Summing up, we can say that science and religion are necessary to each other. These are two complementary paths that can help us become fully aware of the world in which we exist. So we don't have to choose between science and religion. The natural sciences can reveal the laws of the physical world and promote the development of technologies that will create a high level of material well-being for us. However, science needs moral values, which originate in religion, in order to guide them in their own activities and to carry out the responsible use of scientific knowledge for the benefit, and not to the detriment of humanity. As Albert Einstein said: "Science without religion is flawed, religion without science is blind."

conclusions

Summing up the above, I would like to note that at present, although there is no single view on the problem of the relationship between science and religion, the majority of scientists and the clergy still tend to the type of "non-contradiction", or one might even say "synthesis" of these areas.

When religion and science profess faith in God, the first puts God at the beginning, and the second at the end of all thoughts. Religion and science are by no means mutually exclusive.

The invisible line between science and religion occupies our mind, as it separates two important aspects of human nature - physical and spiritual. Science should in no way deny spiritual experience, just as religious faith cannot exclude the freedom of development. Science and religion cannot replace each other, nor should they be vulgarly combined, i.e. reduced to scientific religion and religious science. Two integral parts of world culture - science and religion, in essence, have the same roots, nourished by the ability of a person to be surprised and ask questions. The first develops a rational approach to unraveling the mystery of the universe, which allows us to study the world around us in detail. The second originates, on the one hand, in the sacred horror that inspires us with the greatness of the Universe, on the other hand, in the desire to know the Creator and our place in the implementation of His plan.

Such an approach to the problem of the relationship between science and religion will allow a person to live in a civilized world "created" by science, while not losing their spiritual and cultural values.

It is human nature to want to ask questions: What? Why? How? Each of us contains the desire to understand the world in which we live, to find the meaning of existence. Religion, philosophy and science arose and began their development in response to this human desire for knowledge, for understanding the surrounding reality. For many centuries there were practically no differences between these ways of knowing. Together they satisfied man's basic needs and confirmed his intuition that the universe is meaningful, ordered, intelligent, and governed by some form of just laws, even if those laws are not so obvious. Their approach was intuitive and rational, and all directions developed together. The priests were the first astronomers, and the doctors were the preachers. Philosophers tried to cognize reality with the help of reason. In the relatively recent past, there has been a division between philosophy, the natural sciences, and religion, as a result of which each of these areas has acquired its own sphere of application. The natural sciences focused on explaining and understanding the material side of reality, while the spiritual dimension of reality became the main subject of religious knowledge. A juxtaposition of science and religion arose, partly because at times the representatives of religion tried to appropriate to themselves absolute authority in interpreting the material nature of the world. In response to this, some scholars have considered religion a collection of prejudices and have attempted to reduce all religious experience to the realm of human error. However, the proper relationship between philosophy, science and religion can be compared to the story "Why does the kettle boil?". They can be seen as different approaches to understanding the same phenomena. It's not that one direction is right and the other is wrong. They ask different questions and naturally give different answers. In this sense, science and religion complement each other.

Questions about what the world is, how it can be understood by man, belong to the sphere of philosophy.

Questions about how the world works are within the realm of science.

Questions about why the world is arranged in such a way, what is the meaning and purpose of existence, belong to the sphere of religion.

However, for various reasons, many people believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive. In other words, if a person is engaged in scientific research, then he cannot believe in God, and if a person is religious, then he cannot accept certain laws of the world structure proven by science. However, the claim that science has somehow proved the failure of religion seems unfounded to say the least. For example, the fact that modern science has developed mainly in the West is not accidental. Christianity and Islam provided a common ideological framework through which science could develop. This worldview includes the following concepts:

The world was created good and therefore worth exploring (And God saw everything that he had created, and, behold, it was very good. Gen. 1:31),

God created the world in accordance with a certain logic and law, and therefore the world is knowable - with the help of science, a person can know the laws that govern the world.

Nature does not require worship, so people can explore it.

Technology is a means of "dominion over the earth" (Gen. 1:28), and man has the moral right to experiment and create.

For a long time, science was regarded as the standard of rationality. However, the diversity and richness of the reality surrounding us requires the existence of various forms of spiritual and practical exploration of the world. Knowledge is not limited to the spheres of science, but exists in one form or another outside of science. The famous post-positivist philosopher P. Feyerabend (1924-1994) wrote: “the superiority of science can only be asserted after numerous comparisons with alternative points of view” . In modern epistemology, there is a certain imbalance of religious and secular principles, for the analysis of which, in our opinion, it is necessary to address the problem of rationality.

Historically, there are three types of scientific rationality: classical, non-classical and post-non-classical. As part of classical understanding of rationality, everything related to the subject was removed, since it was believed that there was only one truth, and there were many errors. non-classical the type of rationality already took into account the role of the subject in relation to reality. post-non-classical the interpretation of truth recognizes not only the presence of the subject in social reality, but also its practical role in the construction of reality itself. The promotion of one form or another of rationality to the fore is determined by social and historical conditions.

The pluralism of approaches to the analysis of rationality gives positive results, which at the same time act as guidelines for further research.

In modern society, an ideological conflict is more and more clearly observed, which concerns the relationship between science and religion. This problem, as you know, is not new. It has existed since the early Middle Ages. Tertullian (c. 155 - c. 220) firmly insisted on the gulf between faith and reason: “What is Athens to Jerusalem? What is the Academy of the Church? What are heretics to Christians? . In the era of scholasticism, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) tried to reconcile faith and reason, classifying the Holy Teaching as science and at the same time paying tribute to the natural sciences: “There are no obstacles to the same subjects that are subject to investigation by philosophical disciplines to the extent that it is possible to know in the light of natural reason, other sciences have investigated along with this, to the extent that can be known in the light of Divine Revelation. In general, during the Middle Ages, religion and the church monopolized the intellectual and spiritual activities of society to such an extent that there was practically no room for secular scientific activity. This was the main reason for the sharp breakthrough of atheistic views in the era of the New Age in the works of P. A. Holbach, D. Diderot, J. La Mettrie and others. As soon as the influence of the church was weakened and prohibitions on scientific research were removed (for example, in the field of anatomy) , began the liberation of the secular way of life from the religious. The Western world, having rejected the worldviews of Antiquity and the Middle Ages as naive and despotic, rushed to new achievements.

At present, the crisis between the scientific and religious worldview has deepened, as there is a struggle in society for a monopoly in the intellectual and spiritual sphere. If earlier religion was perceived as a kind of Absolute, now science claims the role of the Absolute. It has penetrated into all spheres of our life. Science acts as the intellectual leader of secular society. The scientific way of explaining the surrounding things and phenomena has become today an indispensable attribute of human consciousness. Science has the unconditional right to shape the worldview of people from the school bench. This has led to the fact that at present, it is far from easy for a scientist and an educated person in general, who has been under pressure from the dialectical materialist doctrine and the atheistic legacy of the Soviet era in secondary school and university, in scientific literature and scientific circles, to adapt to new paradigm positions . At the same time, people who base their materialistic views on the basis of natural-scientific thinking perceive scientific postulates and axioms in exactly the same way as a believer perceives religious postulates - fanatically. For example, discussion questions at serious scientific conferences concerning the role of natural selection in biology did not even reach the minds of the speakers, they were so sure that no one could deny natural selection in evolution. And only on the sidelines of the conference, they agreed with belated surprise that Academician L. S. Berg (1876-1950), the author of the evolutionary theory of nomogenesis, who denies natural selection, of course, is not a “dark grandfather on the mound”. And a believing natural scientist (especially if he does not hide his faith in scientific views) is perceived, at best, as a person with oddities, at worst, as an obscurantist. In the absence of any objections to the proposed serious scientific discussion, the opponent's proposed empirical argumentation is either silently or irritably ignored.

In modern science, there are many areas that do not fit into the concept of classical rationality: the theory of relativity, quantum physics, Lobachevsky geometry, etc. It also became clear that the field of science has no rigid boundaries, since the content of science itself is heterogeneous. In the humanities, as a rule, there are no objections to this issue. But since in the natural sciences the criteria of scientificity are almost everywhere limited to the framework of "classical rationality" of the 18th and 19th centuries, an attempt to go beyond these rigid frameworks in order to combine with other forms of rationality most often does not find support among the majority of materialistically oriented researchers. Therefore, the concept of "science" is often used as a speculative term, despite the vagueness of the criteria and the precariousness of the foundation.

The methodological naturalism adopted in the natural sciences does not allow the scientist to go beyond the hardened standards, forming a vicious circle: the criteria of scientificity, invented by the human mind, do not allow the same mind to go beyond its own limitations. Methodologically, both correct and debatable, but paradigmatic theories exist in a certain allocated space, from which they often do not want to look for a way out.

At present, there is a need to get rid of the opposition of religion (as irrational) to science (as rational). Even in medieval Europe, they tried to justify both faith and religious dogmas with the help of a rational approach. Modern theology also contains, to a large extent, rational approaches. Both science and, on a number of issues, religion, in essence, are occupied with the same thing - the knowledge of the world around man. However, materialistic science recognizes only material nature, and religion, due to the metaphysical nature of its specific knowledge, looks much further and broader, considering material and transcendental realities, as well as the transcendental nature of man and the universe. The component of faith is also present in both religion and science, and almost equally. In science, these are various axioms on which many laws of physics, chemistry and mathematics are based. Such withdrawal into mutual axiomatic faith suggests the artificial nature and far-fetchedness of the ideological conflict between science and religion. Before science, as hundreds of years ago, there are many unresolved issues, and for religion, paradoxically, there are practically no unresolved issues. But this does not mean at all that religiously inclined scientists refuse to search for their natural scientific explanation. Thus, the scientific questions of modernity, through their researchers, are also being introduced into the sphere of competence of religion. This has been written and talked about for a long time, and recently, and not only theologians, but also scientists - the pillars of many scientific directions. According to the figurative expression of the founder of embryology and comparative anatomy, K. M. Baer (1792-1876): “All natural sciences are just a long explanation of a single word: let it be!” . The creator of matrix quantum mechanics, Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), a hundred years later, dealing with very different natural science questions, wrote: the stages of human consciousness are a part that will have to be abandoned anyway in the future. So, throughout my life, I constantly had to think about the relationship between these two spiritual worlds, because I never had a doubt about the reality of what they indicate. We will deal first with the indisputability and value of natural scientific truth, then with a much broader field of religion, and finally with the relationship of these two truths to each other, which is most difficult to formulate. Werner Heisenberg also owns a catch phrase that we quote from Dietrich von Hildebrandt (1889-1977), the greatest philosopher of our time: “The first sip from a glass of natural science makes us atheists, but God waits at the bottom of the glass.”

As if summarizing the millennial discussions on the relationship between the epistemological problems of science and religion, the founder of quantum physics, Max Planck (1858-1947), confidently stated the following: “Religion and science do not exclude each other in the least, as was believed before and what many of our contemporaries are afraid of: on the contrary they are consistent and complement each other. Both - religion and natural science - require faith in God for their justification, but for the first (religion) God stands at the beginning, for the second (science) - at the end of all thinking. For religion, it represents the foundation - for science, the crown of the development of a world outlook.

