Religion - the expression of human nature

- This is the emotional attitude of believers to recognized objective creatures, properties, relations, personnel, places, actions, to each other and to themselves, as well as religiously interpreted individual phenomena in the world and to the world as a whole.

Not all sorts of experience can be considered religious, but only those that are soldered with religious ideas, ideas, myths and by virtue of this acquired the appropriate focus, meaning, and meaning. Arriving, religious feelings become the object of need - gravity to their experiences, to religious-emotional saturation.

With religious performances can be melted and obtaining the appropriate focus, meaning and meaning of a variety of human emotions - fear, love, admiration, reverence, joy, hope, waiting, ram and asthenic, altruistic and egoistic, moral and aesthetic; In this case, "Fear of the Lord", "Love for God", "The feeling of sinfulness, humility, humility", "the joy of God-edition", "Templement of the Icon of Our Lady", "Compassion to the Middle", "The reverence of the beauty and harmony of the created nature" , "Waiting for a miracle", "Hope on otherworldly reward."

It should be noted that the emotional processes of believers from the point of view of their physiological basis and the main psychological content do not contain any specific in themselves. Conventional human feelings are connected with religious beliefs: fear, love, anger, joy, hope, reverence, admiration, etc. In believers, they have the appropriate object-shaped design and meaning, i.e. They are experienced by believers as "fear of the Lord", "Love for God", "Feeling of humility", "feeling of sinfulness", "the joy of communicating with God", "Defeating the Icon of Our Lady", "Compassion to the Middle", "Love for the Middle ,.; Fear before God is more than love, the believer remembers all the time that if he does not fulfill the commandments, God will punish him. In this regard, the American researcher of religion U.James writes: "If we agree to understand the term" religious feeling "as a collective name for those feelings that are generated in different cases with religious objects, we recognize the likelihood that this term does not conclude, In itself, such an element that would have a specific nature from a psychological point of view. There is religious love, religious fear, religious feeling of sublime, religious joy, etc.

But religious love is only a common sense of love, facing a religious object. Religious fear is the usual thrill of the human heart, but associated with the idea of \u200b\u200bDivine Kara "Thus, from this conclusion and points of view of other researchers of religious and psychological phenomena, it can be concluded that the specificity of religious feelings is not in their psychological content, but in their direction , in subjects to which they are directed. As for the objects of religious feelings, they may be of various kinds of religious images, submission and ideas. In the same cases, when religious feelings seem to be aimed at a real-life object, for example, on what -Lo human ("saint", "righteous", etc.) or the material subject ("miraculous icon", "holy source", etc.), they actually always associated with the object itself as such, But only with the supernatural properties that he supposedly has.

Feelings in the sphere of religion play a crucial, primary role. The problem of the specifics of religious feelings was repeatedly discussed in the overseas psychology of religion. Numerous attempts were made to characterize religious feelings from the point of view of their specific psychological content. Some psychologists following the German Protestant theologian F. Shleiermacher (1768-1834), qualified a religious feeling as a "sense of dependence." Others share the point of view of the German their and philosopher R.hotto on a religious feeling as a specific unity of "sacred horror and admiration" 176. Third (G.Vobbermin) believed that religions are most characteristic of the sense of "security and passionate expectations". Even in the middle of the XX century. The opinions were expressed that "a distinctive feature of a religious feeling is reverence, not fear, love, sorrow or disappointment." A set of feelings and experiences inherent in religious people in various epochs has historically changed. The general trend of changes in the field of religious emotions consisted of displacing negative experiences, primarily fear that prevailed in primitive people, feelings positive: love, reverence, admiration, thanks. Although religious fear remains one of the important components of the experiences of modern believers.

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Conclusion

Explain the secret of religion, the reasons for its appearance from secular positions - the task is quite complicated. Unfortunately, religion has long been satisfied with primitive explanations for a long time. It attributed to a primitive sense of an inevitable fear, ignoring the cherished magic world of magic. Religious studies bonded the origin of religion with a trepidative attitude to death, losing sight that this attitude is not universally, but it turns out to be different in specific cultures. Religious studies saw the terrestrial roots of religion in social conflicts who have long gone, and religion itself remained. Specialists interpreted about the complexity of the process of knowledge, which is fraught with a "flying of fantasy", but religion retained itself and in the context of the critical rethinking of the entire gnoseological activity of man. Meanwhile, over the past decades, ethnography, cultural studies have accumulated material enough to approach the discussion of these issues with broader philosophical positions. The philosophical anthropology, which reveals the world of man in its complexity and integrity can be huge.

