problems of cognition is the entire history of human development, the transformation of nature and the revolutionary reorganization of society.

Religion distorts the real goals and methods of knowledge. Based on pre-scientific mythological ideas about the world and man, it orients believers not to an active, creative attitude to the world, but to submission to religious principles and prescriptions, not to independent study and knowledge of the world, but to assimilate previously created illusions about the world. Theology declares the knowledge of God, that is, a nonexistent object, to be the main goal of cognition. In fact, this means that cognitive efforts are aimed at assimilating previously created ideas about God. In addition, theologians argue that the human mind is unable to know the essence of God. Consequently, they set before cognition such a task that turns out to be unsolvable.

Since the knowledge of God appears in religion as the highest and main goal of knowledge, then the theologians regard the methods of knowledge of God as the principles of all knowledge, including scientific knowledge. Religion offers two ways of knowing God: the so-called frank

and natural knowledge of God. By revelation we mean the belief that God in a supernatural way reveals to people the absolute "truths" about himself, the world, about the attitude of people to God, the world, to each other. Only those who are chosen by God according to their faith are rewarded with revelation. The sacred books of Christianity and Islam are declared the result of such a revelation, and believers, in order to know God, are invited to accept all their content on faith. As for the natural knowledge of God, it boils down to the prescription to evaluate all the phenomena of reality through the prism of the basic principles of the religious worldview, to see the supernatural, divine behind the natural causes of phenomena. As you can see, theology suggests first believing in God and only then getting the opportunity to cognize him. It is no accident that religious faith is declared the most important category of religious epistemology.

Scientific knowledge of the world is considered by theologians as secondary, aimed at studying gross matter and incapable of comprehending spiritual processes, and therefore it supposedly can only satisfy the material needs of a person. At the same time, they try to belittle the importance of rational knowledge, emphasizing the imperfection of human senses, the limitations of logical thinking. Theologians believe that the highest spiritual value of a person is not his ability to think and creative activity, but faith in God, which is declared to be a special form of knowledge, more perfect than rational.

Religious ideologists continue to defend the doctrine of the soul as an organ of cognition, which emerged in antiquity. According to the Christian doctrine, the human soul has a divine nature and is capable not only of discursive cognition, but also of a special, intuitive comprehension of the mysteries of life. Faith as a special form of knowledge, according to theologians, is such an intuition with the help of which the truth is revealed with the greatest completeness without the preliminary work of reason.

The desire to elevate faith over reason is inherent in all religions. It manifested itself both in the struggle against science and in the condemnation of rationalistic tendencies in religion itself. In Christianity, there is an internal confrontation between frank and refined, rationalized fideism. Explicit fideism

completely rejects the claims of reason for true knowledge in favor of faith. This tendency, which arose in early Christianity, was vividly expressed in Tertullian's thesis "I believe because it is absurd." Since from the point of view of logic and common sense the trinity of God, the God-manhood of Christ and other dogmas cannot be explained and understood, the followers of Tertullian proposed abandoning reason for the sake of faith. They tried to pass off the incompatibility of these dogmas with the human mind as a sign of their divine origin. In the spirit of this tendency, Luther taught that reason interferes with faith in God.

Another trend, initiated by Clement of Alexandria, is characterized by the desire to the reconciliation of faith and knowledge, to the use of reason to justify religion. Developing this line, Thomas Aquinas proclaimed the doctrine of the harmony of faith and reason. According to this teaching, the human mind, by virtue of its divine nature, cannot contradict divine wisdom, and only because of its limitations and smallness, it is not able to contain the fullness of the truths contained in revelation. Therefore, according to Thomas, these truths are considered "superintelligent" and should be taken on faith. Thus, the harmony of faith and reason was only proclaimed, in fact, the requirement to subordinate reason to faith remained in force. The concept of Thomas Aquinas about the relationship between faith and reason is fully preserved by modern neo-Thomists. Now, in the conditions of the rapid growth of scientific knowledge, theologians are increasingly resorting to refined forms of fideism.

The rise of faith over reason and religion over science is called to serve and theological concept of truth, which is in contradiction with the historical process of the growth of human knowledge and with the scientific understanding of truth. The dialectical-materialistic doctrine of truth is based on reflection theory: humanity reflects the world in its concepts, hypotheses, theories, and the correct, adequate reflection of this world, tested by practice, represents the truth. There is no other truth besides human.

The statements of theologians about truth are contradictory: on the one hand, they continue to defend the traditional idea that truth is God as the embodiment of absolute knowledge about everything; on the other hand, trying to reconcile religion and science, they arrive

They tend to the concept of a plurality of truths, according to which each sphere of being has its own truths that are not applicable to another sphere. The exclusive sphere of religion turns out to be the supernatural, otherworldly world, as well as the area of ​​spiritual life and ideological principles. The truths of science are supposedly inapplicable to this area. Theologians limit the sphere of science mainly to the problems of natural science, denying it the right to draw ideological conclusions. It turns out that only religion should be recognized as a monopoly on the solution of ideological issues, as well as issues related to the field of individual and social consciousness (morality, art, psychology, etc.). As you can see, this concept is an attempt to declare religion as the only possible and true system of worldview.

Religious ideologists argue that a materialistic worldview based on scientific knowledge supposedly cannot exist, since sciences split a single space into many systems. Theologians depict materialistic systems of the world outlook not as philosophical generalizations of scientific data, but as an arbitrary addition to them, essentially alien to them.

