Science and religion complement each other in the overall picture of our knowledge of the world. Science and religion: problems of relationship Complementarity and mutual understanding of science and religion
Kostya went into the kitchen and saw water boiling in the kettle. His older brother Sergei entered. "Why does the water boil?" - Kostya asked him. Sergei, who studied at the university's Faculty of Chemistry, explained that it all started three million years ago, when fallen trees were covered with earth, then were compressed and, as they rotted, a reserve of gas was formed.About 20 years ago, geologists drilled a deep well to check whether there was gas underground or not. Having discovered gas, they capped the well and ran a pipe to it. The gas enters the apartments through the pipes and enters the burner, coming out of which the air combines with oxygen, resulting in a flammable mixture. (Where the oxygen comes from is another story.) Then someone ignited this flammable mixture with a phosphorus match or electric lighter, and it caught fire. That's why the flames appeared. When burned, 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 quickly conducts heat, is filled with water. Heat causes water molecules to move rapidly until they overcome surface pressure and escape into the air. In this case, the water turns 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 explanation is correct? Both. However, they approach the question from different points of view, and that is why the answers differ and complement each other. They are interconnected. Sergei explains how the kettle boils. Their mother explains why he is seething, giving it meaning.
Conflict between science and religion
A person has an inherent desire 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 was practically no difference between these ways of knowledge. Together they satisfied man's basic needs and confirmed his intuition that the universe was meaningful, orderly, intelligent, and governed by some form of just laws, even if those laws were 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 understand reality using 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. Natural sciences focused on explaining and understanding the material side of reality, while the main subject of religious knowledge became the spiritual dimension of reality. A contrast between science and religion arose, partly because at times representatives of religion tried to arrogate to themselves absolute authority in matters of interpretation of the material nature of the world. In response, some scholars considered religion to be a collection of superstitions and 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. The point is not that one direction is correct 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, as far as it can be understood by man, belong to the sphere of philosophy.
- Questions about how the world works fall within the purview of science.
- Questions about why the world is arranged in this 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 scientifically proven laws of the structure of the world. 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 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 the 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 scientific approach. However, to perceive the biblical account as a scientific account of events is to misunderstand the very nature of the Bible. The Bible includes poetry, law, parables, prophecies, historical accounts, songs, and even jokes. It helps us to gain a deeper understanding of human nature and human history. However, we cannot take every word of the Bible literally; we must take into account the historical and cultural context surrounding the people who wrote down the books of the Bible many centuries ago, often using figurative, poetic language, and the audience for whom these books were intended. Therefore, when in the first verses of the book of Genesis we read: “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 amazingly scientific in some ways (the order of creation described in the Bible is generally consistent with modern geological and evolutionary data), it also aims to convey another message to the reader. The statement that God created everything in this world means that nature and the entire physical world embody God's good. This view contradicts another existing worldview, according to which matter is meaningless, chaotic, evil or fearful.
Attempts to reconcile science and religion
Over 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. St. Augustine developed Christian theology based on the philosophy of Plato, while Thomas Aquinas used the works 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 to get it.” The discoveries they made between the 9th and 14th centuries laid the foundation for modern science. Many important scientific discoveries were made in the Middle Ages by Muslims, while European science remained comparatively 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 the conclusions they made. One result of this was the well-known conflict between Galileo and the Vatican. The Church has entered into an area beyond its jurisdiction by trying to determine which astronomical theory 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, scientists as well as leading artists received the support of the church. The Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits, in turn, were often natural philosophers 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 saw no 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 the Holy Scripture. Science and religion are the essence siblings, daughters of the Most High Parent, they can never come into conflict with each other, unless someone, out of some vanity and evidence of his wisdom, incites enmity against 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 understanding the natural world and the laws that govern it. Throughout the history of mankind, various sciences have arisen and developed, studying different aspects of the surrounding world. On the other hand, the same phenomenon can be the object of study by different sciences that 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. Typically we differentiate 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 creativity, strong imagination, intuition, inspiration and intelligence in the world of invisible patterns, forces and phenomena, where, despite the significance of the discoveries already made, the interconnection and interdependence of everything that exists again and again leads to an awareness of immeasurable depths unknown. Scientists have an all-consuming desire to understand the world around them and gain knowledge. It often happens that they could use their talent and knowledge in other areas, thereby ensuring themselves a high level of material well-being. However, if such a choice is inevitable, for a true 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, a selection occurs of those theories that best describe the available data. It is not unusual for theories that later gain widespread acceptance to be initially rejected because they contradict then-accepted concepts. In this regard, scientists, like all ordinary people, can be no less dogmatic than ardent adherents of religion. For example, although Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, his ideas were not widely accepted by the global scientific community until the mid-20th century. Moreover, the opposition coming from the world of science significantly exceeded the religious opposition to his theory.