The first starting point in this matter is a person inherent in the need for religious. In a person, in the very core of His nature, the spontaneous desire to be rooted to be rented superior to his strength, some entity, incomparably more powerful than his own. Perhaps this desire stems from a feeling of fear of the formidable forces of nature, melting in itself a deadly danger. Trying to die the natural elements and thus achieving the establishment of a certain equilibrium between them, the person simultaneously overcomes its own fear. At the same time, various phenomena of nature is attributed to the possession of the reason, the ability to hear and understand people and accept the sacrifice of the gift. So a person meets face to face with some impersonal, but reasonable essence, immeasurably superior to him; With the mysterious something that the ocean waves take up, shakes the earthly subsoil and collapses from heaven an increasing thunderstorm fire, but at the same time is a fertility in the source of life. This power is man and calls God. However, the unified concept of the deity is crushed into a lot of fragments: people see so many gods in the world how much more or less significant for their existence of natural phenomena.

It is difficult to say whether this need for the supreme strength is based on the earliest religious representations, but it is undoubted that even in our time a similar level of religiosity is found quite often. We are talking about the complex of anthropocentric beliefs, designed to expel the human fears, inspire and strengthen the person - the powerless sacrifice of their own weakness. Such religion is not limited to simple faith in existence higher Forcesbut provides its adherents a set of specific practical measures psychological protectionThe purpose of which is to ensure the existence of each person a well-known sustainability and safety, understood by egocentrically. Religion of this type offers believers cult As a system of rigidly given norms, guaranteeing a kind of property relationship with Divine. On the other hand, they are imposed morality - A certain code consisting of a system of prohibitions and prescriptions indicating for a good or non-annual image of actions and thoughts.

When a person consistently and strictly performs all the cult and moral establishments of such religion, it feels quite satisfied; Relations with the highest strength ensured durability and stability, and we can assume that "God is in his pocket." Having got rid of the fear of punishment thus expects from the deity of only services and remuneration for righteousness. People belonging to this type of religiosity are often full of self-conception in terms of their own piety and virtue. But they show the striking severity to the fellows that can not boast, like them, religious and moral impeccability.

Searches for truth

The second source of human judgments about the existence of God are the tireless search for truth, the thirst for knowledge.

As part of all the well-known history of the great civilizations, the desire of the human mind to find answers to the main philosophical issues led to the emergence theology - Theology, that is, "reasoning about God." The most characteristic and perfect example of such a path from philosophy to theology gives us ancient Greece.

For ancient Ellinov, the idea of \u200b\u200bGod was a logical conclusion, consequence of contemplation of nature. Looking at the world around us, we notice that all existing in it is subordinated to a certain pattern and reasonable order. Nothing in nature is neither random nor arbitrary. Thus, we are forced to admit that the origin of the world is the result of a logical sequence: the world exists as a consequence of some particular reason. This root cause, the "peppercip" of the world, and receives the name of God.

We do not possess exact knowledge of what is essentially the root cause of the universe. Nevertheless, by logical reasoning, you can identify some properties that god-priming should have. Thus, the source of his being cannot be in anyone preceding him; Consequently, he is a "cause-in-myself", that is, the cause of the existence of not only the world, but also himself.

Since, thanks to its "self-recognition", the primal principle does not depend on anything else, it should be considered as fully involved in itself, as completely free from any external coercion. Consequently, he is needed by eternal, almighty, infinite. In it, the beginning of that movement, through which the formation of the world is carried out, and which we call time. At the same time, God, being the principle of any movement, itself is absolutely immovable, for there is nothing preceding him that it might lead him into motion. Since it is still, it is not subject to any change, which means that there is an impassive and absolutely blessing.