The inconsistency of the theological denial of the scientific materialistic, atheistic worldview is refuted by the very fact of its existence and its ever-widening distribution. Outstanding natural scientists P. Langevin, F. Joliot-Curie, J. Bernal, S. I. Vavilov emphasized the enormous importance of dialectical materialism as a philosophical methodological basis of natural science research. It is also significant that many scientists in bourgeois countries, subjectively accepting religion, spontaneously pursue dialectical-materialistic ideas as the only ones capable of ensuring the success of scientific activity. The scientific-materialistic, atheistic worldview is not some kind of arbitrary construction: it is based on dialectical-materialistic philosophy, which is a deep generalization of both natural science and the history of the development of human society, of all human culture.

So, the analysis of the basic principles of the religious worldview shows that religion distorts the real picture of the world, gives people an illusion.

visionary goals and cannot serve as the basis for transformative creative activity.

Atheistic criticism of the idea of ​​God. The idea of ​​God as some kind of mysterious force that determines the fate of the world and of each person is central to modern systems of religious worldview, and all the efforts of the defenders of religion are ultimately reduced to attempts to prove the real existence of God. One of these attempts is the reference to the fact that all peoples had faith in God. Some representatives of monotheistic religions even argue that originally the peoples were inherent in the belief in a single God. Science has compelling evidence that the early forms of religion lacked the concept of gods.

The founders of Marxism revealed the social and epistemological reasons for the emergence of the idea of ​​God. F. Engels pointed out that primitive man mastered the forces of nature alien and hostile to him through personification: “It was this desire for personification that created gods everywhere ...” 5 The sun and wind, thunder and lightning, rivers and seas, etc. in personification turned into special animate beings with will and power. The complication of social relations, the emergence of class inequality led to the fact that these creatures began to be endowed with social characteristics. “Fantastic images,” wrote F. Engels, “in which initially only the mysterious forces of nature were reflected, now acquire social attributes and become representatives of historical forces” b. So, the ancient Greek god of fire, Hephaestus, becomes at the same time the patron saint of crafts, the god Hermes, originally the guardian of herds and shepherds, turned into the patron saint of merchants and travelers.

With the unification of the tribes, the priority of some gods over others is affirmed, the gods of the ruling tribes become the supreme gods. F. Engels pointed out that the national gods were tailored to the measure of a certain national community and their power did not extend beyond the borders of the peoples who worshiped them. National gods existed as long as the nation that created them existed, and perished with it. He noted

5 Marx K., Engels F. Op. T. 20.P. 639.

6 Ibid. P. 329.

also, that the tendency to assert a single god appears only with the emergence of states with a single ruler, monarchies, despotisms.

Fantastic ideas about God have already become the object of criticism in ancient times. Ancient atheists, free-thinkers of the Middle Ages, materialists of the New Age showed the inconsistency, rational unsubstantiation of the idea of ​​God. Criticism of this basic idea - God, forced theologians to look for methods of substantiating his existence.

Criticism of theological evidence for the existence of God. Each religion, in accordance with a specific historical situation, used various methods of substantiating the existence of God. For many centuries, when the conditions of life themselves formed the need for religion and faith in God among the masses, the ministers of religious cults did not refer to supposedly former miracles, revelations and prophecies. This technique in defense of the existence of God is still used by the defenders of religion, who claim that the very existence of faith speaks in favor of the existence of God. As before, they refer to revelation, which supposedly contains a truth given from above, in which you only need to believe.

However, in the struggle against a materialistic, atheistic philosophy in essence, theologians developed methods of rationalistic substantiation of the existence of God. And if earlier, at the previous stages of history, this evidence had a narrow focus, mainly against free-thinking and atheist philosophers, then as the scientific outlook on the world developed and the influence of the scientific-materialist worldview increased, the defenders of religion were forced to use the entire arsenal of evidence accumulated earlier in benefit of being god. And although a significant part of modern theologians recognize the limited significance of these evidences, agree that they do not have the value of strict logical conclusions, they nevertheless use them, considering them as additional means of strengthening religious faith. The most widely used proofs of the existence of God are in various modifications the following: ontological, moral, cosmological and teleological.

Ontological proof was put forward in the IV century. Augustine, developed in the Middle Ages by Anselm

Canterbury. F. Engels, who criticized it, described its essence as follows: “This proof reads:“ When we think of God, then we think of him as the totality of all perfections. But to this totality of all perfections belongs, first of all, existence, for a being that does not have existence is necessarily imperfect. Therefore, we must include existence among the perfections of God. Therefore, God must exist "" 7. Ontological evidence was criticized immediately after its appearance, and in the Middle Ages, including by Thomas Aquinas, and in modern times, in particular by I. Kant. F. Engels pointed out that this proof is based on an objective-idealistic understanding of the identity of thinking and being, in which being is derived from thought, from consciousness. The logical error of this proof lies in the fact that the existence of God was deduced from the idea of ​​God and ignored the fact that the idea, the idea can be false, perverted.

The varieties of the ontological proof of the existence of God are historical, psychological, anthropological evidence. Historical proof is reduced to a reference to the existence of religion among all peoples, which, according to theologians, cannot be all wrong, and, therefore, it is necessary to recognize that the idea of ​​the existence of God is true. But in reality, this judgment asserts only the fact of the existence of religion, and not God. Psychological proof is an attempt to substantiate the existence of God by referring to the presence of a religious faith, supposedly standing outside a rational explanation and generated by the mystical aspiration of the soul to God. However, even theologians themselves have always recognized the existence of false beliefs. Anthropological evidence is based on the biblical story of man as the image and likeness of God. A person is endowed with traits of godlikeness, and then this is used as an argument in favor of the existence of a god. In all these proofs, the thesis is replaced: it is said about the presence of an idea of ​​God, religious faith, religion, and the conclusion is made about the existence of God.