In the context of the above analysis, we will not be original, joining the cited authorities, and once again repeat the maxim with which we have already reasonably agreed: “Science and theology are complementary approaches to the same reality. Science gives rise to metaphysics, in the context of which theology is formulated. And theology is able to put forward rational statements on the basis of which a particular scientific theory can be evaluated.

Reviewers:

• Fedyaev Dmitry Mikhailovich, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Vice-Rector for Research, Omsk State Pedagogical University, Omsk.
• Denisov Sergey Fedorovich, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy, Omsk State Pedagogical University, Omsk.

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The Relationship between Religion and Science at Different Stages of the Development of Western European Culture

There is a strong opinion that in the Middle Ages, theology, which claims to be the science of sciences, subjugated all spheres of spiritual life, severely restricting the free creativity of scientists, writers, and artists. At the same time, it is argued about the violent, artificial nature of such a dictate in relation to the natural course of the development of history, including the development of science. But this is only one and, in our opinion, not the main aspect of the matter. The fact is that the power of theology in the European Middle Ages was determined, first of all, by the fact that religion (Christianity) was the dominant form of mass consciousness, the ultimate regulatory principle, the universal science of life, which determines not only cognitive attitudes and orientations, but also everyday behavior and experiences. of people. Its core was faith in God, the creator and savior of the world, and the church was revered as a mediator and unconditional guarantor (if all the rules and commandments were observed) in gaining heavenly grace and eternal life for a person.

It was religion, which, as a result of complex and mediated dependencies, reflected what is called the basis of society, ensured the specificity and integrity of medieval culture. Moreover, in the categories of religion “they appeared in the minds of people who felt new, most universally significant, all-encompassing ideas,” and the set of doctrines created by Christianity “over time turned out to be the center around which the crystal of ideology serving medieval society was to grow.”

It was Christianity that clearly and popularly raised the question of the specifics and meaning of social life, of the inner spiritual world of man, formed the concept of linear time, the irreversibility of history (understood, of course, in the spirit of Augustinian providentialism). Moreover, one should keep in mind not only the official dogma, but also various reformed currents of free thought and humanism, which, despite the rejection of church dogma, repelled from it, moved in the problematic field outlined by Christianity, which was present in history not just as a “shell” of the real history, but as its inner active force. Therefore, European civilization is rightly called Christian.

The relationship between the spheres of the sacred and the profane, the religious and the secular, including the scientific, was constantly changing in European culture. So, since the XVI century. more and more clearly the process of secularization or desacralization of society is indicated. This process manifested itself in various anti-church movements (heresies, sects) and concepts that rejected church orthodoxy (anti-trinitarianism, deism, pantheism, agnosticism, skepticism), which prepared the appearance of atheistic teachings proper. One of the main forms of such a confrontation was the antithesis of "scientific knowledge - religion", and it is important not to simplify it in the spirit of a straightforward idea of ​​the incompatibility of light and darkness, if only because the elements of scientific theoretical knowledge were usually formed within the framework of a religious worldview, only gradually peeling off and coming into conflict with the picture of the world imposed by the church.

In any case, it is known that most of the great scientists, whose discoveries ensured the liberation of science from the spiritual dictates of Rome, were far from atheism. So, Bruno was fond of Kabbalah, Servetus militantly propagated astrology, Kepler believed in the "universal soul" of the Universe, Newton was fond of alchemy and biblical prophecy, and Pascal defended the mystical "faith of the heart." Flo in this, paradoxical as it may seem, their free-thinking was manifested in that historical era. In the Italian Renaissance, N.I. Conrad, both rationalism and mysticism were “only different paths to the same thing: to the liberation of human consciousness from the power of dogma, to entering the sphere of complete spiritual, and this means creative freedom; and this was exactly what was necessary for the advancement of human thought, social life, culture, and science. In this case, of course, we are talking about medieval mysticism. Later spiritualism, occultism, theosophy, anthroposophy, etc. - phenomena of a different historical and cultural nature.

What explains the constant conflicts of science and religion? After all, theology is the doctrine of the knowledge of God, and it does not directly deal with the study of the physical world. The matter is explained, first of all, by the fact that, according to the Catholic “natural theology”, finally developed by Thomas Aquinas (XIII century), a person, studying nature as a creation of God, is able to gain knowledge about the qualities of God, for example, about his infinite power, supreme wisdom and goodness, and on this basis to formulate proofs of its existence. But rational human knowledge was seen as "lower" knowledge, limited to the "truths of reason"; it was believed that the essence of God was inaccessible to him, in particular, the understanding of the trinity of the Creator, the resurrection of Christ, etc., which can only be based on God-revealed superintelligent "truths of faith." Thus, a special sphere of knowledge was singled out, within which human ideas about physical phenomena were directly correlated with truths “not of this world”. Moreover, the mind was assigned a subordinate role, namely: to direct believers to the contemplation of the Creator, surpassing all human understanding. Hence the desire of the church to keep the conclusions of natural science under constant control, which was most clearly expressed in the approval of a special picture of the world, developed on the basis of a synthesis of biblical ideas, elements of ancient philosophy, cosmological and natural-scientific ideas of antiquity.

The church evaluated scientific discoveries and achievements from the point of view not of their truth, but of the possibility of inscribing them into their own sacral scheme. Therefore, the progress of natural science inevitably undermined not only individual provisions, but the very principle of construction and the substantial foundations of the religious picture of the world. For example, the discovery of Copernicus was perceived as an attack on the teachings of the Church, not because it refuted the geocentric system of the world of Claudius Ptolemy and Aristotle; The Vatican did not care about the theory of the structure of the sky as a component of purely scientific knowledge. It was important that the new ideas rejected the sacred content that was attached to the geocentric concept within the framework of the Catholic picture of the world, including the assertion of the exclusive position of the “God created Earth”, the fundamental difference between earthly and “heavenly” bodies, etc. It is not surprising that the theological thought of the Middle Ages painfully and intensely struggled with the problem of how to translate the truths of eternal revelation into the language of human thought, how to harmonize them with constantly changing, primarily scientific, ideas, with culture in a broad sense. It should be noted that this problem remains as one of the central to this day, giving rise to heated discussions among theologians and theologians.

To some extent, it seems possible even to determine the degree of sensitivity of the church to the revision of certain natural scientific provisions that have become symbols, the specific language of its teaching. This measure depended, firstly, on the role that the content of a given symbol or sign played in the general doctrine, on its proximity to the fundamental dogmas; secondly, from the possibility of reinterpreting a scientific discovery in such a way as to give it an allegorical, allegorical meaning that does not damage the integrity of the religious picture of the world. For example, the undeniable geological data on the age of the Earth, undermining the dating of the “days of creation”, the church tried to neutralize, interpreting the “days” in a special, “divine” sense - as long periods, the duration of which can be established taking into account the latest scientific data. Note that such arguments are still willingly used by theologians.

In the light of the foregoing, it becomes clear why the teachings of Ch. Darwin were perceived as a shock in the church environment. On the one hand, it seemed to many at the time to refute the idea of ​​the divine creation of man, a key tenet of the Judaic-Christian tradition. On the other hand, the biblical text, to which this dogma goes back, is a detailed pictorial narrative, the meaning of which is hardly amenable to a convincing metaphorical interpretation. It is no coincidence that militant “monkey processes” have stepped into our information technology age, and in recent decades, apologists for “scientific creationism” have become noticeably more active - a fundamentalist trend in natural science that claims to be a strictly scientific justification for the idea of ​​a divine and one-act creation of the world from nothing.

In modern times, the processes of secularization manifested themselves more and more vigorously, and the concept of a partial coincidence of "truths of faith" and "truths of reason" could not keep them within the framework of traditional church doctrine. The most significant episode in this process was the emergence and rapid spread of Protestantism (16th century), which, with the concept of sola fide (personal faith), undermined the foundations of the earthly power of Rome and did away with the ambiguity of "natural theology", drawing a hard line between religion and other forms of culture - morality, philosophy, politics and especially science. Man, emphasized M. Luther, lives in two spheres: in relation to God (the kingdom of heaven) and in relation to the natural and social environment (the kingdom of the earth). An adequate and sufficient tool for solving earthly problems (physical existence and regulation of the life of society) is the mind - the majestic gift of the Creator, which distinguishes a person from an animal. But natural reason is in principle incapable of penetrating the mystery of divine grace, which can only be known by faith, which needs no rational presupposition; since natural reason is hopelessly perverted by sin, the religion of such reason is obviously vicious and leads only to idolatry. Only faith gives rise to an enlightened mind - the ability of a person to reason in order over the material that is given in Scripture.

Luther treated science in the same way. He categorically rejected it as a means of knowledge of God, but encouraged the systematic study of nature and society in order to obtain useful practical knowledge, partially restoring the dominance of man over nature, lost by Adam. The heaven of theology, he emphasized, is not the heaven of astronomy: from a religious point of view, the light of the moon is a sign of divine care, but it is up to scientists to study it as a reflection of the light of the sun.

Thus, behind the intensifying confrontation between religion (theology, religious philosophy) and science stood the undeniable realities of history, two different, but equally objective life attitudes. Theology sought to conceptually comprehend and express the massive life experience of generations of people who tried to realize Christian values. At the same time, secular knowledge generalized the achievements of science in understanding the world, reflected the improvement of theoretical tools, the strengthening of its role in the development of society, and, ultimately, the fundamental changes in the entire socio-cultural situation, characteristic of the technogenic (“Faustian”) civilization.

In discussions about the relationship between science and religion, the problem of believing scientists is constantly raised, and not ordinary ones, but outstanding ones - those who determined the triumph of scientific knowledge. This circumstance is indeed incompatible with the well-known concept of "deceit", with the idea of ​​religious faith as a consequence of ignorance and obscurantism. For modern religious studies, which understands the fundamental difference between the needs of society, which are satisfied by religion, on the one hand, and science, on the other, this topic does not present any particular difficulties. But there are plots in it that make it possible to see more clearly the relationship between secular (scientific) and religious consciousness.

A trivial fact is indisputable: this problem itself arises because in their research the greatest natural scientists were guided by the criteria and norms of scientific knowledge and did not try to replace them with arguments from theology. P. Laplace's proud answer to Napoleon's question why he did not provide for God's place in his system remains textbook: "I did not need this hypothesis!" In other words, the eminent astronomer was convinced that science itself was capable of exhaustively explaining the fundamental laws of the universe. Such a view can be called methodological atheism, for which the question of the existence of God in the framework of professional research does not make significant sense - regardless of how the scientist himself relates to religion.