All these conclusions, as well as many others that we could withdraw through logical reasoning, do not bring us at all bring us to the knowledge of God; They just forcing our mind to admit as a kind of reality, the hypothesis about the existence of God. So, for example, if we were traveled through the desert and in her heart very much I would suddenly stumble upon the house standing among the sands, they would have to recognize that someone would have built it, because at home in the deserts themselves, as you know, do not arise. But who exactly built this house remains a mystery. Of course, we are able, based on the features of the construction, make some conclusions about individual qualities or distinctive features Builder - for example, does it have a taste whether it is capable of harmoniously distribute the volume of the building. We can also determine what purpose he intended his creation. But his personality will remain unknown for us. If we do not bring to meet him face to face, we will never know him so much. Although the builder undoubtedly exists, direct knowledge it is completely unavailable.

Personal attitude

The third most important source of God's idea is powered by a unique historical tradition - the tradition of the Jewish people.

Jews begin to talk about God in connection with a specific historical event; Approximately a thousand nine hundred and years before the start of Christian christianity in the country of Haldeev (the southern part of Mesopotamia, not far from the shores of the Persian Gulf), God reveals himself a specific person named Abraham. Abraham meets face to face with God as with a person, as we meet with the human being, with which you can talk directly to communicate. God calls Abraham to leave his country and move to Canaan, the land intended for the descendants of Abraham and his wife Sarra, before that time is fruitless.

The knowledge of God, arising from the Personal Meeting with Him Abraham, has nothing to do with speculative hypothesis, deductive arguments and logical evidence. In this case, we are talking about personal experience, about that faith - trust, which is born between two people close to each other. God is Abraham through the irrelevant loyalty to his promises; Abraham, in turn, hesifies himself in the hands of God to such an extent that she is ready to sacrifice the son, born, finally, Sarah in old age, - a son through which divine promises should be used.

Isaac and Jacob, the son and grandson of Abraham, acquire an equally direct knowledge of God in the experience of direct personal communication with him. Thus, for the descendants of this family, the ancestor of the people of Israel - God is neither an abstract concept nor an impersonal force. When the Jewish tradition speaks about God, we are talking about the "God of our fathers", "God Abraham, Isaac and James" - a particular person with which the forefathers could talk directly to communicate. Consequently, the knowledge of God is based on the faith - confidence in the experience of ancestors, on the reliability of their personal testimony.

Choosing a goal and path

The three sources considered by us do not belong to the past exclusively. They remain the real possibility of choosing regardless of time and places in which this choice is carried out. There are always people who accept the existence of God is not because they cares about its truth, or they are worried about such an assumption of a speculative problem. Simply, these people experience a psychological need to intimidate any "transcendental" strength, the need to gain confidence in the face of unknownness, as well as the need to establish and maintain moral order in the world.

At the same time, there are always people who take the existence of God only inspired, because they are forced to the logic of reasoning. They believe in what is called the "highest mind", the "Supreme Being", which is the principle of the emergence and existence of all things. They are not given to know - yes they are not too much to see, in truth, - what is this "highest mind" and "Supreme Being". Even when they connect their simple reasonable confidence in the existence of God with the following religious practice - religious and moral regulations adopted in their social environment - even then their attitude towards the secret of the Divine was noted by the deepest agnosticism, satisfying only the most common and abstract idea of \u200b\u200bthe "Supreme Being "

Finally, there is a third way to attribute to the problem of God: Faith-trust in historical experience Revelation. "Children of Abrahamov", the people of Israel, for centuries keep unshakable confidence in the truth of God, based on the emotional and not on logical factors, but on simple conviction in the reliability of the planic experience. God is self-interference historical events; He confirms his presence in the world as part of a revelation, which always has a personal relationship with one or another person. He is Moses and speaks with him

"Face to face, as if he said who is with his friend"

"Face to face, as if he said who is with his friend"

(Ex. 33, 11). He encourages the prophets to remind the people of Israel about the prisoner of the Union, to whom God himself keeps unrealistic loyalty.

Those who confidence belong to the historical experience of ancestors against Divine Revelation, no longer makes great efforts to take, for their part, the new phenomenon of the Divine in human life, this time "in the flesh", represented by Jesus Christ. Indeed, for rationalistic thinking, the concept of "deity" and "embodiment" are mutually exclusive: how God, by the very nature of his infinite, unlimited, almighty, etc., can be embodied in a separate person, in this final, imperfect, limited in time And the space of the exodium of being? Therefore, for Ellinov, even late era, the era of Christ, the proclamation of the "divine incarnation" - truly "madness" (1 Kop. 1, 23).