Widely used by theologians cosmological proof of the existence of god, in which God will identify

7 See ibid. P. 42.

merges with the root cause of the world. This proof is already found in Plato, where God is the primary cause, in Aristotle, the prime mover. The proof was already refuted by the ancient atomists - Democritus, Epicurus. I. Kant, revealing its logical inconsistency, noted that there is a substitution of a thesis that must be proved.

The cosmological proof of the existence of God is based on a metaphysical understanding of the source of motion, the opposition of matter and motion, the recognition of the finiteness of the infinite causal series, and the absolutization of necessity.

Teleological proof of the existence of a god boils down to the assertion that universal expediency in the world could be generated only by the highest reason, God. The inconsistency of this proof was revealed by many materialists and atheists, who noted that the order of phenomena in the world is explained by natural laws. It was also noted (for example, by Holbach) that natural destruction, wars, fires, diseases, and evil do not agree with teleological principles. The development of natural science and the emergence of Darwinism undermined the foundations of teleology.

Kant, criticizing ontological, cosmological, teleological evidence, suggested moral proof of the existence of God. He argued that a universal moral law requires a harmonious unity between happiness and virtue. However, in earthly life, virtue is not always rewarded, and it, by virtue of this law, could not exist if one did not recognize the otherworldly, divine reward. The moral world order can be established only by the highest moral principle - God, which allegedly proves his existence. But this proof loses its meaning in the light of the materialist understanding of nature and the meaning of morality in human life, in the light of the fact that there is neither universal morality, nor universal moral law.

Modern theologians, despite the logical inconsistency of "rational evidence", find them useful because they supposedly connect religion with logic, philosophy and other sciences, and can also help to strengthen religious ideas among ordinary believers. Therefore, they continue to update this traditional evidence with new features.

emami. These methods include speculation on unsolved problems of science. Religion and idealism have always speculated on the unsolved problems of science, and this was excellently shown by V. I. Lenin in his work "Materialism and Empirio-criticism."

Especially widely modern theologians use moral arguments in favor of the existence of God. God is proclaimed the only basis for moral behavior, an alternative to immorality and immoralism.

The origin and social essence of the idea of ​​God were comprehensively disclosed by K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin. K. Marx noted that “the proofs of the existence of God are nothing more than empty tautologies ", what "Unreasonableness is the being of God" 8.

The reactionary social role of the idea of ​​God was deeply revealed by V. I. Lenin: “God is (historically and in everyday life), first of all, a complex of ideas generated by the dull oppression of man and external nature and class oppression - ideas, reinforcing this oppression, soporific class struggle "9. The idea of ​​God in an antagonistic society has always and above all been used to justify and defend the exploitative social order.

Analyzing the essence of God-building and God-seeking, V. I. Lenin pointed out that attempts to revive and confirm this idea in a more perfect form are in fact the consolidation and perpetuation of the lawlessness and oppression of the working masses, beneficial to the exploiting classes. "A million sins, dirty tricks, violence and contagion physical are much more easily revealed by the crowd and therefore much less dangerous than thin, spiritual, dressed up in the most elegant "ideological" costumes, the idea of ​​God "10.

8 Marx K., Engels F. From early works. M., 1956.S. 97, 98

9 Lenin V.I. Poyan. collection op. T. 48.S. 232.

Religious worldview

Religion replaced mythology. The religious worldview was formed at a relatively high stage in the development of society. Religion (from lat - piety, shrine, object of worship) is a form of worldview in which the development of the world is carried out through its doubling into the earthly and the supernatural, and supernatural forces in the form of gods play a dominant role in the universe and in the life of people.

Religion is close to mythology, but different from it. The closeness of religion and mythology lies in the fact that religion, like mythology, appeals to fantasies and feelings. Religion differs from mythology in that it does not mix the earthly and the sacred, but bifurcates the world into the earthly (real, natural, comprehended by the senses) and the otherworldly (supernatural, supersensible). The basis of the religious worldview is the belief in the existence of supernatural forces. One of the main distinguishing features of religion is the presence of a cult system, i.e. a system of ritual actions aimed at establishing a certain relationship with the supernatural world.

Philosophical worldview

A qualitatively new type of worldview is the philosophical worldview. The term philosophy (in the lane from ancient Greek. "Phileo" - love, "sophia" - wisdom) - means love of wisdom. The word "philosopher" was first used by the Greek mathematician and thinker Pythagoras (6th century BC) in relation to people striving for intellectual knowledge and a correct way of life. Philosophy became a new phenomenon in the 6th century BC. in Ancient China, Ancient India and Ancient Greece. In these regions, the most developed civilizations were born with a productive economy and commodity-money relations, with the first states and a class structure. A mature social foundation gave birth to ancient science and philosophy.

Philosophy is a special form of knowledge of the world, a form of social consciousness, a form of spiritual activity that develops a system of theoretical knowledge about the most general principles of being, cognition, about the universal laws of the development of nature, society and thinking, about man's relationship to the world and his place in this world.

With the development of human society, the establishment by a person of certain laws of life, the improvement of the cognitive apparatus, the need for a new form of mastering worldview problems arose.