"Opposition to the theory of natural selection continued for nearly 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 accepted 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 their contemporaries and were accepted only by the next generation. It often happens that representatives of different scientific schools, famous 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 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, later the “pulsating state theory” gave way to the “big bang” theory, as new data appeared confirming this hypothesis. In a similar way, various theories of earthquakes or theories of the origin of oil are now competing. Our understanding of the natural world is never complete, and so we must always be open to improving existing concepts.
Scientific method
The desire to understand the world around us motivates 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 pique a scientist's curiosity. To explain what is happening, a 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 patterns, 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. Scientists often 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 actually 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 entire field of scientific research is based on a number of fundamental ideas about the structure of the world, which in themselves cannot be proven by rational or scientific method; are assumptions, assumptions that we believe without any evidence. Let's 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, 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 unchanging and apply everywhere in the Universe, and not just here on Earth. For example, the law of gravity will be exactly the same on Mars as on Earth.
- Causality. In the world around us, every phenomenon has its cause.
If we trace the emergence of all these a priori positions, 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 accurate 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 patterns that manifest themselves in the natural world are rational, that they can be understood by reason. I cannot imagine a scientist who does not have this deep faith.” (Albert Einstein)
Moreover, studying the history of science, we see that scientific knowledge is always relative and is never absolutely accurate. This is due to the fact that scientific theories always only approximately describe the truth. They can be compared to maps, which give a fairly close picture 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 provide a completely comprehensive explanation. There will always be some aspect of reality that cannot be explained within the narrow framework of existing theory. The emergence of such problems usually serves as an impetus for new and deeper discoveries about the structure of the world. Over time, old theories undergo changes and are replaced by new ones that better describe existing facts. Yet scientific theories can never be fully proven. No matter how many times a theory is confirmed by observation or experimental data, is it enough for only one to appear? exception, and the whole theory will be incorrect or at least incomplete. This applies even to such a fundamental premise as causality: in the 20th century it became clear that in some cases in the world of elementary particles there is uncausality. Studying the history of science, one can come to the conclusion that the inconsistency of any theory will be proven within two hundred years after its inception. 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 insignificant compared to the size of the unknown.
"I don't know how the world sees me, but to myself I am just a boy playing on a sandy beach, happy now and then for a smoother-than-usual pebble or a brighter-colored shell, while the great ocean of truth lies unknown before me". (Isaac Newton)
As we noted earlier, science and religion have always been interconnected and went hand in hand. Only in recent centuries has science moved forward and seemingly left religion behind. But at the same time, as the mechanistic ideas 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 outstanding scientists, plunging deeper into the study of the natural world, talk about the feeling of surprise and awe that comes to them at the beauty and harmony of the secrets that are revealed to them. They feel that there is more to the world than what is visible to the eye.
Limitations of Science
Which of the following questions can natural science answer?
- How is an atomic bomb created?
- Should atomic bombs be created?
- How does the human body work?
- What is the meaning of human existence?
- Is it enjoyable to listen to music recorded on a disc?
- What are the basic laws of nature? Why are there laws of nature?
Natural sciences help to understand, predict and control events occurring in the physical world through technology. They have helped us achieve a much higher standard of living than ever before in human history. Modern agricultural methods make it possible to produce 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 capable of justifying the moral values that should guide the use of scientific achievements? There is a dimension of reality that, to this day, has not been the subject of study in the natural sciences. You cannot measure the beauty of nature; Material well-being in itself cannot bring us complete satisfaction. Can science explain why moral values are needed, what love, beauty, friendship, justice are? The fact that science cannot answer 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 also why it is happening. Therefore, religion first of all tries to find the meaning of current events and the meaning of our lives. Religion tries to provide answers to the “eternal questions” that life poses to 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 path 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 God's thoughts."