Nevertheless, to accept or deny this "madness", it is necessary to answer first to several fundamental issues that determine the meaning and content that we invest in our life: Will the world work under the laws of formal logic? Is its existence specified in the categories of the human mind? Or the essence of things can not find a complete expression in any pre-design schemes and reasonable buildings, and therefore to really know her, we need direct live experience? Which possesses a genuine being - only the fact that we perceive the senses; What comes confirmation from our mind? Or there are such reality that we learn through the experience of a personal relationship, most directly and at the same time most comprehensive; The relationship, by virtue of which we are able, for example, perceive the meaning of the poem hidden behind the direct value of words? If we are able to understand the language of characters, feel the unique uniqueness of each human face, To catch the deep meaning of the statements of modern physics about the "four-dimensional continuum" or the dual nature of the world - do not we know all this by the same direct relationship?

All these questions deserve a long study and detailed analysisBut as a result, we would be too far away from the main topic that occupy us at the moment. First of all, we must clarify the means and the paths that we use in order to talk about God's knowledge. If we are interested in the abstract concept of a deity, which is the result of a logical conclusion, then in the process of in-depth study of this concept, it is necessary to follow the laws of human thinking. If we strive to get closer to the god of psychology and religious feeling, it is necessary to cultivate certain mental properties and religious experiences that open access to this type of knowledge. Finally, in the event that we want to gain knowledge of the god of the Judeo-Christian tradition, our way is the way personal experience and relationships, the path of faith. Make a lot between one or another by the sciencenicness, mixing various types of its views, - a faithful way to get down from the road and be in a dead end.

VERA

In the consciousness of most modern people, the word "faith" has quite specific meaning: Trust - it means to unconditionally take any principles and provisions, to join this or that system of views is essentially unoccupied. To say "I believe it" - in fact, it means that I agree with this statement, even if I do not understand it. I tend to the authority - not necessarily religious, he "may have a different nature - say, ideological or political. In general, under the word "faith" with equal success can be understood as a religious belief, and any ideological doctrine or unconditional devotion of their political party. Thus, many tend to perceive this duty word with an uncertain circle of values \u200b\u200bas something sacred and expresses the very essence of metaphysics, while in the above cases it only focuses on the basic principle of all totalitarian thinking: "Take the faith and not asking questions! "

It is necessary to say that such an understanding of faith has nothing to do with the meaning that this word received in the Judeo-Christian tradition. For Jews and Christians, "Vera" expresses not the concept that the militant ideologues are trying to attribute to her, but it is rather something like a "loan", in the sense, in what else today is a loan in business circles today.

In fact, when we say that such a businessman enjoys a loan, then you mean that this person inspires his companions confidence. He all knows: they know his way and the style of doing business, its sequence in the fulfillment of obligations assumed. If one day it will suddenly need financial help, There will always be people who are ready to provide him with a loan, and at the same time, perhaps, do not even require receipts from it, as they consider a sufficient guarantee of the word and the very identity of a business person with a flawless reputation.

It was always such an understanding of faith that existed in the field of commerce and entrepreneurship, always lived in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The object of faith in this case is not a set of abstract ideas at all, the source of the reliability of which is in someone's irreclined authority. The facility is people; Live and specific human personalities, causing our trust in the extent, because it is based on our direct experience of communicating with them.

We will express it even more definitely: if we believe in God, then the reason for this is not the fact that we are forced to faith any speculative judgment, and not that some particular institution gives us undeniable guarantees of the existence of a deity. We believe in it because his personality, his personal existence causes us a sense of trust. The acts of God, his "manifestations" in human history make us strive to communicate with him.

Of course, the attitude lies at the base of faith can be both direct and indirect - just as this happens in our relations with people. I believe such a person, I completely trust him, because I know him well, I communicate with him. But sometimes I feel no less confidence and to a person personally not familiar to me, because people who I rely entirely, can witness his impeccable decency. I am equally able to treat an artist or a writer who has never seen, but whose works inspire me to be faith in his human advantages and admiration for his personality.