Philosophy arises from the need for a rational understanding of the world, as the first attempt to solve basic worldview problems by means of reason, i.e. thinking based on concepts and judgments linked by certain logical laws. Philosophy differs from other forms of worldview not so much in the subject as in the way of its comprehension, in the degree of intellectual elaboration of problems and methods of approach to their solution. Philosophy inherited from mythology and religion their ideological character, i.e. the whole set of questions about the origin of the world and others, as well as the entire volume of positive (positive, useful) knowledge that mankind has accumulated over the millennia. However, the solution of worldview problems in the emerging philosophy took place from a different angle of view, namely from the standpoint of rational assessment, from the standpoint of reason, and not faith or fiction.

The emergence of philosophy is the emergence of a secondary type of social consciousness aimed at comprehending the already established various forms of practice and culture. Philosophers subject this diverse material to reflection (lat. "Reflexio" - turning back) and thus comprehend the universal. The goal of a philosophical search through the particular and the general is to find the general. This is tantamount to the fact that philosophy goes beyond all finite and begins to reflect on the infinite. Such thinking is transcendental (lat. "Transcendens" - overstepping, going beyond), since it is on the other side of finite things and private laws, which are objects of practical experience and science. Problems of a philosophical worldview cover the world as a whole, human life as a whole, and the relationship of a person to the world as a whole. The essence of philosophy is in reflections on general problems in the "world - man" system.

Thus, the subject of philosophy is formed by the universal essence of the world and its main fragments. Philosophy rationalizes the most general ideas about the world and man that are emerging in various spheres of spiritual culture, which are called the universals of culture. Cultural universals are categories that accumulate historically accumulated social experience and in the system of which a person of a certain era evaluates, comprehends and experiences the world, brings together all the phenomena of reality that fall into the sphere of his being. The universals of culture, first of all, are the forms of thinking that characterize any human consciousness in various cultures, it is the quintessence of the accumulated human experience, based on which each new generation learns and transforms the world. In addition, they determine the emotional experience of a person of the world, his assessment of the phenomena and events of the surrounding reality. Categories arise, develop and function in culture as an integral system, where all elements are somehow connected with each other. This system appears as a generalized model of the human world, which is broadcast in culture and assimilated by individuals in the process of socialization. In the system of cultural universals, the so-called basic (universal) categories can be distinguished, in which the necessary, essential properties and characteristics of objects and phenomena of the world are found. These properties are revealed by practice in the objective world, and then transferred to the ideal plane of consciousness, being fixed in the form of the categories of space, time, movement, thing, property, relationship, quantity, quality, measure, form, content, causality, chance, necessity, etc. P. These categories are universal, since the corresponding characteristics and properties are found in any object. In addition to basic categories in the system of cultural universals, categories can be distinguished through which the characteristics and properties of the subject of activity, the structure of his communication, his relationship to other people and society as a whole, to the goals and values ​​of social life are expressed. These include categories: man, society, me, others, work, consciousness, goodness, beauty, faith, hope, duty, conscience, justice, freedom, etc. These categories no longer have the status of general and universal categories of being, but are applicable only to the sphere of social relations. However, in human life, they play no less a role than the basic categories. They record in the most general form the historically accumulated experience of the inclusion of individuals in the system of social relations and communications.

So, the system of categories underlying culture acts as its fundamental worldview structures. It expresses the most general ideas characteristic of a given culture about nature, society, about a person's place in the world, about social relations, spiritual life, the values ​​of the human world, etc. Each type of culture has a specific categorical structure of consciousness, which expresses the characteristics of the culture of a certain type of society, its inherent forms and methods of communication and activities of people, the scale of values ​​adopted in it. Categorical structures reveal themselves in all manifestations of the spiritual and material culture of a society of a particular historical type (in everyday language, phenomena of moral consciousness, artistic development of the world, etc.). They express the worldview of a given era, defining not only explanation and understanding, but also a person's experience of the world, which allows us to consider them as the foundations of the culture of the corresponding era.

For a person formed by the corresponding culture, the meaning of its universals most often acts as a matter of course, in accordance with which he organizes his activities and builds his life.

In the process of philosophical reflection on the universals of culture, the language of philosophy is formed, which is a system of extremely generalized categorical forms. Thus, the result of philosophical research and rational-logical reflection are philosophical categories that act as a kind of theoretical rationalization of cultural universals, which are not always expressed in a logically harmonious form and can be fixed in the form of images, allegories, parables, etc. They overcome the sensual and emotional concreteness, imagery, symbolism, metaphorical language of pre-philosophical forms of worldview. Philosophical categories are forms of mental activity that reflect the essential and universal characteristics of natural and social reality. The specificity of philosophical categories lies in the fact that they are universal in nature, i.e. we apply not to any one area of ​​phenomena, but to phenomena that exist in different areas of reality.

The specificity of philosophical reflection on the foundations of culture lies in the fact that it is used to realize and comprehend the ultimate foundations of being and thinking, worldview, universals of human culture as a whole. Therefore, we can say that philosophy acts as the self-awareness of culture. The famous English ethnographer B. Malinovsky noted that the myth of how it existed in a primitive community, that is, in its living primordial form, is not a story that is told, but a reality that is lived. This is not an intellectual exercise or artistic creation, but a practical guide to the actions of a primitive collective. The task of a myth is not to give a person any knowledge or explanation. A myth serves to justify certain social attitudes, to sanction a certain type of belief and behavior. During the period of the dominance of mythological thinking, the need for obtaining special knowledge had not yet arisen.

Thus, myth is not an initial form of knowledge, but a special kind of worldview, a specific figurative syncretic representation of natural phenomena and collective life. The myth, as the earliest form of human culture, united the rudiments of knowledge, religious beliefs, moral, aesthetic and emotional assessment of the situation. If in relation to myth we can talk about cognition, then the word “cognition” here does not mean the traditional acquisition of knowledge, but the perception of the world, sensual empathy (as we use this term in the statements “the heart makes itself felt”, “to know a woman,” etc.). etc.).