The heart of religion...
The founders of the religion, who did not find satisfaction in the life around them, chose the path of spiritual quest, always associated with suffering and hardship, 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 the personal experience given to them, 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 Him, God was a mystery that would 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 reflection. The mind is needed to reflect and understand more deeply this initial experience. Because this mystery cannot be described, 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.” To describe the indescribable, there is no other way than to use concepts that already exist! in the human community. That's why one! one of the Christian theologians said: “To talk about God, we must be simultaneously poets, musicians and saints.” Of course, it is necessary to understand metaphors correctly. For example, Muslims compare God to 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 it 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 Path that can be expressed in words is not the eternal Path.
- A name that can be named is not an eternal name.
The lives of people who touched the Eternal Mystery most often changed radically. When they began to share the revelation they received with other people, they gained many followers. These people learned that by following the teachings of the founder of the religion, they too could grow spiritually, drawing closer to God. These were the origins of various religions. The original teaching could exist, attracting more and more new followers, transforming people's lives, for thousands of years. At the same time, all teachings remained more or less open to new revelation. These people realized that the Secret revealed to them had no boundaries and would continue to be revealed. This is why the founders of many religions said that new revelations would be given in the future. However, time passed, and gradually the teachings of the founder of the religion became dogma. Faith in the truth of the postulates about 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 became a thing of the past. The lives and teachings of the founders of many religions were recorded in books that became known as “holy scriptures.” Such writings can be compared to a textbook teaching the truth. However, very often they were equated with truth itself, and new discoveries and other textbooks were rejected. It was during these times that conflicts between science and religion began to arise.
Evaluating Religious Truth
Just as it is necessary to evaluate scientific theories, religious teachings also need a certain evaluation. 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 learn 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 challenging our own ideas, we gain the ability to discard any false point of view and replace it with a better one. When studying science, we do not need to rediscover the law of gravity. However, we do not accept this law simply on the basis of blind faith. At school, we ourselves go through a sequence of logical proofs and make sure that the theory correctly explains existing phenomena. In this way, we can inherit everything 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 generally accepted theories, people sometimes approach them from a new point of view and make new discoveries. Religious teaching can be assessed in the same way. Although all authority is important and worthy of respect, we must test religious knowledge with our own lives in order to bring it closer to ourselves. At the same time, 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. bring harm to others and to oneself. They all talk about the value of such qualities as honesty, humility, righteousness, love, fidelity, moral purity, chastity, respect and self-sacrifice. However, in matters relating to 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 is that 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 understand ourselves better? What can provide a solution to the problems facing humanity? Which solution is the most realistic and fruitful? It is likely that our views on these issues will evolve and change as we grow and develop.
Religion and science - two complementary paths
To sum up, we can say that science and religion need each other. These are two complementary ways that can help us fully understand the world in which we exist. Therefore, we do not need to choose between science and religion. Natural sciences can reveal the laws of the physical world and contribute to the development of technologies that will create a high level of material well-being for us. However, science needs moral values, which have their origins in religion, in order to guide its own activities and to carry out the responsible use of scientific knowledge for the benefit and not the harm of humanity. As Albert Einstein said: “Science without religion is flawed, religion without science is blind.”
43. Religion and science in the context of culture.Science and religion represent two fundamental layers of culture and two fundamental types of worldviews that complement each other. Each era has its own dominants, along with which there are peripheral background types of worldview, background types of cultural subsystems, which nevertheless play a significant role in the development of human society.