So, there are different levels of faith; We can move from the faith of superficial to faith deeper and more unconditional. This movement does not know the end point. When sometimes it seems to us that we have already achieved the highest limits of faith, it is unexpectedly for our themselves even more or suddenly dies, disappears without a trace. What is faith, as not a dynamic and continuous desire for "unattainable perfection"? In general, the life of faith can be imagined as: it begins with confidence in doball name Human, strengthened and grows as closest acquaintance with his affairs and actions and, finally, turns into confidence in a personal meeting, direct communication and establishing direct human relations. Covering all our being, faith becomes complete self-dedication. When love arises between people and the irrepressible desire for unity, then what was at the beginning of no more than confidence-looking sympathy is transformed into a sense of selfless self-sacrifice. In genuine love burning than stronger man Loves, the closer learns the other, the more he believes him and gives love. Faith born in real love is inexhaustible; She supports in a loving state of enthusiastic surprise all new and new discoveries in a loved one. Vera is an eternal gust, the unfortunate thirst for mergering personality with a person.

All of the above can be attributed to the religious faith. It begins with a simple trust in the testimony of those who lived God who lived in unity with him and awarded the vision of his face of people - with confidence in the testimony of the forefathers, the saints, the prophets, the apostles. Then faith increases, discovering the Divine Love, manifested in his creation, his action in human history, his word, entering us into the kingdom of truth. Gradually, we feel that the relationship between our personality and God is becoming more closely. His irrelevant beauty and dazzling light of his glory are increasingly apparent for spiritual vision. Divine Eros, born in the shower transforms our faith

"From glory to glory"

"From glory to glory"

(2 Cor. 3, 18), gives us a feeling of incredit amazement before the secrets of revelation, beyond the time.

At any stage, any step of its development faith remains with the birth, the experience of a personal relationship. As far from this path from a simple consent of intelligence with logical conclusions, from the path of "objective" knowledge! In search of the biblical god, God of the Church, we must follow the appropriate to our aspirations by faith. Evidence of the existence of God, "objective" arguments of apologetics, confirmation of the historical authenticity of the sources of the Christian tradition - all this can play an important supporting role in awaken in us the need for religious faith. But by themselves such things are not able to replace faith or lead to her.

When the church calls us to accept the truth stored by it, it's not about theoretical positionsWith which we must agree a priori, without any reasoning. What we offer is a personal attitude, this defined image life-based personal connection With God or consistently leading to the establishment of such a livelihood. As a result of changing the very modus She ceases to be an individualistic struggle for the "place under the sun" and acquires the highest meaning in communicating, in involvement to other Being. The church is body communication memberswhich is not living for the sake of themselves, but in the inseparal unity of love with other members of the same body and his head. - Christ. Believe in the truth of the church means becoming part of forming the Church "Ultrasound of Love"; It is entirely to surrender to the love of God and the Saints, which, in turn, take me with the same confidence.

So, we come to God not through a certain image of thoughts, but through a certain way of life. Any natural process of growth and ripening always represents nothing more than a lifestyle. How does our affection for the Father and Mother arise? From birth, with breastfeeding, from the first sensation of parental caresses and worries before the informed acceptance of their love in the soul of a child, the faith in the father and mother will be imperceptible. Love, binding parents and child, do not need logical arguments nor any other guarantees. Only when this connection is undermined, there is a need for evidence, and then the arguments of the reason are listens to replace the life reality.

Now I will go to the presentation of feelings as usual in close relationship with a moral feeling, it is the feelings of religious. Under religion, it is not always implied by the same thing. Sometimes it is expanding this concept, including all the beliefs in it, which would be their subject and methods of manifestation; Sometimes, on the contrary, they narrow it, limiting the concept of religion only by dogmas and rites of some of the common, dominant religious teachings. In any case, a religious feeling occupies as a peculiar and important place in the mental life of a person, which has to consider it especially. This feeling can be described in general as an emotion associated with faith in the existence of a well-known value, as well as the existence of relations between this value and man. Whatever a person believes that he would consider his God, in any case, he considers the Divine as something valuable, something most important and, moreover, seeks to find out the attitude, existing M ^ Waiting for this top life start and its Own existence. Thus, in any religion, there is primarily an idea of \u200b\u200bthe deity or object of belief and, secondly, the feeling of objective activities of this object of faith. For a religious person, the deity really exists, and not a product of his fantasy or a logically constructed hypothesis. In connection with this second feature, it is the third, it is the one that faith actually acts on the will of a person, defining a largely direction of its activities.