For primitive man, it was just as impossible to fix his knowledge, and to be convinced of his ignorance. For him, knowledge did not exist as something objective, independent of his inner world. In primitive consciousness, the thinkable must coincide with the experienced, the acting with what is acting. In mythology, a person dissolves in nature, merges with it as its inseparable particle.

The main principle for solving worldview issues in mythology was genetic. Explanations about the beginning of the world, the origin of natural and social phenomena boiled down to a story about who gave birth to whom. So, in the famous "Theogony" of Hesiod and in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" of Homer - the most complete collection of ancient Greek myths - the process of the creation of the world was presented as follows. In the beginning, there was only eternal, boundless, dark Chaos. It was the source of the life of the world. Everything arose out of boundless Chaos - the whole world and the immortal gods. Goddess Earth - Gaia also originated from Chaos. From Chaos, the source of life, a mighty love that revives everything - Eros - also rose.

Boundless Chaos gave birth to Darkness - Erebus and dark Night - Nyukta. And from the Night and Darkness came the eternal Light - Ether and the joyful bright Day - Hemera. Light spread throughout the world, and night and day began to replace each other.

The mighty, blessed Earth gave birth to the boundless blue Sky - Uranus, and the Sky stretched over the Earth. The high Mountains, born of the Earth, proudly ascended to him, and the eternally rustling Sea spread wide. Sky, Mountains and Sea are born by mother Earth, they have no father. The further history of the creation of the world is associated with the cancer of the Earth and Uranus - Heaven and their descendants. A similar scheme is present in the mythology of other peoples of the world. For example, we can get acquainted with the same ideas of the ancient Jews from the Bible - the Book of Genesis.

A myth usually combines two aspects - diachronic (telling about the past) and synchronic (explaining the present and the future). Thus, with the help of myth, the past was connected with the future, and this provided a spiritual connection between generations. The content of the myth seemed to primitive man to be extremely real, deserving absolute trust.

Mythology played a huge role in the lives of people in the early stages of their development.

Myths, as noted earlier, affirmed the system of values ​​adopted in a given society, supported and sanctioned certain norms of behavior. And in this sense, they were important stabilizers of social life. This does not exhaust the stabilizing role of mythology. The main meaning of myths is that they established harmony between the world and man, nature and society, society and the individual, and thus ensured the inner harmony of human life.

At the early stage of human history, mythology was not the only form of worldview. Religion also existed during this period. But what was the relationship between mythology and religion, and what is their specificity in resolving worldview issues? The religious worldview, which developed from the depths of a still undifferentiated, undifferentiated social consciousness, has become close to the mythological, although different from it. Like mythology, religion appeals to fantasy and feelings. However, unlike myth, religion does not "mix" the earthly and the sacred, but in the deepest and irreversible way divides them into two opposite poles. The creative omnipotent force - God - stands above nature and outside of nature. The existence of God is experienced by man as a revelation. As a revelation, it is given to a person to know that his soul is immortal; beyond the grave, eternal life and a meeting with God await him. Religion, religious consciousness, religious attitude to the world did not remain vital. Throughout the history of mankind, they, like other formations of culture, developed, acquired diverse forms in the East and West, in different historical epochs. But all of them were united by the fact that in the center of any religious worldview is the search for the highest values, the true path of life, and the fact that both these values ​​and the life path leading to them are transferred to the transcendent, otherworldly realm, not to the earthly, but to the “eternal " a life. All deeds and actions of a person and even his thoughts are evaluated, approved or condemned according to this highest, absolute criterion. First of all, it should be noted that the ideas embodied in myths were closely intertwined with rituals, served as an object of faith. In primitive society, mythology was in close interaction with religion. However, it would be wrong to say unequivocally that they were inseparable. Mythology exists separately from religion as an independent, relatively independent form of social consciousness. But at the earliest stages of the development of society, mythology and religion constituted a single whole. From the content point of view, that is, from the point of view of worldview constructions, mythology and religion are inseparable. This is not to say that some myths are "religious" and others are "mythological." However, religion has its own specifics. And this specificity does not lie in a special type of worldview structures (for example, those in which the division of the world into natural and supernatural prevails) and not in a special relation to these worldview structures (the attitude of faith). The division of the world into two levels is inherent in mythology at a rather high stage of development, and the attitude of faith is also an integral part of mythological consciousness. The specificity of religion is due to the fact that the main element of religion is the cult system, that is, the system of ritual actions aimed at establishing certain relationships with the supernatural. And therefore, any myth becomes religious to the extent that it is included in the cult system, acts as its content side. Worldview constructions, being included in the cult system, acquire the character of a doctrine. And this gives the worldview a special spiritual and practical character. World outlook constructions become the basis of formal regulation and regulation, ordering and preservation of morals, customs, radiation. With the help of rituals, religion cultivates human feelings of love, kindness, tolerance, compassion, mercy, duty, justice, etc., giving them special value, linking their presence with the sacred, supernatural. The main function of religion is to help a person overcome the historically changeable, transient, relative aspects of his life and raise a person to something absolute, eternal. In philosophical terms, religion is designed to "root" a person into the transcendental. In the spiritual and moral sphere, this manifests itself in giving the norms, values ​​and ideals the character of an absolute, unchanging, independent of the conjuncture of the spatial and temporal coordinates of human existence, social institutions, etc. Thus, religion gives meaning and knowledge, and therefore stability of human existence, helps him to overcome everyday difficulties. Throughout the history of the existence of mankind, philosophy has developed as a stable form of social consciousness, considering worldview issues. It constitutes the theoretical basis of the worldview, or its theoretical core, around which a kind of spiritual cloud of generalized everyday views of worldly wisdom has formed, which constitutes a vital level of the worldview. The relationship between philosophy and worldview can be characterized as follows: the concept of "worldview" is broader than the concept of "philosophy". Philosophy is such a form of social and individual consciousness, which is constantly theoretically substantiated, has a greater degree of scientificity than just a worldview, say, at the everyday level of common sense, which is present in a person who sometimes does not even know how to write or read.