A memorable example is given by Academician V. L. Kinzburg. In attempts to prove that modern scientific data is fully consistent with the biblical description of the development of the universe, he recalls, they often refer to the so-called Big Bang (Big Bang). The concept of it was introduced in 1927 and later by the Belgian astronomer G. Lemaitre, who was not only an outstanding cosmologist, but also a Catholic priest, moreover, the president of the Vatican (Pontifical) Academy of Sciences. “At the XI International Solvay Congress dedicated to cosmology in 1958, Lemaitre stated: “To the extent that I can judge, such a theory (meaning the theory of an expanding Universe with a singular point - the “beginning of time” - K.P.) is completely stays away from any metaphysical or religious questions. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendent being. With regard to the beginning of space-time, the materialist can remain of the same opinion that he could hold in the case of non-singular regions of space-time. Being a deeply religious and even a high-ranking clergyman, Lemaitre at the same time clearly understood that faith in God and certain natural scientific ideas should not be confused at all. It is quite another matter, continues V.L. Ginzburg, “belief in God or gods, adherence to some religion meets people’s need for protection from the hardships of life, helps believers in difficult times. Therefore, believers cannot but be envied, and I am not in the least ashamed of such envy. But what can you do - the mind is stronger and does not allow you to believe in miracles, in the irrational.

A position similar to Lemaitre was defended by most of the creators of scientific knowledge. Of course, at different times this manifested itself differently. Many examples are known when prominent natural scientists wrote theological treatises, one way or another trying to comprehend their own religious faith. At the same time, they, as a rule, were inspired by the rationalistic accents of “natural theology”, which proceeded from the idea of ​​a certain measure of comparability, even isomorphism of the divine and human minds: God created the world as a kind of rational structure, following the principles of logic and the laws of thought, and therefore the knowledge of the Universe allows understand not only the attributes of the Creator, but also to a large extent the essence of things, of being in general. It is precisely the fact that in the professional sphere (regardless of personal relationship to God) scientists strictly followed the procedure of scientific research that caused the irreconcilable clashes of positive knowledge and church doctrine, so well known from history.

However, there were and are scientists of a different type. Thus, the outstanding inventor, naturalist, theologian P.A. Florensky tirelessly denounced "inhuman scientific thought": its truths are always incomplete, probable, approximate, they do not and in principle cannot give true knowledge. He contrasted them with the "Pillar and Ground of the Truth" - not one of the truths, but "The Truth is all integral and eternal, the Truth is one and Divine." However, as it turns out, in order to acquire it, a “feat of faith” is necessary, which only ascetics and saints, spiritualized, liturgical personalities (homo liturgies), who have taken into their souls the Creed, the Holy Sacraments, dogmas, words of prayer, icons, etc. . In other words, Father Paul considered Orthodoxy to be the highest Truth, and the Church as its Pillar. Such an absolutization of the church (“cathedral”) faith, which rejects any deviation from the canon, is a distinctive feature of Orthodoxy. In this regard, let us recall at least the attitude of the official church towards the teachings of the outstanding religious thinker Vl. Solovyov or to the interpretation of Christianity, which was defended by L.N. Tolstoy.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that a believing scientist rejects the ability of science to show him the main thing, namely the path to salvation and immortality. Just as understandable and legitimate is the emergence of anti-scientist doctrines, demands to supplement the scientific and technological revolution with a moral revolution, and so on. But here we are talking about something else - about the desire of the natural scientist to present science in the form of a lower, imperfect level of knowledge. Therefore, we should continue talking about the specifics of scientific knowledge, its relationship with religious knowledge.

We note one curious circumstance. It is clear that a free-thinking scientist, a materialist, will react sharply negatively to such a concept, will insist on its inconsistency and obvious inconsistencies. But it turns out that a similar impression was created about the main book of P.A. Florensky at N.A. Berdyaev, who is quite comparable in talent and authority with Father Pavel: “From this stylized simplicity, stylized quietness, stylized humility, an eerie deadness emanates. When you read this suffocating book, you want to escape into the fresh air, in breadth, to freedom, to the creativity of the free human spirit. He crushed in himself a remarkable scientist, mathematician, philologist, perhaps a researcher of the occult sciences.

Science only gradually acquired organizational forms, improved the most complex research tools, which made it possible to penetrate deeper into the hidden essence of phenomena. Over time, the specificity of science, which distinguishes it from other forms of culture, has become more and more distinct, namely, the acquisition of knowledge, the content of which does not depend on the personality of the researcher. The main thing is that science is not just a collection of concrete statements. This is a special kind of social activity, a way of spiritual production, an area of ​​professional mental work. It is an organic component of human culture and is in close connection with the spiritual climate of society. And this is a two-way connection.

On the one hand, scientific activity, like any other human activity, is purposeful, determined by research programs that take shape in the broad context of culture, regardless of the will and desire of individual researchers. On the other hand, scientific practice develops its own criteria and values ​​(reliance on experience and experiment, fidelity to truth, independence from prejudices and inertia, readiness to defend one's conclusions from political and ideological authorities, etc.). Of course, scientific knowledge is incomplete - it cannot be otherwise and never will be. But it is always open to new truths, often radically changing old ideas - this, in fact, is the pathos of science. Religion also declares that it is concerned with gaining the truth, but the meaning of this term turns out to be different. The scientist aspires to as yet unknown knowledge. To the believer or theologian, the ultimate truth is already clear; he knows when and by whom it was formulated. The main thing is not to discover it, but to experience it inwardly as the truth of salvation.

Thus, it is wrong to reduce the essence of the confrontation between science and religion to a controversy around certain specific natural-scientific provisions. This is just the top, conspicuous part of the iceberg, under which their incompatibility as types of social activity is hidden (but that's all, nothing more). However, in this case, we can talk about two sides of the same coin: scientists who challenged the church in specific areas of knowledge also formulated general methodological guidelines that defended free-thinking, the priority of experimental research, the right to formulate conclusions without regard to church orthodoxy. A huge role in overcoming the spiritual despotism of the church was played by such philosophers as R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, D. Hume and many others. This activity found a worthy conclusion in the works of I. Kant. He argued that a religion that unhesitatingly declares war on reason cannot long stand against it.

The Reformation tore apart the ecclesiastical unity of Europe, and by the 17th century, anti-clerical actions reached their peak, preparing for the emergence of proper atheistic concepts, primarily of the French materialists of the 18th century. Gradually, independent religious disciplines are being formed, striving to apply strictly scientific approaches. On the basis of evolutionary theory, various forms of natural-scientific atheism arise. This is the heyday of the positivism of O. Comte, J. Mill, H. Spencer, the agnosticism of T. Huxley, the monism of E. Haeckel, various forms of vulgar materialism, the uncompromising atheism of K. Marx, the naturalism of J. Dewey and other critics of religion, destructive for theology - the time , ending with a gloomy statement by F. Nietzsche: “God is dead!” In academic circles, the conviction was growing in the final triumph of rationalism and scientific knowledge, in the imminent onset of an "irreligious future" that would bring people deliverance from social evil.

These mindsets contributed to the growth of the influence of liberal theologians, who insisted on the possibility of man to become a junior partner of the Creator in the transformation of society. The most striking example is "social evangelism" (social gospel), which became the dominant trend in American Protestantism in the early 20th century. Its main author, W. Rauschenbusch, passionately asserted: the “great day of Christ” has come, when the opportunity has opened up to create the “kingdom of God” by restructuring all social relations in the spirit of evangelical morality, which should be the main task of the church, appealing to the conscience of people. Confident in their ability to bring "the harmony of Heaven to Earth," the leading Protestant churches vigorously expanded the scope of their social activities; courses in sociology, social ethics, the psychology of faith, and comparative religion were introduced in theological schools, emphasizing the need to apply the achievements and methods of science to restore the true meaning of the Bible, to implement reformist plans. Modernism triumphed, theologians took meaningful steps towards science. However, this dominance was short-lived.

Social cataclysms of the XX century. caused the deepest crisis of "European humanity" (E. Husserl), radically changing the spiritual life of the West, forcing a new look at the fundamental principles of human existence. The tragic vision of the world manifested itself in all forms of culture (existentialism, surrealism, theater of the absurd, etc.). As for theology, the most significant event was the emergence in the 1920s of the so-called dialectical theology, or the theology of crisis (K. Barth, R. Bultmann, R. Niebuhr, P. Tillich, etc.), which directly and uncompromisingly posited the fundamental problems: how to explain the catastrophic turn of history?; what does it mean to be a Christian today?; how to express the eternal truth of revelation in terms of a changing culture?; and, finally, what are the prospects for curbing the destructive demonic forces?

Dialectical theologians were clearly aware of the vulnerability of traditional beliefs that exist, in the words of M. Heidegger, in a “dehydrated world”, and understood that they could fulfill their pastoral mission only if they reliably and convincingly explained the value of religion to “educated people who despise it” (F. Schleiermacher). Therefore, in their works we find realistic judgments about the specifics of Christianity, about its ability to pose and solve the fundamental problems of human existence. First of all, they opposed worldly interpretations of the Christ's message. And this meant the approval of the concept of a transcendent God, the condemnation of attempts to dissolve the proclamation of Jesus Christ in the social ideals and values ​​of worldly civilization, a sharp opposition between the limited human mind and the highest divine wisdom, scientific knowledge and religious faith in the spirit of Luther and Calvin.

An outstanding representative of the next generation of Protestant theology, D. Bonhoeffer, put forward the concept of "without religious Christianity" that plunged everyone into confusion. He clearly states the inevitability of the process of secularization: we live in an “adult world”, and modern man cannot accept either the dictates of the church or traditional religion with its idea of ​​God, inheriting the archaic consciousness of idolaters. And this is the understandable logic of the reasoning of the theologian, who was executed for participating in the struggle against the Nazi cult of the race, the Teutonic exclusivity, the Fuhrer, the totalitarian order, consecrated by German Christians. True faith, insists Bonhoeffer, is expressed not in human ideas about God, not in prayers for the afterlife reward and escape from all earthly trials, but in the readiness to take full responsibility for the demands of this world and, like Christ, to drink the earthly cup to the end, following his commandment to love all people. This approach was further developed in the works of theologians, symbolizing the most dynamic development of modern theological thought. In this connection, let us call J.A.T. Robinson, X. Cox, representatives of the theology of the genitive case (“theology of the Death of God”, “theology of hope”, etc.).

The views of the leading Protestant theologians testify that the processes of rationalization of religious faith, the convergence of scientific knowledge and religious consciousness are very difficult. One has to recognize in one way or another the original irrationality, the substantial rootedness of religious consciousness in the recesses of the soul, where deep existential problems are solved and where intuition, a purely personal choice, and the uniqueness of each human destiny are decisive. However, this does not at all speak of the fundamental impossibility of cooperation - the dialogue of religion and science in solving many problems, including the problem of human improvement. There is no doubt that many improvement concepts are based on just such cooperation.