So, you see, above all that faith is the necessary part of the religious feeling. What is more this belief and what is her psychological nature? Understanding carefully in his spiritual experiences, we can make sure that the feeling of faith or confidence in the existence of famous objects is not characteristic of religious experiences. On the contrary, such confidence is extremely frequent phenomenon in our spiritual life. We believe that tomorrow will come that the flame will always cause the burn that every person must certainly die, etc. In fact, what can we give experience - life, scientific and other? Only the fact that all that happened so far has been subordinated to the well-known laws, repeated in a known sequence; But no experience, no scientific knowledge can prove to us that everything that is naturally repeated in the past will be repeated in the future. We just believe in it. True, this confidence is so embedded in us with the whole of our previous life, we are so accustomed to this natural change and sequence of phenomena, which we cannot imagine how otherwise it would be, but the essence of the mental process does not change. As exactly, we believe in the existence of other people's peaceful life. As I had to say before, I do not worry with other people of their perceptions, feelings, in general all their mental life; I can't prove any means to prove the existence of this mental life. All I can prove is that other people have the same external physical detection as me. I see that another person moves, says blushing, pale, etc., but I do not feel in any way that he feels, thinks, perceives, etc. On the content of his mental world, I can judge by analogy with my own Experiences, in the existence of this spiritual world, I can only believe. So, faith or confidence is characteristic not only by religious feelings, but also a number of other mental experiences. However, in the religious feeling of faith reaches the highest intensity, due to the fact that the belief object is too important for humans and too comprehensive in its content.

We will now try to deal with more detail in the psychological composition of that complex spiritual experience that we call the feeling of faith or confidence. First of all, it should be noted that the believer or confident person clearly and clearly imagines the object of his faith. The occurrence of tomorrow is vividly drawn in my imagination that I absolutely can not imagine that he does not come; A religious and believer man perfectly represents the existence of divine fishery affecting his life and guiding his actions. The more likely, the image is, the more he, so to speak, is imposed on our psyche, the more he instills confidence in his objective reality. There are plenty of hallucinations that are confident in the reality that it seems to them, and this confidence usually motivates the following statement: "Yes, I see it is absolutely as clear as I see you *. The Apostle Thomas spoke to the Savior: "I will not believe until fingers in your ulcers *, that is, until he receives a clear tactile impression that he confirms the visual image. This purely psychological dependence is explained to a large extent that the success that had, and will have materialistic doctrines, despite numerous epistemological and other objections that can be brought against them. Materialism is because there is so much and mastering the minds of people, which gives us an extremely clear and visual picture of the universe. While idealism and spiritualism enter into a lot of abstract, insufficiently visual, material atoms and their combinations, the brain and its activities - all this is so alone and specifically, which is involuntarily imposed on our imagination. It is noted that neuro-and mentally ill, suffering from weakly susceptibility, often doubted the existence of an external world, doubt even whether they themselves exist.

So, clarity and distinctness of ideas about any subject or phenomenon greatly contribute to the strengthening of faith in its objective reality. This is also facilitated by the fact that faith is always the odd or strive to be figurative: like any feeling, it is easier and more often associated with specific images than with abstract concepts. The study of characters and individuals shows us that people, affectively excitable, strongly and vividly feel, usually think of concrete, visual images; On the contrary, abstract thinkers are more often distinguished by tranquility and disadvantages of actions. The same affects the psychology of a religious feeling: people, deeply believers, usually seek to imagine a deity in specific, visual images. So, for example, St. Teresa in his prayer ecstasins contemplated a deity in the form of a huge diamond that filled the whole world. This need for visual leads to the emergence of religious symbols, generates religious painting, sculpture, etc.