So, if in the Middle Ages the dominant European tradition was Christian religiosity- both officially and at the level of mass consciousness, the New Age in the same European tradition, starting from the 17th century, shows us an example of increasing dominance scientific type of worldview. And in the Middle Ages, science existed in the form of a background, mainly elitist type of worldview, characteristic of the circles of enlightened monasticism and the then emerging secular university science. This does not mean, however, that one form of worldview replaces another, completely displacing the previous one from human culture. Although the history of culture shows that in the era of the dominance of religious systems as forms of knowledge of the world and as structures of mass consciousness, science is suppressed and abused, including by force. In the era of the dominance of science as a form of knowledge of the world and as an orientation of mass consciousness, religiosity is suppressed by the same methods. In fact, the relationship between the scientific and religious types of worldview is, of course, much more complex.
Science today has not supplanted religious forms of worldview or destroyed them. It only pushed religiosity to the periphery of the strategic highway of knowledge and worldview in the structures of mass consciousness of society.
^ The fundamental cognitive attitudes of the scientific and religious way of understanding the world intersect with each other very closely . On the one hand, science does not represent a continuous stream of objectified knowledge, the full justification of which comes down to evidence, be it theoretical or experimental. On the other hand, systems of religious faith are not reduced to accepting some fundamental principles on faith. In science, there are structures that justify the knowledge derived from them and are taken on faith as the axiomatic basis of certain scientific theories.
The degree of substantiation of such statements varies, but almost always they proceed from self-evidence for the knowing mind, intellectual transparency, sufficiency from the position of parameters external to the theory, etc. All of this, upon closer examination, turns out to be modified attitudes of faith.
^ Religious systems are not only sets of provisions that appeal primarily to human faith , but also some generalized constructions based on the attempt argumentation and evidence. Such fragments or aspects of the religious attitude towards the world are called theology, or, in Russian, theology, where the basis of rational justification and evidence is placed under the attitudes of religion, the basis that mainly and primarily works in science.
Thus, scientific knowledge is inseparably connected with faith and is accompanied by it, moreover, to a large extent begins with some elements of taking on faith as self-evident intellectually transparent postulates for the starting points of scientific creativity. And religious faith needs at least partial confirmation of the persuasiveness of dogmas using the methods of rationalization and argumentation adopted in scientific knowledge. But then quite significant differences begin.
^ Science studies the surrounding nature, reality, reality perceived by us with the help of our senses and comprehended by the intellect and reason. Science is a system and mechanism for obtaining objective knowledge about this surrounding world. Objective - that is, one that does not depend on the forms, methods, structures of the cognitive process and is a result that directly reflects the real state of affairs. Scientific knowledge is based on a number of principles that define, clarify, and detail the forms of scientific knowledge and scientific attitude to the comprehension of reality. They record some features of the scientific worldview, quite subtle, detailed, original, which make science a truly very powerful, effective way of cognition. There are several such principles that underlie the scientific understanding of reality, each of which plays a significant role in this process:
- principle of objectivity. An object is something that lies outside the cognizing person, located outside his consciousness, existing on its own, having its own laws of development. The principle of objectivity means nothing more than the recognition of the fact of the existence of an external world independent of man and humanity, of his consciousness and intellect and the possibility of its knowledge. And this knowledge - reasonable, rational - must follow verified, reasoned methods of obtaining knowledge about the world around us.
- principle of causality. The principle of causality, the principle of determinism, means the statement that all events in the world are interconnected by a causal relationship. According to the principle of causality, events that do not have a real cause that can be fixed in one way or another do not exist. Every event generates a cascade, or at least one consequence. Consequently, the principle of causality asserts the presence in the Universe of natural, balanced ways of interacting between objects. Only on its basis can one approach the study of the surrounding reality from the standpoint of science, using the mechanisms of proof and experimental verification.
- principle of rationality, argumentation, evidence of scientific positions. Any scientific statement makes sense and is accepted by the scientific community only when it is proven. Science does not accept unproven propositions that are interpreted as very possible. In order for a certain statement to receive scientific status, it must be proven, reasoned, rationalized, and experimentally verified.
- reproducibility principle. Any fact obtained in scientific research as intermediate or relatively complete must be able to be reproduced
in an unlimited number of copies, either in an experimental study by other researchers, or in a theoretical proof by other theorists.