As part of the implementation of the program of such cooperation, it is necessary, among other things, to overcome the legacy of state atheism. However, one should not act on the principle of contradiction, replacing total rejection with the absolute affirmation of religion as the most important element of social life. It is necessary to seriously investigate the inexhaustible mysteries of religious faith, as it manifests itself in the attitude and way of life of people. It would be worth, for example, a clearer distinction between two concepts: "God" and "the idea of ​​God." “God” is the setting of religious consciousness, that is, the assertion of the existence of an omnipotent Creator and Ruler of the world, in other words, an ontological, existential category, which is rejected by secularized consciousness. The “idea of ​​God” is another matter. This is a certain given, empirical evidence of consciousness, that is, an epistemological category. Its reality and historical justification cannot be denied even by the most resolute atheist, and in this sense the failure of the ontological proof of the existence of God is of no importance.

Moreover, the recognition of the historical legitimacy of the idea of ​​God is a prerequisite for any serious study of religion, whether it is aimed at criticizing or defending it. The discrepancy appears later, in the interpretation of the relationship between these two concepts. If for a theologian the idea of ​​God acts as a consequence and confirmation of the existence of God, then for a religious scholar it is a subject of study: relying on generally recognized facts, he finds out the reasons for the origin, change, stability of such an idea, without at all binding himself to the recognition of the existence of God.

As for science, at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, views on its subject and functions underwent cardinal changes. Thus, the object of cognition within the framework of the post-non-classical scientific paradigm also includes subjective characteristics that reflect the subjective characteristics of the cognizing subject. An abstract representative of culture acts as a subject of cognition - a mysterious carrier of the concept, or a conceptual character.

The hermeneutic paradigm of dialogic communication is replacing object-subject relations. The representative nature of knowledge is being replaced by a systemic-communicative dialogue epistemology. The subject and object of cognition are interpreted as a creation arising from the chaos of the actualization of the virtual world. There is a dynamic approach to a structured whole, a transition from an objective description of the world to a projective description. Within the framework of the new paradigm of interdisciplinary research, a new scientific rationality is being formed, which is characterized by non-linear processes, unstable self-developing systems, effects of coherence, synchrony, co-evolution. This type of rationality is characterized by the rejection of dichotomies and coifroitations, the avoidance of unambiguous answers to the most essential questions.

In connection with the change in the nature of cognition as an object-subject relationship, the methods of scientific research and the structure of science, the understanding of truth as the goal of cognition is changing. The interpretation of truth as a cast of reality and a mirror is replaced by its interpretation as a way of interaction between subject and object.

The modern philosophy of science states that new concepts in science cannot be derived in a purely logical way, bypassing intuition, creative imagination and even mystical insight. It is believed that scientific research should take into account not only the objective properties of the phenomenon under study, but also the value-target characteristics of the researcher's activity, which is inherent in aesthetic and moral culture. In this regard, art is close to the image of modern science, the reflection of reality in artistic images, which are a unity of the abstract and the concrete, the emotional and the rational, the intuitive and the logically conditioned. Many prominent scientists, artist-scientists admit that scientific ideas often come to them under the influence of artistic thinking, artistic images. In the work of scientists and artists, we see how the appeal to artistic thinking helps to create scientific theories, contributes to the discoveries of the new, and the appeal to scientific thinking enriches the creative palette of the artist (A. Einstein, N. Bohr, D. Bohm, D. Melchizedek, Leonardo yes Vinci, L. Wittgenstein, G. Weil, M. Prishvin, E. Robbins).

From this analysis it is clear that science is getting closer and closer to art and, ultimately, to religion. It is especially important for us to note this because, as we believe, the perfection of man presupposes as an indispensable condition the unity of science and religion. This unity can be based on the content of the basic elements of culture, which include the culture of goal-setting, spatio-temporal orientation, thinking, and semiotic culture.

Thus, the following conclusions can be drawn:

— A definitive analysis of religion and science shows that for all the outward dissimilarity, incompatibility of these phenomena, there are nonetheless significant, immanent prerequisites for dialogue, cooperation, synthesis of religious and scientific forms and methods of cognition of the world and man, arising from their very inner nature. This tendency of interpenetration and interaction of religion and science is especially clearly manifested in solving the problem of human perfection.

– Excursions into history make it possible to clarify the well-established idea of ​​​​the absolute opposition of science and religion, which was largely determined by ideological motives, namely, the spiritual despotism of the church, on the one hand, and the claims of science characteristic of the European tradition to create a comprehensive universal worldview (scientism) - on the other . In any case, today the prevailing opinion is that the competence of religion should be limited to the framework of the inner world of man, and science is devoid of absolutist worldview claims. In other words, we can talk about the mutual complementarity of religious faith and scientific knowledge as two dimensions of human existence, which only together satisfy the worldview needs of millions and millions of people at a given stage of the development of society.

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Kostya went into the kitchen and saw that water was boiling in the kettle. His elder brother Sergei entered. "Why is the water boiling?" Kostya asked him. Sergei, who studied at the university's chemistry department, explained that it all started three million years ago, when fallen trees were buried in the ground, then compressed and rotting formed a gas supply.About 20 years ago, geologists drilled a deep well to check whether there was gas underground or not. Having discovered gas, they covered the well and brought a pipe to it. Through pipes, gas enters the apartments and enters the burner, leaving which air is combined with oxygen, and in this case a combustible mixture is obtained. (Where the oxygen comes from is another story.) Then someone lit this combustible mixture with a phosphorus match or electric lighter, and it caught fire. That's why the flame appeared. When burning, methane and oxygen combine and turn into water and carbon dioxide. This reaction produces a lot of heat. The kettle, made of metal and therefore conducts heat quickly, is filled with water. Heat causes water molecules to move rapidly until they overcome surface pressure and escape into the air. This turns the water into steam. That's why the kettle boils.

"Thank you," said Kostya, "but why is it boiling right now?"

“Oh!” exclaimed their mother, entering the kitchen. “The kettle is boiling, you wanted to drink tea.

Which of the explanations is correct? Both. However, they approach the question from different points of view, and that is why the answers differ, complement each other. They are interconnected. Sergei explains how the kettle boils. Their mother explains why he is boiling, making sense of it.

The conflict of science and religion

It is human nature to want to ask questions: What? Why? How? Each of us contains the desire to understand the world in which we live, to find the meaning of existence. , philosophy and science arose and began their development in response to this human desire for knowledge, for understanding the surrounding reality. For many centuries there were practically no differences between these ways of knowing. Together they satisfied man's basic needs and confirmed his intuition that the universe is meaningful, ordered, intelligent, and governed by some form of just laws, even if those laws are not so obvious. Their approach was intuitive and rational, and all directions developed together. The priests were the first astronomers, and the doctors were the preachers. Philosophers tried to cognize reality with the help of reason. In the relatively recent past, there has been a division between philosophy, the natural sciences, and religion, as a result of which each of these areas has acquired its own sphere of application. The natural sciences focused on explaining and understanding the material side of reality, while the spiritual dimension of reality became the main subject of religious knowledge. A juxtaposition of science and religion arose, partly because at times the representatives of religion tried to appropriate to themselves absolute authority in interpreting the material nature of the world. In response to this, some scholars have considered religion a collection of prejudices and have attempted to reduce all religious experience to the realm of human error. However, the proper relationship between philosophy, science and religion can be compared to the story "Why does the kettle boil?". They can be considered as different approaches to understanding the same phenomena. It's not that one direction is right and the other is wrong. They ask different questions and naturally give different answers. In this sense, science and religion complement each other.

• Questions about what the world is, how it can be understood by man, belong to the sphere of philosophy.
• Questions about how the world works are within the realm of science.
• Questions about why the world is arranged in such a way, what is the meaning and purpose of existence, belong to the sphere of religion.

However, for various reasons, many people believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive. In other words, if a person is engaged in scientific research, then he cannot believe in God, and if a person is religious, then he cannot accept certain laws of the world structure proven by science. However, the claim that science has somehow proven the failure of religion seems unfounded to say the least. For example, the fact that modern science has developed mainly in the West is not accidental. Christianity and Islam provided a common ideological framework through which science could develop. This worldview includes the following concepts:

• The world was created good and therefore worth exploring (And God saw everything that he had created, and, behold, it was very good. Gen. 1:31),
• God created the world in accordance with a certain logic and law, and therefore the world is knowable - with the help of science, a person can learn the laws that govern the world.
• Nature does not require worship, so people can explore it.
• Technology is a means of "dominion over the earth" (Gen. 1:28), and man has the moral right to experiment and create.

The story of the creation of the world

The Bible describes the creation of the world in six days. How can we understand this kind of story? Take these words as literal truth? But then we will be forced to reject either the biblical or the scientific approach. However, to take the biblical account as a scientific account of events is to misunderstand the very nature of the Bible. The Bible includes poetry, law, parables, prophecy, descriptions of historical events, songs and even jokes. It helps us to better understand the nature of man and the history of mankind. However, we cannot literally take every biblical word; we must take into account the historical and cultural setting surrounding the people who wrote the Bible books many centuries ago, often in figurative, poetic language, and the audience for which the books were intended. So when we read in the opening verses of Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," this should not be taken as a modern scientific statement. Although the biblical account of creation is surprisingly scientific in some ways (the order of creation described in the Bible is generally consistent with modern geological and evolutionary data), it is intended to convey to the reader another message as well. The statement that God created everything in this world means that nature and the entire physical world embody the Lord's good. Such a view contradicts another existing worldview, according to which matter is meaningless, chaotic, evil, or causes a feeling of fear.

Attempts to reconcile science and religion

For many centuries of history, religious thinkers have tried to reconcile their worldview with advanced philosophical and scientific discoveries and methods. For example, early Christian thinkers relied on ancient Greek philosophy in their writings. Blessed Augustine developed a Christian theology based on the philosophy of Plato, while Thomas Aquinas used the writings of Aristotle. Muslim philosophers and naturalists, such as Averroes and Avicenna, followed the teachings of Muhammad, who said: "Strive for knowledge, even if you have to go to China for it." The discoveries made by them “between the ninth and fourteenth centuries laid the foundation for modern science. Many important scientific discoveries were made during the Middle Ages by Muslims, while European science remained relatively undeveloped.

However, sometimes religions lost their vitality and creative spirit and became dogmatic. For example, in the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church took Aristotle as an ally, but accepted his conclusions as firmly established facts. At the same time, the method of open critical analysis, widely used by Aristotle himself, was rejected. Thus, people began to rely entirely on the authority of ancient thinkers, without analyzing or verifying their conclusions. One result of this was the widely publicized conflict between Galileo and the Vatican. The church has invaded a field beyond its purview, trying to determine which of the astronomical theories is correct. However, this case cannot be considered typical in the relationship between science and religion. Throughout the Renaissance and the golden age of humanism, scholars as well as leading artists received the support of the church. Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits, in turn, were often naturalists who made significant contributions to the development of science. Many outstanding scientists of the past - such as Copernicus, Keppler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Lomonosov, Einstein - believed in God and did not see contradictions between their scientific and religious views.