Philosophy is an ideological form of consciousness. However, not every worldview can be called philosophical. A person can have quite coherent, but fantastic ideas about the world around him and about himself. Everyone who is familiar with the myths of Ancient Greece knows that for hundreds and thousands of years people lived as if in a special world of dreams and fantasies. These beliefs and ideas played a very important role in their lives: they were a kind of expression and custodian of historical memory. In the mass consciousness, philosophy is often presented as something very far from real life. Philosophers are spoken of as people "not of this world."

Philosophizing in this sense is a lengthy, vague reasoning, the truth of which can neither be proved nor disproved. This opinion, however, is contradicted by the fact that in a cultured, civilized society, every thinking person, at least "a little" is a philosopher, even if he does not even suspect about it.

Philosophical thought is thought about the eternal. But this does not mean that philosophy itself is outside of history. Like any theoretical knowledge, philosophical knowledge develops, is enriched with more and more new content, new discoveries.

At the same time, the continuity of the cognized is preserved. However, the philosophical spirit, philosophical consciousness is not only a theory, all the more an abstract theory, impassively - speculative. Scientific theoretical knowledge is only one side of the ideological content of philosophy. Another, undoubtedly dominant, leading side of it is formed by a completely different component of consciousness - spiritual and practical. It is he who expresses the meaning of life, value-orienting, that is, worldview, type of philosophical consciousness as a whole. There was a time when no science had ever existed, but philosophy was at the highest level of its creative development.

Man's relationship to the world is an eternal subject of philosophy. At the same time, the subject of philosophy is historically mobile, concrete, the "Human" dimension of the world changes with a change in the essential forces of the person himself.

The secret goal of philosophy is to take a person out of the sphere of everyday life, to captivate him with the highest ideals, to give his life a true meaning, to open the way to the most perfect values.

The religious worldview was originally formed on the basis of the mythological, including in his picture of the world the image of a cultural hero as a mediator between gods and people, endowed with both divine and human nature, natural and supernatural abilities.

However, unlike mythology, religion draws the exact line between the natural and the supernatural, endowing the former with only material essence, the latter only with spiritual. Therefore, in a period when mythological and religious ideas were combined in a religious-mythological worldview, paganism was a compromise of their coexistence - the deification of natural elements and various aspects of human activity (gods of crafts, gods of agriculture) and human relations (gods of love, gods of war). From mythological beliefs in paganism remained two sides of the existence of every thing, every creature, every natural phenomenon - explicit and hidden for people, there were numerous spirits that revive the world in which a person lives (spirits are the patrons of the family, spirits are the keepers of the forest). But paganism included the idea of ​​the autonomy of the gods from their functions, of the separation of the gods from the forces they control (for example, the thunder god is not a part or the secret side of thunder and lightning, the shaking of the heavens is the wrath of God, and not its embodiment).

With the development of religious beliefs, the religious worldview was freed from many features of the mythological worldview.

Such features of the mythological picture of the world as:

- the lack of a clear sequence of events in myths, their timeless, extrahistorical nature;

- zoomorphism, or animal likeness of mythological gods, their spontaneous actions that defy human logic;

- the secondary role of man in myths, the uncertainty of his position in reality.

Holistic religious worldviews were formed when monotheistic doctrines were formed, when systems of dogmas or indisputable truths of monotheism appeared, accepting which a person communes with God, lives according to his commandments and measures his thoughts and actions in the value guidelines of holiness - sinfulness.

Religion is a belief in the supernatural, a recognition of the highest extraterrestrial and supra-social forces that create and support this worldly and transcendental worlds. Belief in the supernatural is accompanied by emotional experience, a feeling of human involvement in a deity hidden from the uninitiated, a deity that can be manifested in miracles and visions, in images, symbols, signs and revelations, through which the deity makes itself known to the initiate. Belief in the supernatural is formed into a special cult and a special ritual, which prescribe special actions with the help of which a person comes to faith and is established in it.

In the religious worldview, being and consciousness are identical, these concepts define the one-essence, eternal and infinite God, in relation to whom nature and man, produced from him, are secondary, and therefore temporary, finite.

Society seems to be a spontaneous gathering of people, since it is not endowed with its own special soul (in the scientific worldview called social consciousness), with what a person is endowed with. Man is weak, the things he has produced are perishable, deeds are fleeting, worldly thoughts are in vain. The community of people is the vanity of the earthly stay of a person who has deviated from the commandments given from above.

In the vertical picture of the world, God - man, social relations are perceived as purely personal, individual actions of people, projected onto the great plan of the Creator. The person in this picture is not the crown of the universe, but a grain of sand in the whirlwind of heavenly predestination.