- theoretical principle. Science is not an endless pile of scattered ideas, but a set of complex, closed, logically complete theoretical structures. Each theory in a simplified form can be represented as a set of statements interconnected by intratheoretical principles of causality or logical consequence. Any object of reality represents a huge, ultimately infinite number of properties, qualities and relationships. Therefore, an expanded, logically closed theory is needed, which covers the most essential of these parameters in the form of a holistic, expanded theoretical apparatus.
- principle of consistency. The general theory of systems is in the second half of the 20th century the basis of a scientific approach to understanding reality and treats any phenomenon as an element of a complex system, that is, as a set of elements interconnected according to certain laws and principles.
- principle of criticality. It means that in science there are not and cannot be final, absolute truths approved for centuries and millennia. Any of the provisions of science can and should be subject to the analyzing ability of the mind, as well as continuous experimental verification. In science there are no absolute authorities, while in previous forms of culture the appeal to authority was
as one of the most important mechanisms for implementing the ways of human life. ^ Authorities in science arise and collapse under the pressure of new irrefutable evidence. What remains are the authorities, characterized only by their brilliant human qualities. New times come, and new truths contain the previous ones either as a special case or as a form of ultimate transition.
Religiosity, based not on an attempt to obtain objective knowledge, but on This type of human relationship to the world as faith, belief in the existence, development, existence of something that is not based on evidence is due to the fact that the source of religiosity is not objective reality, not reality, but given to us in sensations, but what we call super-present existence. The source of religious knowledge, experience, and worldview becomesRevelation.Revelation is supernatural, supernormal knowledge given to a person from above. The source can be either a prophet (Moses, Muhammad - in the history of the great monotheistic religions), or the Absolute itself, God, incarnated on Earth, or directly appearing in this world and declaring what he wants to convey to man. Revelation is not subject to the critical judgment of reason, since what we receive through it is the highest, absolute information that the limited human mind is not able to imagine in its entirety and detail and which must be taken on faith.
In general, the differences between science and religion can be reduced to the following: science studies actually perceived and consistently conceivable existence. Religion represents not what is connected with the world of objective existence, logically ordered and empirically fixed, but what goes back to the meaning of our existence. Religion is interested in the meanings and values of human existence, its ethical, moral and aesthetic components. Religion answers ultimate questions that go back to absolute forms of existence and worldview, which do not and cannot exist in science.
Science answers, or rather tries to answer, the question of how reality is structured, how it exists, functions, and develops. To do this, she formulates laws based on the results of experimental or theoretical research. Religion is interested in those questions that cannot be answers to the question how?, but why? and for what?. Why is this world arranged this way and not otherwise? Why do we live? The answers to these questions lead a person to the idea of God, the Absolute. Why is this happening"."
Science studies what exists, religion is interested in what should be. Religion answers the most important questions of human life, the answers to which science does not provide, and the mechanism for finding answers to these questions is associated not with evidence and theoretical or experimental confirmation, but with the universal, although deeply individual, specificity of human experience.
^ Thus, science and religion interact according to the principle of complementarity of formal-rational-cognitive and intuitive-ethical methods of mastering the world.
The dilemma of knowledge and faith, science and religion has again lost its clear obviousness in our days. And again, as has happened more than once at turning points in history, man strives to find his own path to the Truth. But it seems that along this path we have much more questions than answers.
The crisis of nature, society, and personality, which we are faced with, despite numerous warnings from the most deeply thinking representatives of humanity, has called into question a number of values that have been established in our century both within science itself and in other spheres of public consciousness. As it turned out, science itself is not a panacea for all ills, and its recommendations require additional ethical and aesthetic adjustments. The loss of a natural sense of harmony in relation to the world and to oneself threatens humanity with an inevitable catastrophe. The technogenic civilization created and deified by him for a long time fetishizes the artificial habitat, and turns to the natural only in order to increase its own power and strength. The results of all this are visible today, as they say, “with the naked eye.”
Suddenly enlightened, we begin to realize that theoretical schematization and logical simplification of reality robs it of its beauty. Having made violence against nature almost the only means of achieving his material well-being, man has lost his once vibrant sense of coherence, rhythm and mystery of existence, deprived it of its deep meaning and, as it were, preserved it in his consciousness. He now lives in regret about the past and in dreams of an earthly paradise, but is not in harmony with the present. Is it possible to resurrect that attitude towards nature when the world was perceived in pristine purity, at every moment as a powerful, but also vulnerable, dangerous, but also saving, living and sensitive organism.