"The Creator gave the human race two books. In one he showed His greatness, in the other - His will. The first is this visible world, the second book is Holy Scripture. Science and religion are the essence sisters, daughters of the Most High Parent, they can never come into strife among themselves, unless someone, out of some vanity and evidence of his sophistication, rivets enmity on them. On the contrary, science and faith mutually complement and reinforce each other." (M.V. Lomonosov)

Nature in science

The science- this is the way of knowing the natural world and the laws governing it. Throughout the history of mankind, various sciences have arisen and developed that study different aspects of the surrounding world. On the other hand, one and the same phenomenon can be the object of study of various sciences, which approach research from different points of view. For example, the human brain can be the subject of research in such sciences as physics, chemistry, anatomy, neurochemistry, neurophysiology, and psychology. We usually distinguish between:

• natural sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.
• social and human sciences: psychology, sociology, history, linguistics, economics, etc.

Science reflects the search of people with significant creative potential, strong imagination, intuition, inspiration and intellect, in the world of invisible laws, forces and phenomena, where, despite the significance of discoveries already made, the interconnection and interdependence of everything that exists again and again leads to the realization of immeasurable depths. unknown. Scientists have an all-consuming desire to understand the world around them, to acquire knowledge. It often happens that they could use their talent and knowledge in other areas, thereby ensuring a high level of material well-being. However, if such a choice is inevitable, for a real scientist, knowledge turns out to be more valuable than external well-being. Science is also a social enterprise. The results of independent studies are evaluated by other scientists. Over time, there is a selection of those theories that best describe the available data. It is not uncommon for theories that have subsequently gained widespread acceptance are initially rejected because they contradict the then accepted concepts. In this respect, scientists, like all ordinary people, can be no less dogmatic than ardent adherents of religion. For example, despite the fact that Charles Darwin published his work On the Origin of Species in 1859, his ideas were widely accepted by the world scientific community only by the middle of the 20th century. At the same time, the opposition that came from the world of science significantly exceeded the religious opposition to his theory.

"The opposition to the theory of natural selection continued for almost eighty years after the publication of The Origin of Species. With the exception of a few naturalists, there was almost no biologist, and no doubt no experimental biologist, who would accept natural selection as the only mechanism of adaptation." (Ernst Mayr, professor of zoology at Harvard University, USA)

This was the path of many scientific discoveries - they were rejected by contemporaries and were accepted only by the next generation. It often happens that representatives of different scientific schools, well-known scientists accept and support different theories describing the same phenomenon. Theories "compete" with each other; the best one - that is, the one that explains all the known facts in the most consistent way - wins. In the 1950s, for example, there were two theories about the origin of the universe, and both were respected. However, subsequently the "pulsating state theory" gave way to the "big bang" theory, as new data appeared to confirm this hypothesis. Similarly, various theories of earthquakes or theories of the origin of oil now compete. Our understanding of the natural world is never complete, and therefore we must always be open to improving existing concepts.

scientific method

The desire to know the world around us encourages scientists to engage in scientific research. They try to find patterns that will help them understand the hidden nature of phenomena and put forward theories that can explain the phenomenon they are studying. Unusual phenomena can affect the scientist's curiosity. To explain what is happening, the scientist puts forward an idea, a hypothesis, and then conducts an experiment to test his assumption. Gradually, as data accumulates, he can come to an understanding of more general laws, and on the basis of this put forward a theory that will not only explain the phenomenon he is studying, but will also be able to predict other events. Often, scientists use models and various analogies to better understand and explain theories. For example, the atom is often compared to a miniature "solar system". Of course, this does not mean that the atom is really a smaller version of the solar system. The point of using these kinds of models is that they help us better imagine what we cannot see. However, we often do not realize that the whole field of scientific research is based on a number of fundamental ideas about the structure of the world, which in themselves cannot be proved by the rational or scientific method; are assumptions, assumptions that we believe without any evidence whatsoever. We list some of them:

• Rationality. Our thinking is meaningful, and we can rely on its results.
• Explainability. The world can be understood.
• Orderliness. Nature exists in accordance with certain patterns, is a cosmos, and not chaos, and therefore it makes sense to look for these patterns, which can be formulated in the form of scientific theories and laws.
• Uniformity. The basic laws of the universe are immutable, applicable everywhere in the universe, and not just here on Earth. For example, the law of gravity will be exactly the same on Mars as it is on Earth.
• Causality. In the world around us, every phenomenon has its cause.

If we trace the emergence of all these a priori propositions, we will see that they partly originate in the above-mentioned religious understanding of the world. In other words, despite the fact that, unlike religion, science is a source of exact knowledge, it itself depends on unprovable assumptions of a religious nature. All the greatest scientists have thought about this problem - about the fact that all modern science is based on ideas whose validity cannot be proven.

"Belonging to the realm of religion is the belief that the laws that manifest themselves in the natural world are rational, that they can be realized by the mind. I cannot imagine a scientist who would not have this deep faith." (Albert Einstein)

Moreover, studying the history of science, we see that scientific knowledge is always relative, never absolutely exact. This is due to the fact that scientific theories always only approximate the truth. They can be compared to maps, which give a fairly close idea of ​​the real landscape, but can never fully describe all the details that exist in it. They are attempts to explain reality, but none of the theories is able to give a completely exhaustive explanation. There will always be some aspect of reality that cannot be explained within the narrow framework of existing theory. The appearance of such problems usually serves as an impetus for new and deeper discoveries regarding the structure of the world. Over time, old theories undergo changes and are replaced by new ones that better describe the existing facts. Yet scientific theories can never be fully proven. No matter how many times a theory is confirmed by observations or experimental data, is it enough to appear just once? exception, and the whole theory will be wrong, or at least incomplete. This applies even to such a fundamental premise as causality: in the 20th century, it became clear that in the world of elementary particles, in some cases, there is a causelessness. Studying the history of science, one can come to the conclusion that the failure of any theory will be proven within two hundred years after its occurrence. Great scientists have always recognized the fact that, regardless of the depth of existing scientific explanations and understandings, most new data opens the door to even greater mysteries. What we know is nothing compared to the size of the unknown.

“I don’t know how the world sees me, but before myself I am just a boy playing on a sandy beach, rejoicing from time to time in a smoother than usual pebble or a brighter shell, while the great ocean of truth lies unknown before me". (Isaac Newton)

As we noted earlier, science and religion have always been interconnected, went hand in hand. It is only in the last few centuries that science has advanced and seemingly left religion behind. But along with this, as the mechanistic concepts of 19th century science gave way to the new discoveries of the 20th century, science began to explore the invisible world, the world of the mind and subatomic particles. Many eminent scientists, plunging deeper into the study of the natural world, speak of the feeling of surprise and reverence that comes to them before the beauty and harmony of the secrets revealed to them. They feel that there is more to the world than what is open to the eye.

The Limits of Science

Which of the following questions can be answered by the natural sciences?

• How is an atomic bomb made?
• Should we build atomic bombs?
• How does the human body work?
• What is the meaning of human existence?
• Is it enjoyable to listen to the music recorded on the disc?
• What are the basic laws of nature? Why are there laws of nature?

The natural sciences help to understand and predict events in the physical world and control them through technology. They have helped us achieve a much higher standard of living than ever before in human history. The methods of modern agriculture allow the production of enough food to feed the entire population of the earth, and the level of development of medicine has significantly increased the average life expectancy of people. But let's think about whether science has always contributed to the prosperity of mankind? And if not, is science able to substantiate those moral values ​​that must be guided by the use of scientific achievements? There is a dimension of reality which, until today, has not been the subject of study of the natural sciences. You cannot measure the beauty of nature; material well-being by itself cannot bring us complete satisfaction. Can science explain why moral values ​​are needed, what is love, beauty, friendship, justice? The fact that science cannot provide answers to these questions does not mean that they are meaningless.

The Nature of Religion

Religion- this is a very complex and multifaceted phenomenon, but at least one of its aspects reflects the desire of people to understand the inner essence of life, not only what is happening in the world, but why it is happening. Therefore, religion first of all tries to find the meaning of current events and the meaning of our life. Religion tries to provide answers to the "eternal questions" that life puts before us.

• Was the world we see created, or did it arise due to the self-development of matter? Does God exist?
• What is the origin of good and evil, and what is the difference between them?
• Why does suffering exist?
• Is there life after death?
• Why and how should I live my life?

Religion can be described as a way of searching for the nature of Absolute Being. In this sense, it intersects with science. That's why Albert Einstein said, "I want to know the thoughts of God."

The heart of religion...

The founders of the religion, who did not find satisfaction in the life around them, chose the path of spiritual search, always associated with suffering and deprivation, in an attempt to uncover the secrets of life and discover the true path of life. In doing so, they found profound revelations about the nature of human existence and spiritual reality. They often called their discoveries "revelations" because they realized that in their personal experience the Absolute Being was revealed to them. In the past, people sometimes recognized the existence of many gods, as was the case in Ancient Egypt, Greece or Rome, in other cases they gave this Absolute Being a single name - Allah, Jehovah or God. And yet they were amazed to realize that they had only touched the essence of God, glimpsed at Him, God was a mystery that will never be fully understood. The depths of God were unattainable. These revelations of the Divine being constitute the first source of religious knowledge and truth. In this sense, the source of religious knowledge is based on personal experience and not on logical thinking. Reason is needed in order to reflect and understand this initial experience more deeply. Because this mystery defies description, the language of religion is full of similes and metaphors, such as "the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed" and "the Lord is our father." In order to describe the indescribable, there is no other way out than to use concepts that already exist! in the human community. That's why one! of Christian theologians said: "In order to talk about God, we must be poets, musicians and saints at the same time." Of course, it is necessary to correctly understand metaphors. For example, Muslims compare God with a king, because in their culture the concept! "king" is associated with a person who has wisdom and justice, who protects and protects his subjects. Just as in science, where certain models are also used, there is a danger that the metaphor will be taken literally as a complete image of reality, and the fact that this is only a path to understanding an incomparably deeper mystery will be forgotten. A famous Taoist saying reflects the problem that human language faces when talking about such things:

• The Way that can be expressed in words is not the eternal Way.
• A name that can be named is not an eternal name.

The life of people who touched the Eternal Mystery most often changed radically. When they began to share the revelation they had received with others, they gained many followers. These people were learning that by following the teachings of the religion's founder, they too could grow spiritually by drawing closer to God. These were the origins of various religions. The original teaching could exist, attracting more and more followers, transforming people's lives for thousands of years. Yet all the teachings remained more or less open to new revelation. These people realized that the Mystery they had discovered had no boundaries and would be revealed further. This is why the founders of many religions have said that new revelations will be given in the future. However, time passed, and gradually the teachings of the founder of the religion became a dogma. Faith in the truth of the postulates of the Path sometimes became more important than living in accordance with these moral principles. Many religions lost their spiritual potential and turned into an empty, formal ritual. For example, the once powerful religions of the ancient world have gone into the past. The life and teachings of the founders of many religions were written down in books that became known as "holy scriptures". Such scriptures can be compared to a textbook teaching the truth. However, very often they were equated with the truth itself, and new discoveries and other textbooks were rejected. It was during these times that conflicts began to arise between science and religion.