The features listed, however, do not yet exhaust the peculiar character of the feeling of faith or confidence. Extremely important There are also subjective features here. of this person, the overall warehouse of his personality, the totality of the former experience is in general everything, with which a person is approaching the faith of faith, the entire preceding preparation, one way or another the determining cash and the nature of his religious and other feelings. Perfectly indicates James on that huge role played in the religious feeling of all kinds of unconscious factors. A religious person often does not know why he believes, why the faith is so strong and why he believes that, and not otherwise: he feels that his whole soul, his whole mental warehouse entails him to the Divine. This mental warehouse is, as we know, something very complicated. Its main basis is the psychophysiological organization of a person, the predominance of these or other major mental functions. So, for example, abstract thinking can determine the cash more or less slim, conscious system of religious concepts; The predominance of the feeling makes faith by passionate and animated; Significant development of a tendency to an energetic volitional effort or its absence give religious entrepreneurs to practical or, on the contrary, contemplative character, etc. The other, also very important composite part Religious faith forms what we call constellation and what has already been mentioned earlier: education, education, dominant views, the influence of the surrounding people - all this determines both cash or absence of religious beliefs and their direction.

The brighter the personality of a person is expressed, than its mental features, the more personal character wears his attitude towards religion, especially its religious views. I will limit here only by several examples. James in his interesting book "Diversity religious experience"* Sets two main types of faith. The first is the type of direct, faith in a deity as an expression of an excess of vital energy, as a result of mental health. A person feels a spiritual increase aimed at achieving higher goals; This mental lift makes it reign in the existence of both these goals and defining their values \u200b\u200band, in the end, in the highest, final value - in God. But along with this, there is another type of religious-believers, whom life remembered significantly, which in life there were many grief and disappointment. Such people can no longer believe in absolutely directly, they passed through the heavy struggle of skepticism and doubt, and if, in the end, despite this struggle of doubt and on the tests of fate, still defending the religious faith, then this believes it is already completely different Character than in the preceding case: there is no so naive, direct cheerfulness, there is a lot of sad, lonely, but at the same time such beliefs are much more stable because they have withstood a number of tests.

You can also specify on other types of religious believers. So, along with the actors, believers trying to implement their religious ideals, there are also contemplates living with imagination, supporting life and limiting or learning and clarifying the object of religious feeling, or its more or less bright presentation and contemplation. Along with the type of people who believe in the excess of vital energy described above, there are also people who are tired of life in their own strength and which in religion are looking for a refuge from everyday adversities and their own doubts and disappointments. In a word, here you can describe a number of types depending on individuality, life conditions, etc.

A larger or smaller development of a personal factor determines a largely cash or lack of a critical attitude towards objects of faith. Children and savages are distinguished by credul; As the accumulation of experience and knowledge, as the conscious individual increases, the critical attitude towards the surrounding, including various types of beliefs increases. This critical attitude acts two ways. On the one hand, it seems to factor by the antagonistic factor, it undermines, sometimes even kills faith, but on the other hand - it cleans it and strengthens. As we will see, the criticism and its most striking and consistent expression - scientific knowledge not only did not interfere, but, on the contrary, in the general course of the development of humanity rather contributed to the development of religions; They were forced to throw off all kinds of superstitions, lower, elementary beliefs, which are the result of a charming, suprameability, insufficient awareness and, thus experiencing religious beliefs in the hill critics, encouraged them to make more and more enlightened and spiritualized.

Introduction

In the religious sphere, the feeling play a special role.

Many theologians, philosophers and sociologists have long noticed the fact that in the sphere of religion feelings play an important role. Christian theologians, starting with the "Father of the Church" Augustine (IV-V centuries), emphasized the importance of religious feelings and sentiment.

The traditional position of theologians and most bourgeois philosophers is that any man has a certain congenital religious feeling, a special desire, to God and that this religious feeling is different from all other emotional processes that a person experiences, with its uniqueness.

Many theologians and idealist philosophers emphasize that a religious feeling essentially to its incomprehensible for mind. They are trying to assure that "admission to God", the admission to religion is an act of a mystical insight, which is based on a religious feeling.

The source of religious feeling they see in God.

Specificity of religious feelings

religion feeling a believer society

In fact, there is no congenital "religious feeling", fundamentally different from other human emotions, the emotional processes of believers from the point of view of their physiological basis and the main psychological content do not contain any specific in themselves. With religious beliefs, the most common human feelings and fear, and love, hatred, and anger, and admiration, etc. Therefore, an attempt to psychologically separate a religious feeling is untenable, opposing it to everyone else.