In religious consciousness, as in mythology, the spiritual and practical assimilation of the world is carried out through its bifurcation into the sacred (sacred) and everyday, "earthly" (pro-fanny). However, the elaboration of the ideological content of the religious system of views rises to a qualitatively new level. The symbolism of myth is replaced by a complex, sometimes refined system of images and meanings, in which theoretical, conceptual constructions begin to play an essential role. The most important principle of building world religions is monotheism, the recognition of a single God. The second qualitatively new feature is the deep spiritual and ethical burden of the religious worldview. Religion, for example Christianity, gives a fundamentally new interpretation of the nature of man as a creature, on the one hand, "sinful", mired in evil, on the other hand, created in the image and likeness of the Creator.

The formation of religious consciousness falls on the period of the disintegration of the tribal system. In the era of early Christianity, rational proportionality, the harmony of the cosmos of the ancient Greeks is replaced by a picture of the world full of horrors and apocalyptic visions, the perception of social reality that developed among the enslaved peoples of the Roman Empire, among fugitive slaves, among the disadvantaged, powerless, hiding in the caves and deserts of the Front and Asia Minor Semitic tribes. In the conditions of general alienation, many people were practically deprived of everything - shelter, property, family, and the fugitive slave could not even consider his own body as belonging to him. It was during this period, the turning point and tragic moment in history, one of the greatest ideological insights entered into culture: all people, regardless of social status and ethnicity, are equal before the Almighty, a person is the bearer of the greatest, hitherto unclaimed wealth - an immortal soul, a source of moral strength, spiritual fortitude, brotherly solidarity, selfless love and mercy. A new cosmos, unknown to people of the previous era, was opened - the cosmos of the human soul, the inner support of a dispossessed and humiliated human being.

At a certain historical stage, the mythological picture of the world is replaced by its new type - the religious picture of the world, which constitutes the core of the religious worldview.

Religious worldview formed over a very long period. Data from paleoanthropology, archeology, ethnography and others modern sciences show that religion arose at a relatively high stage of development of primitive society.

Religion is a rather complex spiritual formation, the core of which is specific worldview.

It includes as the most important elements

religious faith and

religious cult that determine the behavior of believers.

The main feature of any religion is belief in the supernatural.

Mythology and religion are close to each other, but at the same time they differ significantly.

So, the myth does not oppose the ideal and the real, the thing and the image of this thing, does not distinguish between the sensible and the supersensible. For the myth, all this exists simultaneously and in the "one world".

Religion gradually divides the world into two - "this worldly" - the world where we live, and the "other world" - the world where supernatural beings (gods, angels, devils, etc.) reside, where the soul emanates from and where it rushes after death ...

Religious worldview is gradually formed on the basis of archaic forms of religion

(fetishism- the cult of inanimate objects - fetishes, allegedly endowed with supernatural properties;

magic- belief in the supernatural properties of certain ritual actions;

totemism- belief in the supernatural properties of a totem - a plant or an animal, from which, as it was believed, a particular clan, tribe originated;

animism- belief in the supernatural existence of souls and spirits), creates his own picture of the world, explains social reality in his own way, develops moral norms, political and ideological orientations, regulates people's behavior, offers his own solution to the question of the relationship of a particular person to the world around him.

The religious worldview becomes dominant in the conditions of feudalism, in the era of the Middle Ages.

One of the specific manifestations of the religious picture of the world is that the ideas that have developed in the conditions of an undeveloped culture of deep antiquity (stories about the creation of the world and man, about the "firmament of heaven", etc.) are elevated to the absolute, are presented as divine, once and forever given truth. So, Jewish theologians even counted the number of letters in the Talmud, so that no one could even change the letter written there. It is also characteristic that in mythology a person often appears as an equal to the Titans, while in religious consciousness he appears as a weak, sinful being, whose fate depends entirely on God.

Basic principles of the religious worldview. In a developed religious worldview, over time, the basic principles of religious theorizing are formed. Let's consider some of them using the example of the Christian worldview. It is with the manifestations of such a worldview that a future chemical officer will most often face in life and service (only service in places of compact residence of carriers of Islam can bring him closer to the ideas of the Muslim worldview).

The dominant idea of ​​the religious worldview is idea of ​​god.

From the point of view of this idea, everything that exists in the world is determined not by nature, not by Cosmos, but supernatural beginning- By God. The idea of ​​the reality of such a supernatural principle forces us to evaluate all events in nature and society from a special point of view, to consider in a special way the purpose and meaning of existence of man and society as subordinate to something imperishable, eternal, absolute, which is outside of earthly existence.

The idea of ​​the reality of God gives rise to a number of specific principles of the religious worldview.

Among them, the principle supernaturalism(from the Latin "super" - over, "natura" - nature) asserts the supernaturalness, the supernaturalness of God, who is not subject to the laws of nature, but, on the contrary, establishes these laws.

Principle soteriology (from Lat. "soter" - savior) orients all life activities of a believing Christian towards "salvation of the soul", which is regarded as deification, the union of man with God in the "kingdom of God." Life acquires, as it were, two dimensions:

the first is the relationship of man to God,

the second dimension - attitude to the surrounding world - has a subordinate role as a means of spiritual ascent to God.

Principle creationism (from Lat. "creatio" - creation) asserts the creation of the world by God from "nothing", thanks to his power. God constantly maintains the existence of the world, constantly creates it over and over again. If the creative power of God ceased, then the world would return to a state of nonexistence. God himself is eternal, unchanging, does not depend on anything else and is the source of all that exists. The Christian worldview proceeds from the fact that God is not only the highest being, but also the highest Good, the highest Truth and the highest Beauty.

Providencealism(from Latin "providentia" - providence) proceeds from the fact that the development of human society, the sources of its movement, its goals are determined by mysterious forces external to the historical process - providence, God.