Appreciation of Religious Truth

Just as it is necessary to evaluate scientific theories, so a certain assessment is needed for religious teachings. There are various religious teachings in the world today that we can study. In the past, many people accepted only one point of view, which became dominant. Today it is much easier to know other ideas. Different religions may challenge our own ideas, but this is where the opportunity for growth and development lies. By learning new things and accepting the challenge of our own ideas, we gain the ability to discard any false point of view and replace it with a better one. By studying science, we do not need to rediscover the law of universal gravitation. However, we do not accept this law simply on the basis of blind faith. In school, we ourselves go through a sequence of logical proofs and make sure that the theory correctly explains the existing phenomena. Thus, we can inherit everything that Newton discovered and make his knowledge our own. At the same time, we ourselves comprehend the beauty of the theory. In the process of working with accepted theories, people sometimes approach them from a new perspective and make new discoveries. Religious teaching can be judged in the same way. While any authority matters and is worthy of respect, we must test religious knowledge with our own lives in order to bring it closer to ourselves. In doing so, we will receive new discoveries and revelations. Although there are many different religions in the world today, they all agree on most moral issues. The moral and ethical teachings of all religions recognize that murder, adultery, theft, greed, selfishness, pride, etc. are harmful to others and to oneself. They all speak of the value of such qualities as honesty, humility, righteousness, love, fidelity, moral purity, chastity, respect, and self-sacrifice. However, in matters concerning the origin of evil, the reason why God created man, the existence of life after death, the purpose of life, etc., each religion has its own understanding. These teachings can be compared and evaluated, but the difference from the analysis of scientific theories in this case, the laboratory for research is not in a research institute, but in ourselves. Through study, contemplation, prayer, and reflection, we can decide which teaching provides the most complete explanation of the reality of human existence. What teaching will help us better understand ourselves? What is capable of providing a solution to the problems facing humanity? What is the most realistic and fruitful solution? Perhaps our views on these issues will evolve and change as we grow and develop.

Religion and science are two complementary paths

Summing up, we can say that science and religion need each other. These are two complementary paths that can help us become fully aware of the world in which we exist. So we don't have to choose between science and religion. The natural sciences can reveal the laws of the physical world and promote the development of technologies that will create a high level of material well-being for us. However, science needs moral values, which originate in religion, in order to guide them in their own activities and to carry out the responsible use of scientific knowledge for the benefit, and not to the detriment of humanity. As Albert Einstein said: "Science without religion is flawed, religion without science is blind."

Ber Levin

Science and religion - mutual negation or complementarity?
(analysis of the statements of academician V.L. Ginzburg)

On various Jewish blogs, websites, chats, people of an atheistic "confession" often raise the banner of war against religion. The spectrum of tone of their statements against faith and believers ranges from slight contempt to streams close to swearing. And often such fighters against religion make the main bet on science, as if refuting all the "fairy tales" of these stupid believers. The loudest name among such disputants belongs to a well-known academician, plus a Nobel laureate, who posted his angry articles, a total of three pieces, on the well-known portal “Notes on Jewish History”. In those articles, he directly declares the sharp and irreconcilable antagonism of Faith and Science.

Well, the question is really interesting: are Science and Faith really completely mutually exclusive categories? In order to understand it, it is very useful to look closely at the arguments of the side that completely rejects the legitimacy of the religious approach to the world. This is what we're going to do now.

At one time, this article was proposed in the same place where the articles of the academician are posted, but was rejected by the editor of the portal. Here it is published for the first time.

There is no need to analyze all three publications of the academician on that portal, because. in many ways they just repeat each other. He ended one of them with five theses, concisely and concretely setting out his main thoughts on this topic. (see http://berkovich-zametki.com/Nomer46/Ginzburg1.htm) Therefore, it is quite convenient to analyze them exactly, which is done below.

So, let's start right by his theses.

Thesis 1.

Atheism, i.e. the denial of the existence of God, as well as faith in God, are intuitive judgments (concepts). They cannot be rigorously proven or refuted (like, say, mathematical theorems).

Here the respected Nobeliat bypassed some things. Mathematics is, of course, a strict science, but ... And it, no less than religion (together with atheism), is based on "intuitive concepts." Concepts such as a point, a line, a natural series of numbers, the operations of addition, subtraction, and so on. and so on. - concepts are intuitive, purely intuitive. They are never “proven” by anyone, simply cannot be proved in principle, and that is why they are accepted INTUITIVELY.

Thus, believers have at least as much reason to believe in the existence of a Creator of the world as mathematicians have in the actual existence of a point. And to be more precise, even more, because we have documented names of living witnesses of the Creator's appearance on Mount Sinai, as well as their concrete testimonies. Who does not believe in them - on health, their business. But there is enough solid and convincing evidence that these records are lies, there is no such evidence. But there is again a clearly fixed chain of real personalities who passed these “witness testimonies” from mouth to mouth from the event itself until the very last - our - days (for a detailed and clear presentation of this entire chain, see, for example, http://pantelat.ravvin .com/Sinay.htm)

So, mathematics - the most abstract of all sciences - is certainly based on a number of intuitive concepts and provisions, some of which are passed even at school (say, Euclid's postulates). Well, then - the farther into the forest, the more firewood. Any natural science is built on an even larger number of initial, undefined, i.e. intuitive concepts. So, who cares what - who believes in the existence of the Creator, and who believes in parallel lines, the spontaneous generation of life, the transformation of species, and everything else like that. However, it is worth emphasizing that this is by no means a superposition: they say, either one or the other. Combining these positions is by no means prohibited, but who understands the correlation of these beliefs, i.e. their ranking, one does not need to chew on what underlies, and with what other intuitive concepts should be correlated.

In short, a person chooses for himself an object of faith that corresponds to his mentality. But not a single most inveterate atheist, even crowned with all sorts of laurels, can do without this or that faith.

But in general, according to this first thesis, it can be noted that here the author is rather softly laying - he recognizes a certain equality of faith and atheism. What will be his laying to sleep on this "soft" bed - let's see further. And for this we will go sequentially through its points

Thesis 2.

Atheism does not in the least contradict the recognition of freedom of conscience, i. freedom to believe or not to believe in the existence of God. The identification of atheists with militant atheists is absolutely wrong and is similar, say, to the identification of believing Christians with supporters of the Inquisition.

This thesis has a passing meaning: well, the author is somehow justifying himself, he is trying to distance himself from someone ... However, we will see how legitimate it is to disown the “militant atheists” a bit later. In the meantime, let's move on, we'll leave this point for later.

Thesis 3.

It is necessary to distinguish between those who believe in God, in the existence of some absolute, and so on. in a rather abstract sense (for concreteness, deists) from religious people belonging to some denominations, for concreteness, theists. The theist not only believes in the existence of God, but also in the sanctity of the Bible (or Koran), in the existence of miracles, and so on.

Yeah, here is a concrete seed for further "revelations". These "revelations" themselves will follow further - then we will analyze them, but for now you just have to pay attention to how the author opposes deism to all other confessions. According to him, deists differ from theists (that is, from traditional believers) by a simple and unpretentious belief in God, not burdened by any other attendant circumstances. But the theists, for some reason, add to this - such a clean - faith, also faith in miracles, and in sacred books. (*)

A remark slightly aside (but important) from the current line of reasoning: the author lists only the Bible and the Koran as sacred books. Similarly, in the text of the article, he appeals almost exclusively to Christianity, and maybe in a couple of places - to Islam. But Judaism is either simply unknown to him, or directly disgusted to the point of untouchability, although his writings analyzed here are exhibited just on the Jewish portal, and in one of them he directly appeals to the Jews. Strange somehow - he addresses the Jews, and selects all kinds of evidence (for their further kicking) from Christian opuses. But I am a Jew, and for this reason I leave aside other religions - there is no need to discuss them here. Therefore, in further consideration I will be based solely on the Torah, which, obviously, is quite acceptable in a dispute with an atheist who “debunks” all religions together as a generalized class of phenomena, that is, Judaism too.

So, how is faith only in the Creator of the world (i.e. among the deists) fundamentally different from the faith of other confessions - this is still known only to the author himself. His position that traditional denominations believe in miracles, but deists do not, alas, does not work. It simply does not correspond to the truth, because. in the most important miracle - in the creation of the world and man - both believe.

However, we will leave the question of miracles for later, so as not to be distracted now from the main message of the author. And here it is very clearly stated in the next thesis.

Thesis 4.

Atheism, agnosticism, materialism, deism are topics for philosophical discussions. At the same time, theism is a typical pseudoscience like astrology and is completely denied by atheists. Theism, a decrepit relic of distant ages, is incompatible with the scientific worldview, with science.

To this thesis point, one can add that in his texts it is wrapped even more abruptly (more than once, and each time everything is steeper):

… religion is a vestige of backwardness, a rotten fruit of ignorance…
… religion (theism, Buddhism, etc.) is a relic of ignorance, scientific ignorance. Etc.

That's it, the points are set, the nails in the lids of the coffins are firmly hammered. All “philosophical” (according to the author) religious movements turn out to be acceptable (**), and only the original confessions are bad, filthy and pseudoscientific. Well, it turns out that this same atheism completely denies my faith - what can you do? All that remains is to lie down in the coffin ... But before I climb into it, I still dare to ask another question: what are the grounds for such an absolute denial? Is it really in the opinion expressed here by the author of his opinion about the incompatibility of religion with science? Or maybe not with science, but personally with him, with his mentality?

Well, what about this issue - the issue of compatibility-incompatibility - and let's try to figure it out here.

To begin with, such statements are terribly typical for atheists - we are, de, the smartest. And more precisely: ONLY WE are smart. And all the rest - stupid hopeless.

We've heard something very similar before, haven't we? Well, the academician himself suggested to the readers of his articles where we heard similar things - of course, in the slogan: "Religion is the opium for the people," which he quotes with a certain reverence. (This is literally identical to Karl Marx's formula "Religion is the opium of the people" or "Religion is the opium of the people." I am not a supporter of Marxism, but I fully agree with this formulation). It remains only to supplement what he omitted: this slogan actively worked as a killer cliché for communist propaganda in the USSR for all the years of the existence of this state.

Here it is useful to return to the above thesis 2. In it, a respected comrade academician, tried with all his might to disown the militant atheists in the Soviet era - de, he himself is not like that, and in general normal atheists are not so militant. However, there is a question - is its label: “pseudo-science” so different from the work of those same atheists: “opium”? What is the difference then? There is none, there is no difference between these two stigmas, either in terms of content, or in terms of contempt and reproach.