But, objecting to the understanding of the religious feeling of theologists and idealists, we should not forget that, binding to religious ideas, the emotions of believers acquire the well-known specificity.

The peculiarity of the psychology of believers should be sought not in the field of their neuromicular mechanisms. There are no special physiological processes or mechanisms that lay only at the heart of religious consciousness that would be experiencing exclusively religious people. The physiological laws of the highest nervous activity underlying mental processes and phenomena, the same both in believers and unbelievers. Therefore, with the help of the physiology of the highest nervous activity, the specifics of religious consciousness cannot be discovered. Attempts undertaken in this direction inevitably led to the biologization of religion.

This does not mean that the data of the physiology of the highest nervous activity is useless and not needed for atheists. Since physiological laws underlie any mental activity, including the mental activities of believers, then their knowledge is necessary for finding the right paths and methods of impact on the consciousness of people. But the physiology of the highest nervous activity is powerless to reveal the features of religious consciousness.

The specified task cannot be solved and general psychology. General psychology studies those general laws of human mental activity, which are characteristic of him in any special conditions in any society.

Only with help social psychology can be revealed main feature Religious feelings consisting in the fact that they are directed to the fictional, illusive, supernatural object. This determines the specific social orientation of religious emotions, their role in society and a separate person. The object of religious feelings of believers is God, the Spirit, " devilry"And the like fictional, created by human fantasy image. Since the object of religious feelings does not really exist, all the feelings experienced by believers are directed to the void, are a fruitless waste of its energy, his spiritual and physical forces.

In cases where religious feelings seem to be aimed at a really existing object, for example, on any person ("saint", "righteous", etc.) or on the material subject ("miraculous" icon, "Saint" source and etc.), they actually are always connected with the object itself, as such, but only with the supernatural properties attributed to it - the ability to work wonders, heal the patient, etc.

Under all the circumstances, religion sends human emotions towards the fiction, which is attributed to reality. This is exactly what leads to the deformation of ordinary human feelings.

The believers themselves harm religious emotions are not aware. They often suggest that religious emotions bring them a certain relief, "oblivion of life," help to overcome the vital difficulties and adversity. Indeed, purely subjectively, psychologically religious feelings act as a means of overcoming conflicts in human consciousness, they create a well-known psychological sustainability for external injuries, in some cases a special emotional "discharge" has accumulated negative impressions. But such overcoming life conflicts and difficulties is illusory, because religious emotions do not contribute to changing the real living conditions of people, but only temporarily "turn off the" man from the surrounding world. "Resolution" of life contradictions that religion offers is escape from them into the world of illusions and fictions. Although the believer it seems that religion brought him relief, but in fact the conditions of his life remained the same. Religious feelings will lead to a person from reality and thus interfere with its transformation, social antagonisms and contradictions are simply.

Emotional processes relate to the most rolling elements of religious consciousness. Religious moods and religious feelings of the masses very sensitively react to changes in social conditions. Recall, for example, the tides of the fanatic religiosity of the masses in the era of crusades or the sudden widespread the distribution of so-called heresies.

The rapid spread of religious feelings and moods is largely due to the action of socio-psychological mechanisms of imitation and suggestion. The mechanisms of psychological suggestion and imitation skillfully used and used by clergy in order to strengthen religious emotions. The specified mechanisms in collective prayers of some sect play a special role, where religious feelings are artificially excited using some special means psychological impact (In the course of prayer, it is practiced, for example, a long collective repetition of individual words, rhythmic television, etc.). As a result of such frenched praying, a person sometimes comes to ecstasy, he ceases to perceive the surrounding, shouting meaningless words. Pentecostal is precisely such a state of a person and consider it a "higher spiritual insight", the lack of "Holy Spirit" on him.

What kind of feelings are used by religion, what feelings are the most characteristic of believers? Feelings of believers of different religions, different historical eras differ significantly from each other. Nevertheless, if we keep in mind modern monotheistic religions, and in particular, modern Christianity, then several emotions can be distinguished, which play a primary role in the experiences of the "average", the most typical representative of believers.

Religion - the expression of human nature

More on the topic 18.Religious feelings:

Conclusion

Introduction

Specificity of religious feelings