The conclusion we have reached is the following. Science is both a creative and destructive tool in the hands of educated humanity. It can direct this instrument for good only by retaining within itself a sense of direct involvement in nature and the cosmos. Science and religion are two scales, and their balance is necessary as the unity of knowledge and faith.
For a long time, science was seen as the standard of rationality. However, the diversity and richness of the reality around 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 in one form or another exists beyond the boundaries 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, to analyze 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. Within 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 misconceptions. 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 a subject in social reality, but also its practical role in the construction of reality itself. The promotion of one or another form of rationality to the fore is determined by social and historical conditions.
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, there is an increasingly clear ideological conflict that 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) harshly insisted on the gap between faith and reason: “What is Athens to Jerusalem? What is the Academy - the Church? What are heretics to Christians? . In the era of scholasticism, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) tried to reconcile faith and reason, classifying Sacred teaching as science and at the same time giving credit to the natural sciences: “There are no obstacles to the same subjects that are subject to investigation by philosophical disciplines to the extent possible to know in the light of natural reason, other science has also explored, to the extent of what 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 left for secular scientific activity. This was the main reason for the sharp breakthrough of atheistic views in the modern era 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 bans on scientific research were eliminated (for example, in the field of anatomy) , the liberation of the secular way of life from the religious began. The Western world, having rejected the worldviews of Antiquity and the Middle Ages as naive and oppressive, rushed to new achievements.
Currently, the crisis between scientific and religious worldviews has deepened, since 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 to be the Absolute. It is she who has penetrated into all areas of our lives. Science acts as the intellectual leader of a secular society. The scientific way of explaining surrounding things and phenomena has become an indispensable attribute of human consciousness today. Science has the unconditional right to shape people’s worldviews from school. This has led to the fact that at present it is far from easy for a scientist and generally educated person, who for decades has experienced pressure from the dialectical-materialist teaching and the atheistic legacy of the Soviet era in high school and university, in scientific literature and scientific circles, to adapt to new paradigmatic 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, controversial issues 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, with belated surprise, they agreed that academician L. S. Berg (1876-1950), the author of the evolutionary theory of nomogenesis, who denies natural selection, is, of course, not a “dark grandfather in the land.” 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 proposed empirical argumentation of the opponent is ignored either silently or irritably.
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 sphere of science does not have rigid boundaries, since the content of science itself is heterogeneous. In the humanities, as a rule, no objections arise on 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-19th centuries, an attempt to go beyond these rigid boundaries in order to combine with other forms of rationality most often does not find support among the majority of materialist-oriented researchers. Therefore, the concept of “science” is often used as a speculative term, despite the vagueness of the criteria and the shaky foundation.
Methodological naturalism, adopted in the natural sciences, does not allow the scientist to go beyond established 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 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.
Currently, there is a need to free ourselves from the opposition of religion (as irrational) to science (as rational). Even in medieval Europe, they tried to justify both faith and religious dogmas using 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 engaged in the same thing - understanding 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 wider, considering the 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 a retreat into mutual axiomatic faith suggests the artificial nature and artificiality of the ideological conflict between science and religion. Science, like hundreds of years ago, faces many unresolved questions, but for religion, paradoxically, there are practically no unresolved questions. But this does not mean at all that religiously minded scientists abandon the search for their natural scientific explanation. Thus, the scientific issues of our time, through their researchers, are also introduced into the sphere of competence of religion. This has been written and talked about both long ago and recently, and not only by theologians, but also by scientists - the pillars of many scientific directions. In 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 completely different natural science issues, wrote: “Although I am convinced of the indisputability of natural scientific truth in my field, it has never seemed possible to me to discard the content of religious thought simply as part of the overcome the stages of consciousness of humanity are a part that will still have to be abandoned in the future. So throughout my life I have constantly had to think about the relationship between these two spiritual worlds, for I have never had any doubt about the reality of what they point to. We will talk first about the indisputability and value of natural scientific truth, then about the much broader area of religion, and finally about the relationship of these two truths to each other, which is most difficult to formulate.” Werner Heisenberg also owns the catchphrase, which we quote from the greatest philosopher of our time, Dietrich von Hildebrandt (1889-1977): “The first sip from the glass of natural science makes us atheists, but God awaits at the bottom of the glass.”