And then - more: our Nobel laureate could not stay at the level of a simple label (“pseudo-science” - and that's it; or, “opium” - and that's it); no, he immediately threw out a bunch of insults against religion (again in the wake of "militant atheists"): decrepitude, backwardness, a relic, rottenness, lack of education, ignorance.

The highly scientific academician does not trouble himself with the proofs of these attitudes, he works on pure emotions. Do not consider, in fact, at least some weighty evidence completely empty - both in essence and in execution - the calculation of believing-unbelieving scientists. Or, in addition to this, an indication of a billion illiterates in the world, with a crystal clear idea that religion is just the lot of only such illiterates. Well, well, the Jewish laureate seems to be unaware that in all ages literacy has been universal among the Jewish people, and for those who profess Judaism it is practically mandatory - you have to read prayers yourself, shift all this to priests - we are not at all in the factory. And that he is really unaware (it is not given to know about it) that now in the synagogues there are a lot of Jews not just literate, but downright highly developed intellectuals and intellectuals, artists, scientists, medicine, etc.

Well, from these insults, from dirty epithets, let's return to a more specific accusation, to the label "pseudo-science". Here is the place for my great surprise: did the author understand at all what he was writing about? Under Soviet rule, in the years of the 1940s and 1960s, it was this term that was in great use among semi-official detractors of genetics and cybernetics. Not only did this academician put himself on a par with these little-respected figures, but with sense, things are even worse for him than for Soviet officialdom - much worse. There, indeed, it was about specific sciences, therefore, to call them "pseudosciences" - although it is an obvious insult (it was intended for that), it still did not stand out from a certain class of phenomena. That is, the pair: "science - pseudoscience" is a logically acceptable superposition. The same, for example, as the pair: "thesis - antithesis."

But our Nobel laureate pins some kind of scientific essence, which is still contained in the term “pseudoscience” (albeit in an offensively negative sense), to a fundamentally different phenomenon, which, having originated in any scientific framework, did not fit into any scientific framework, and never tried to fit into them. Religion, as a phenomenon, has always and everywhere been outside the scientific field.

For a simpler understanding of this, not so complicated thing, as an example, we can construct maxims similar to the one issued by our academician - similar in terms of inconsistency of concepts. For example: "Poetry is pseudoscience." And then it’s like this: “Science is false art.” Or so: "morality is pseudo-mathematics." Well, and how with hearing - does not cut?

Logic, and simply the ability to comprehend what is written or said, turns out to be on the same level for all detractors of religion - both laureates and ordinary Internet bullies of the atheistic front. And this level speaks for itself. Everything in their writings is based on naked emotions, unsubstantiated but blatantly drummed statements, and is always based on on complete ignorance of the subject of their criticism, i.e. religions. And in all these qualities, they - these detractors of faith - are surprisingly close to the detractors of Jewry, i.e. Simply - to anti-Semites.

At the end of this section, it makes sense to formulate a positive position on the relationship between science and religion, as an alternative to the devastating statements of the academician. These two areas - each of them - have completely different, non-intersecting basic foundations, and therefore develop without interfering with each other. Science is unable to prove the absence of God (which is admitted to some extent even by the author - see his point 1), as well as, on the contrary, to confirm his existence. Both that, and another it is not given in principle, on its status. In the same way, religion, for its part, does not attempt to overthrow scientific constructions, for it has its own sphere. Therefore, both of them can coexist quite peacefully both in the public spaces and in the minds of each individual.

The foregoing does not mean that these two phenomena do not have any points of intersection at all. Since both are simultaneously inherent in the self-consciousness of a person, then there will certainly be areas of their joint application. And some visible conflicts and contradictions can already be identified in them. Well, for example, contradictions in determining the age of the world around us. However, proceeding from the above formulated basic provisions, such conflict (more precisely, even pseudo-conflict) situations can always find a solution - there would only be a desire and aspiration for this. (see here - in a detailed presentation or - the same in a brief, thesis form)

Thesis 5. (its beginning)

Since theism, generally speaking, is associated with calls for goodness and observance of certain positive ethical norms (commandments), it should not be fought in the same way as it is necessary to fight against pseudoscience, for example, with astrology. The task of atheists is not to fight religion, but to atheistic education, in particular, to expose creationism and all sorts of other anti-scientific "theories". ….

Here I will not defend poor astrology - I understand it rather poorly, so expressing my opinion would be unforgivable stupidity. But from the moral side, such scolding somehow doesn’t look very nice - indiscriminate reproach without any evidence. Oh, how it seems that the author understands astrology to the same extent as I do.

However, let us recall that in the same way - pseudoscience - the author called (one point above) the same religion, and also did not bother to substantiate such a sharp attack. And at this point, however, he somehow takes her - that is, religion - out of his blow, but he does it quite in a Jesuit way.

You see, there is no need to persecute religion - it turns out that it is somehow connected with ethics and good intentions. The discovery of this America by the academician is eloquent enough. He does this through his teeth, through "generally speaking", i.e. as a kind of private circumstance, somewhat mitigating the guilt of the defendant and somehow lightening his sentence ... And he does not take the trouble to comprehend that this is precisely the essential difference between religion and science.

Science is responsible for the material world, while religion is responsible for the spiritual. In principle, no scientific discovery can contain at least something of the concept of morality, while faith, on the contrary, takes full responsibility for ethics, for distinguishing between good and evil, and so on. This is exactly what our Torah is dedicated to.

But such a - moral - prerogative is available only for a full-fledged religion, i.e. in the terminology of the academician - in theism (and in mine - in Judaism). Whereas the deists recognized by the author have the idea of ​​the creation of the world, but, alas, there are no moral attitudes. After all, the Creator, in their opinion, has already retired and does not pay any attention to human affairs (well, except that he once handed some commandments, and calmed down on that, stopped monitoring the situation.)

As for education, there is an interesting nuance here - all the pathos of the academician's articles is aimed at banning religious propaganda (specifically, Christian, Orthodox) in Russian schools. That is, the author calls for religious dominance (read - obscurantism) to put a tough barrier, but he turns on the green light for atheistic propaganda in the field of education, considers it a direct duty - not only his own, but, as if, of the whole society (let's say - "progressive humanity").

And here, naturally, a small question arises about the presence of honesty in this selective approach. Isn't it more honest, nevertheless, that religion and atheism compete on equal initial conditions? And then somehow it turns out badly - during the years of the dominance of communal-atheistic propaganda in schools (and not only in them), I somehow did not hear anyone's such indignation against a sort of brainwashing. And the academician then was silent - like everyone else. But about the Christian agitation, he immediately sharply rebelled, using almost street abuse, and, at the same time, loudly declaring the right to agitate atheistic views.

Here, it seems, it will be in the stream to bring the following parable-setting from our ancestors. Jewish parents teach their growing son: “Son, when you take a cab, look at him when you drive past the church. And if he does not cross himself at the same time, immediately stop the cab and get off - such a driver, who does not believe in anything, will not take you to good..

Here is such a simple approach to neighboring Christians. Well, now the sons of these sons have completely erased the old Jewish wisdom from their consciousness. Such "obscurantism" does not suit these progressive descendants.

And the last thing here is about creationism (on the last line in the above part of thesis 5). Here is another “pseudo-science” from the academician, and, even, it is said even more strongly - downright “anti-scientific theory”. At the same time, he does not go so far as to explain (ie, define) the signs by which he separates scientific theories from anti-scientific ones. And how did the creationist theory get so wrong with him? - so far there is no answer. There is simply the pinning of another swear label.

The counterbalance to “anti-scientific” creationism is not directly named here, but, in principle, it is quite clear that this is the evolutionary theory of Darwin-Huxley or, in modern terms, the synthetic theory of evolution (hereinafter, for brevity, simply evolutionism). The dispute between the two indicated theoretical constructions has been going on for more than a century. But the method of resolving scientific disputes by labeling an objectionable direction has never yet led to significant results.

It would be much more interesting if the academician, instead of unfoundedly stamping the stigma of "anti-science" on creationism, took the trouble to explain what, in his opinion, is the higher "scientific" nature of evolutionism. The same evolutionism, which in many respects has reached a dead end. For example, (a) evolutionism could not anywhere and never, despite all efforts, fix the gradual transition of one species into another, although it is precisely such a transition that is considered the main factor in evolution. Further, it (evolutionism) cannot explain in any way: (b) mass extinctions or, conversely, the appearance of numerous classes of organisms - for example, dinosaurs; (c) the phenomenon known as the "Cambrian explosion", when geologically instantly and simultaneously - at the beginning of the Cambrian period - all the main groups of skeletal organisms appeared; (d) finally, in general, how the living came from the inanimate, and at the same time in violation of all natural laws formulated in physics, chemistry, and other sciences.

So, since such a juicy scolding of a theory objectionable to an atheist has been issued, it would be necessary to provide evidence of the “scientific nature” of another theory, more dear to the author’s heart. However, I don’t know - was it worth expecting such an analysis from a physicist? - it does not seem that he would be competently versed in these areas. Something our Jewish physicists really like to get into something that is not their patrimony - where they understand little, but at the same time speak out with self-confident and infallible aplomb (see also, for example, about some similar "physical" reprisal against the concept " Jew" - )

Thesis 5. (its end)

I would like to emphasize the complete inconsistency of the rather widespread thesis: "If there is no God, then everything is permitted." Theism is indeed in some cases, but not always (see some movements in Islamic fundamentalism) has a beneficial effect on strengthening positive ethical and moral norms. At the same time, atheism no less "professes" similar views and ideas.

Here is another unsubstantiated statement. It would be very interesting to know where and how was this “confession” of some moral norms by atheism recorded? Where are they recorded? Maybe in the inglorious memory of the "moral code of the builders of communism"? - so he has already sunk into oblivion. Or does the author mean state legislation, that is, the criminal code? Is it really like that!?

Indeed, in the 20th century - the bloodiest in human history - we have a lot of evidence of the violation of all social foundations. And, precisely, first of all, from the side of atheists, who have absolutely no moral restrictions. Well, let's remember, for example, the communist governments of any continents and races, or even just leftist (i.e. social communist) terrorist formations of different countries, such as all sorts of "red brigades", "Ulrika Meinhopf's group", etc. illustrations of this, but I have no desire to get into this swamp here and now - the Himalayas of literature have already been written about that.

I will confine myself here to some example from the ordinary level - behavior, as it will seem to many here, is not even a terrible plan at all. But, nevertheless, it will be a useful illustration of the ethics (that is, the moral level) of the parties under consideration, moreover, in application specifically to our people. The above-mentioned outrageous swearing (up to and including sub-fences) in various chat rooms by Jewish atheists, their cesspool watering of their religious counterparts, including here insults to religion in the works of our academician analyzed - all this is very, very low on the ethical scale. But for some reason, nothing even close to this is heard from religious Jews. Why? Yes, because in his prayers a religious Jew three times a day, and on Saturdays and holidays - all four, says (translated into Russian): “My God, save my tongue from slander ...” And this penetrates into his essence becomes his character.