At the same time, man appears as being created by God, saved by Christ, and intended for a supernatural fate. The world does not develop by itself, but according to the providence of God, in accordance with his will. The providence of God, in turn, extends to the entire surrounding world and gives meaning and purposefulness to all natural and social processes.

Eschatology(from the Greek "eschatos" - the last and "logos" - teaching) acts as a teaching about the end of the world, about the last judgment. From this point of view, the history of mankind appears as a process directed in advance by God towards a predetermined goal - the kingdom of Eschaton ("the kingdom of God"). Achieving the "kingdom of God" according to the Christian worldview is the ultimate goal and meaning of human existence.

The considered principles to one degree or another are common not only for various varieties of Christianity, but also for other religious worldviews - Islamic, Jewish. At the same time, the specific interpretation of these principles in different types of religious pictures of the world is different. The religious picture of the world and the principles laid down in it develop along with the development of not only religion, but also philosophy. In particular, the most serious changes in the religious and philosophical picture of the world took place at the end of the 19th - the middle of the 20th centuries with the establishment in European culture of the dialectical picture of the worldview with its ideas of the unity of the world and its self-development.

In Russian religious philosophy, such changes were most clearly manifested in the works of the outstanding thinkers NF Fedorov and PA Florensky, in the concept of a "common cause" - the future resurrection of mankind. In Protestant ideology, this is the concept of a "dipolar God" by A. Whitehead and C. Hartshorne. According to the latter concept, the world process is the "experience of God" in which "objects" (universals), passing from the ideal world ("the original nature of God") to the physical world ("derived nature of God"), qualitatively determine the events.

In Catholic philosophy, the most indicative is the concept of "evolutionary-cosmic Christianity" of a Catholic priest, a member of the Jesuit orders, an outstanding philosopher P. Teilhard de Chardin(1881-1955), whose works at one time were withdrawn (1957) from libraries, theological seminaries and other Catholic institutions. As a graduate of Oxford, he became a renowned paleontologist, archaeologist, biologist, which contributed to the formation of his original picture of the world.

Religious worldview arises when humanity has realized that in this world not everything depends on physical capabilities, that the strength of the spirit, thinking can achieve more than brute physical strength. The mythological cult of the body is giving way to the religious cult of the spirit. But, having stood out as a special reality, spirit, soul, consciousness subsequently gave rise to a philosophical worldview, which outwardly often resembles a religious one. Religion and philosophy often use the same concepts. However, these types of worldview differ both in the ways of reflecting the world in the human mind (religion presents its content in a sensory-rational form, philosophy - in the form of abstract-logical constructions), and on their own grounds. Religious worldview is a generalization, summary spiritual experience humanity, and through it - and other forms of experience. The philosophical worldview is a generalization and summary of the cumulative experience of mankind: industrial, social, spiritual.

Historically, both philosophy and religion arise on the basis of a mythological worldview as a result of its critical comprehension, as a response to doubts about the sufficiency and indisputability of the mythologized world, its norms of life and rules of behavior.

Early religious consciousness is still largely mythological. The world exists for him as a definite predestination. Life is determined by age-old traditions, once and for all established rules: the subordination of the individual to the clan, the younger to the elder, the clan member to the authority of the head of the clan; the weak to the strong ... The individual is so collective that he does not yet exist as an individual, an independent unit. However, gradually, due to the fact that nature opposed man with its power, strength, inexorableness, people developed and then established an instinctive feeling of the presence of an omnipotent and omnipresent being behind the unknown and uncontrollable forces. A creature that surpasses man in importance, natural strength and influence on the world. The fear of natural phenomena was also reinforced by helplessness before the spontaneous, uncontrollable forces of social existence, such as wars, the right of the stronger or more fortunate, the wrath and mercy of a tyrant, etc.

A developed religious consciousness (represented in particular by monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam) separates the realm of God from the realm of man. Unlike early religious concepts, God and man are here opposed to each other as different sides of being.

The division of the world into the realm of the human and the realm of the divine has put man in front of the task of comprehending his existence, proceeding from a new - "bifurcated" reality. Within the framework of this approach, a system of religious dogmas and prescriptions is formed, given as a revelation to the elect. It describes all the norms of a righteous life and a person's relationship with the upper world.

For centuries, religion has more or less effectively used in its worldview system the life-meaning guidelines expressed in terms such as "Destiny", "life path", "happiness", "share", "love", "purpose of life" other. It is through them that the main direction of religious consciousness is set and the way of life of a person and society is formed - from the point of view of religion, the only true and justified.

Religion is imbued with an unshakable faith in "revelation", in its absolute significance... She admits the fantastic, the magical and the miraculous, but distinguishes the fantastic from the real, separates them. At the same time, she feels discomfort from the discrepancy between the ideal and the real, and therefore obliges to live according to her ideal standards, requires observing a certain kind of rituals and prohibitions, because without them the divine ideal is unattainable.

The attractiveness of such a system of views is largely determined by the fact that religion "works" more with the sensual, emotional, deep, to a certain extent unconscious, side of the human personality based on unconditional faith. Religious faith gives the believer vital stability, formalizes and strengthens all value-significant spiritual attitudes: respect for tradition, personal valor, confidence in the struggle against life's difficulties, courage in the face of death, etc. Faith, as an attribute of religion, has tremendous social significance, is formed and maintained in a religious cult and religious ceremony.

Religious worldview, among others, occupies its own "ecological" niche and is unlikely to ever disappear. Ultimately, society is to a certain extent interested in the functioning of the institution of religion, since it helps a person to maintain peace and harmony in relationships between people, to compensate for personal dissatisfaction, psychological inability to overcome many life's vicissitudes.