As if summarizing thousands of years of 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 are not at all mutually exclusive, as was previously believed and what many of our contemporaries fear: 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 worldview."
In the context of the above analysis, we will not be original by joining the cited authorities, and will once again repeat the maxim with which we have previously 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 capable of putting forward rational statements on the basis of which a specific scientific theory can be evaluated."
Reviewers:
- Fedyaev Dmitry Mikhailovich, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Vice-Rector for Scientific Work of Omsk State Pedagogical University, Omsk.
- Denisov Sergey Fedorovich, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy, Omsk State Pedagogical University, Omsk.
www.science-education.ru
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, claiming to be the science of sciences, crushed all spheres of spiritual life, severely constraining 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 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, determining 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 rules and commandments are followed) in a person’s acquisition of heavenly grace and eternal life.
It was religion, which, as a result of complex and mediated dependencies, reflected what is called the basis of society, and ensured the specificity and integrity of medieval culture. Moreover, in the categories of religion, “the most universally significant, all-encompassing ideas appeared in the minds of people who felt new,” 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 posed the question of the specifics and meaning of social existence, about the inner spiritual world of man, and formed the concept of linear time and the irreversibility of history (understood, naturally, in the spirit of Augustinian providentialism). Moreover, one should keep in mind not only the official doctrine, but also various Reformed movements of free-thinking and humanism, which, despite the rejection of church dogma, started from it, moved in the problem field outlined by Christianity, which was present in history not just as a “shell” of the real history, but as its internal active force. Therefore, European civilization is rightfully called Christian.
The relationship between the spheres of sacred and profane, religious and secular, including scientific, in European culture was constantly changing. So, starting from the 16th century. The process of secularization or desacralization of society is becoming more and more obvious. This process manifested itself in various kinds of anti-church movements (heresies, sects) and concepts that rejected church orthodoxy (anti-trinitarianism, deism, pantheism, agnosticism, skepticism), which prepared the emergence of atheistic teachings proper. One of the main forms of such confrontation was the antithesis “scientific knowledge - religion”, and it is important not to simplify it in the spirit of a straightforward idea of \u200b\u200bthe 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. Thus, Bruno was fond of Kabbalah, Servetus militantly promoted astrology, Kepler believed in the “world soul” of the Universe, Newton was fond of alchemy and biblical prophecies, and Pascal defended the mystical “faith of the heart.” Flo, in this, paradoxically, their free-thinking was manifested in that historical era. In the Italian Renaissance, N.I. wrote in this regard. Conrad, both rationalism and mysticism represented “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 is precisely what was necessary for the advancement of human thought, social life, culture, and science.” In this case, we are, of course, talking about medieval mysticism. Later spiritualism, occultism, theosophy, anthroposophy, etc. — phenomena of a different historical and cultural nature.
What explained the constant conflicts between science and religion? After all, theology is the doctrine of the knowledge of God, and it is not directly concerned with the study of the physical world. The matter is explained, first of all, by the fact that according to Catholic “natural theology”, finally developed by Thomas Aquinas (XIII century), a person, by studying nature as the creation of God, is able to obtain knowledge about the qualities of God, for example, about his infinite power, supreme wisdom and goodness, and on this basis formulate evidence of its existence. But rational human knowledge was considered 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 the divinely revealed super-rational “truths of faith.” Thus, a special sphere of knowledge was identified, within which human ideas about physical phenomena were directly correlated with truths “not of this world.” Moreover, reason was assigned a subordinate role, namely: to guide believers to the contemplation of the Creator, who surpasses all human understanding. Hence the desire of the church to keep under constant control the conclusions of natural science, 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 assessed scientific discoveries and achievements from the point of view not of their truth, but of the ability to fit them into its own sacred 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 had no interest in 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 statement about the exceptional position of the “God-created Earth”, about 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 reconcile them with constantly changing, primarily scientific, ideas, with culture in the broad sense. It should be noted that this problem remains one of the central ones to this day, giving rise to heated discussions among theologians and theologians.