The same can be said about other moral standards. It is much easier for atheists to live without them, because they defend their positions with such foam at the mouth. But the poor fellows do not have any significant evidence, so they indulge in abuse and insults of the opposite position - maybe it will pass for proof.

Well, it is also worth adding a small consideration of the views of an atheist academician, not reflected in the disassembled theses, but taken directly from his texts.

I think that over time, although not very soon, religion will die out everywhere.

… human society on Earth is not degrading and, albeit not very soon, will reject dilapidated religious ideas as a result of the triumph of the scientific worldview.

Humanity can see a bright future only on the path of enlightened secular (secular) humanism.

And again - bare slogans, not backed up by any arguments, plus again and again the recurring defamation of religion. I’m already omitting this last one - enough about him. What is interesting here is the direct connection between the orientation towards the eradication of religion and the construction of a “bright humanistic society”.

Let me still note that the construction of a highly moral world on the basis of atheism is not visible in any way - well, just not at all. And there are (unlike the views discussed here) certain historical arguments for this. There is no basis for a bright future of atheism - neither in communism, the worship of which is quite noticeable in the author, in particular in the passages mentioned above (and the inconsistency of the hopes placed on him has already been demonstrated there), nor in humanism, in which the author already explicitly relies . The same humanism (secular, enlightened and whatever) unleashed all the bloody revolutions of the pre-communist era, crowning them with the world massacre of the 14th year. The same humanists of all countries together (with a very rare exception, counted on the fingers) did not hesitate to throw European Jews into the jaws of Hitlerism, often even simply contributed to it. And these world humanists (as always - "peacemakers"!) are now actively helping the Arab terror, in its focus on the "final solution of the Jewish question." That's really true: "Humanists of all countries - unite ... against Israel!"

Very interesting priorities are obtained by gentlemen-atheists of Jewish blood - with anyone, but only against Judaism, even if to the destruction of the entire nation.

It would be wrong to end the analysis on such a desperate note. In the end, it should be noted that not all high-ranking scientists are like our Soviet academician. And here is an example: one of the greatest physicists of our time, whose lectures brought up a whole generation of scientists and ordinary people all over the world, including in Russia - Richard Feynman . This is, indeed, a scientist of a very large scale, a person with the broadest outlook, who does not close himself in separate scientific directions, but who knows how to see the world in all its manifestations.

And now, one of the examples of the presentation of his views is his lecture, exhibited at http://vivovoco.rsl.ru/VV/Q_PROJECT/FEYNMAN/LECTURE5.HTM. In it, he speaks directly about the world around us, about ordinary phenomena (not even miracles!), which exist constantly and everywhere, but do not fit into our physical model of the world, which seems to be so deeply worked out, and, it seems, firmly established. The attentive reader should not escape the “off-screen” surprise and admiration of the author (Feynman) with these circumstances. And for a truly thoughtful reader, it becomes quite clear that, although he does not name aloud a specific name (after all, he is a physicist, and not a preacher, he should not directly engage in sermons), but all these reasonings of his inevitably lead to the concept of a Higher power that created our world.

Well, at the end of the lecture, it is directly said what Feynman should be like interpersonal relationships, which already directly illustrates our topic here: Neither an understanding of the nature of evil, goodness and hope, nor an understanding of the basic laws in isolation can provide a deep understanding of the world. Therefore, it is unreasonable when those who study the world at one end of the hierarchical ladder treat those who do it at the other end without due respect.

For greater clarity, let me rephrase this statement a bit, retaining its semantic load (hereinafter, the unconditional parts of the above quote are highlighted in red, and Feynman’s slightly veiled part is in green): Impossible to reachdeep understanding of the world If physicists responsible forunderstanding of the basic laws, And religious thinkers, delving intounderstanding the nature of evil, good and hope,will treat each other without due respect .

This particular truth, alas, is not yet included in the arsenal of thinking of physicists of the Soviet mentality, even with their Jewish nationality.

————————————

Notes:

(*)
Here it is necessary to clarify that in my text I had to use the terminology of the author of the abstracts under consideration - otherwise a leapfrog of misunderstanding would begin. But the fact is that his terminology (which I am forced to follow here), this terminology is fundamentally wrong. "Theism" includes ANY belief in a Higher Power, ie. and pagans, and the deists so beloved by the author. His opposition of deism and theism says only that the respected academician got into the wrong sleigh - he did not understand the basics before getting involved in the battle with a victorious cry. In fact, he is at war - as he himself explained in the publication cited here - with Christianity, Islam and Judaism, which is united in all literature under the term "monotheism". And the term "theism" - I will explain again - has a much wider scope, which certainly includes deism.

(**)
In general, this is interesting in itself - viciously cracking down on religion in its most general terms, while at the same time taking both deists and agnostics out of the blow. Well, it's terribly interesting, let's say, about the latter: an agnostic simply claims that he simply DOES NOT KNOW, IS NOT SURE - whether the Creator exists or does not exist. So it turns out, according to our expert on religions, that it turns out that it is possible to doubt and hesitate, but to take a certain side - no, no.
And one more thing - why does this agnosticism (i.e. avoiding any decision) according to the author turn out to be a philosophical (!) position? But the solution of this issue in the direction they do not like is already obscurantism! The logic, let's face it, is mind-blowing - quite in the spirit of socialist realism, where all philosophy is understood as "diamat". .
One can make such a quiet assumption that the author among his friends or simply colleagues in the academic workshop had both deists and agnostics, and he simply did not want to conflict with them. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain such selectivity and bias; the opinion that G-d, about which the agnostics hesitate, without fundamentally denying it, and the same G-d of the deists, who are fully accepted by them as the Creator - this is quite an object of philosophical reflection, and the G-d of the monotheists (the same Creator of the world , by the way) - this is already a bullshit, a scarecrow for children.

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Written approximately at the beginning of June 2009
Sent to the site "Notes on Jewish History" 15.06.2009
Refused to publish 16.06.2009 with the wording: does not satisfy high portal requirements. Although my previous works somehow met the same requirements. satisfied so much so that my first publication on that portal was put there directly by the editor (who had previously asked for my consent), and I wrote the second of them, in general, at his direct request.

In recent years, a direction of research has been formed in the world humanitarian thought, which lies on the border of two disciplines - the philosophy of science and the philosophy of religion. Scientists are convinced of the need to go beyond narrow disciplinary approaches and search for a worldview justification for their research.

In the context of the observed increase in attention to the problem of convergence of scientific and religious worldviews, on the one hand, and due to the importance of all forms of human cognitive activity, on the other, the importance of analyzing existing concepts of the relationship between science and religion is increasing. At least three models of the relationship between science and religion can be distinguished: conflict, independence 2

and integration.

Conflict in the relationship between science and religion illustrate the so-called "scientific materialism" and "biblical literalism", which represent opposites. Nevertheless, they have several common distinctive features, which encourages them to be considered together. Representatives of both directions believe that there are serious contradictions between modern science and classical religious ideas. Both those and others strive to find the unshakable foundations of knowledge: in one case it is logic and sensory data, in the other - infallible Scripture. Both believe that science and religion offer mutually exclusive accurate descriptions of the same realm - the history of nature, and that one of these options must be chosen. Scientific materialism and biblical literalism abuse science in the same way: the former, starting from scientific ideas, then tries to make broad philosophical generalizations from them, while the second starts from theological ideas, but seeks to draw conclusions about scientific issues. Thus, both directions cannot fully satisfy the current level of development of philosophical and scientific thought.

Independence. One way to avoid the conflict between science and religion is to consider these two areas absolutely independently and autonomously. Each of them has its own area of ​​application and its characteristic methods, which are explained in its own terms. Proponents of this view believe that both science and religion have their own jurisdiction and should keep a distance from each other. Each should attend to its own affairs and not interfere in the affairs of the other. Each method of research is selective and has its own limitations. This division into isolated compartments is explained not simply by the desire to avoid unnecessary conflicts, but also by the desire to remain faithful to a certain character of individual spheres of life and thought. Some authors believe that science and religion study the same field from different points of view, rather than belong to different areas.

Integration. This concept comes from the dialogue of scientific and religious knowledge, which is based on the existence of common features inherent in both science and religion. Most researchers today agree that a complete and adequate comprehension of reality is possible only if the religious and scientific ways of its cognition are combined. The possibility of constructing a single holistic picture of the world based on the synthesis of science and religion is recognized.

The dialogic nature of the natural sciences and the religious knowledge is manifested in the following aspects. Firstly, in the generality of the methodological programs of science and religion (cognitive aspect), and, secondly, in the influence of religious and philosophical knowledge on the formation of science in the process of its historical genesis (historical aspect). Let us turn to a more detailed consideration of the claimed parallels.

Science is considered objective, since its theories are substantiated by clear criteria and proven by indisputable data, free from theoretical load, while religion, on the contrary, is presented as the embodiment of subjectivity (positivism). The existence of such a contrast is increasingly questioned. Of course, there is a significant difference in emphasis between the two spheres, but the division is not as dramatic as previously thought. Scientific data bears the initial theoretical load, and the logical analysis of data and creative imagination, in which analogies and models often play a significant role, are considered the source of theories. Many of these features are also characteristic of religion. Religious data, including religious experience, rites, sacred texts, is even more conditioned by conceptual interpretations, metaphors and models of religious language play an important role. Of course, religious beliefs are not so easily subject to rigorous empirical testing, but they can be approached with the same exploratory spirit that characterizes science. Scientific criteria for coherence, comprehensiveness and fruitfulness find parallels in religious thought.

T. Kuhn's research states that scientific theories and data depend on the corresponding paradigms that prevail among scientists. T. Kuhn defines the paradigm as the core of conceptual, metaphysical and methodological assumptions embodied in the tradition of scientific work. The interpretation of data (such as religious experience or historical events) depends on the prevailing paradigms to an even greater extent than in the case of science. Here, special assumptions are used even more often to eliminate the anomalies encountered, so religious paradigms are even more stable.

The position of the observer in science is currently being revised. Previously, objectivity was identified with the separation of the observer from the object of observation, but today it is believed that the observer as the subject of observation is inseparable from the object. So, M. Polanyi believes that the personal participation of the cognizer in the entire process of cognition is very important. In science, discovery is impossible without creative imagination, which is a deeply personal act, and the evaluation of evidence is always an act of considered personal judgment. M. Polanyi is sure that for religion all these features are even more essential, since personal involvement is stronger here, which, however, does not exclude rationality and a universal goal.

Despite the relationship and methodological commonality, science and religion, as two complementary areas of social consciousness, also have important distinctive features, which are systematized in Table 1. 1.3.

Table 1.3

Distinguishing Features of Science and Religion _

• Science and religion. Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach. Scientific works / ed. I.T. Kasavina. M., 2006.
• Barbour I. Religion and Science: History and Modernity. M., 2000; Vodenko K.V. Religion and Science in European Culture: Correlation Dynamics of Cognitive Practices. Novocherkassk, 2012.