To some extent, it seems possible to even 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 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 church tried to neutralize indisputable geological data on the age of the Earth, which undermined the dating of the “days of creation,” by interpreting “days” in a special, “divine” sense—as long periods, the duration of which can be established taking into account the latest scientific data. Let us note that such arguments are still readily used by theologians.
In light of the above, it becomes clear why the teachings of Charles Darwin were perceived as a shock in the church environment. On the one hand, it seemed to many then to refute the idea of the divine creation of man - the key dogma 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 convincing metaphorical interpretation. It is no coincidence that militant “monkey processes” have crossed over into our information technology age, and in recent decades, apologists for “scientific creationism”—a fundamentalist movement in natural science that claims to provide a strictly scientific substantiation of the idea of the divine and one-act creation of the world from nothing—have become noticeably more active.
In modern times, the processes of secularization manifested themselves more and more energetically, and the concept of partial coincidence of “truths of faith” and “truths of reason” could not keep them within the framework of traditional church doctrine. The most ambitious episode of 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 put an end to the ambiguity of “natural theology”, drawing a rigid line of demarcation between religion and other forms of culture - morality, philosophy, politics and especially science. Man, M. Luther emphasized, lives in two spheres: in relation to God (the kingdom of heaven) and in relation to the natural and social environment (the earthly kingdom). An adequate and sufficient tool for solving earthly problems (physical existence and regulation of social life) is reason - the majestic gift of the Creator, which distinguishes man from animals. However, natural reason is in principle incapable of penetrating the mystery of divine mercy, which can only be known by faith, which does not need any rational premise; since the natural mind is hopelessly corrupted by sin, the religion of such a mind is obviously vicious and leads only to idolatry. Only faith gives birth to enlightened reason - the ability of a person to reason orderly about the material given in Scripture.
Luther had a similar attitude towards science. He categorically rejected it as a means of knowledge of God, but encouraged the systematic study of nature and society to obtain useful practical knowledge, partially restoring man's dominance 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 growing confrontation between religion (theology, religious philosophy) and science were the undeniable realities of history, two different, but equally objective life attitudes. Theology sought to conceptually comprehend and express the mass life experience of generations of people trying 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 sociocultural situation characteristic of 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 truly incompatible with the well-known concept of “deception”, with the idea of religious faith as a consequence of ignorance and obscurantism. For modern religious studies, which understands the fundamental difference in 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 allow us to see more clearly the relationship between secular (scientific) and religious consciousness.
A trivial fact is undeniable: 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. The proud answer of P. Laplace to Napoleon’s question why he did not provide a place for God in his system remains textbook: “I did not need this hypothesis!” In other words, the outstanding astronomer was convinced that science itself was capable of comprehensively explaining the fundamental laws of the Universe. This view can be called methodological atheism, for which the question of the existence of God within the framework of professional research does not have significant meaning - 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. 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 in 1958, dedicated to cosmology, Lemaitre said: “To the extent that I can judge, such a theory (meaning the theory of an expanding Universe with a special point - the “beginning of time” - K.P.) is completely remains aloof from any metaphysical or religious questions. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental existence. Regarding 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 mixed in any way. It’s a completely different matter, continues V.L. Ginzburg, that “faith 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, one cannot help but envy believers, and I am not at all embarrassed by such envy. But what can you do - the mind is stronger and does not allow you to believe in miracles, in the irrational.”
The majority of creators of scientific knowledge defended a position similar to Lemaitre. Of course, this manifested itself differently at different times. There are many examples of prominent natural scientists writing 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 degree of comparability, even isomorphy, of the divine and human mind: God created the world as a certain rational structure, following the principles of logic and the laws of thinking, and therefore knowledge of the Universe allows understand not only the attributes of the Creator, but also, to a large extent, the essence of things, being in general. It was the fact that in the professional sphere (regardless of personal relationship to God) scientists strictly followed the procedure of scientific research that determined the irreconcilable clashes between positive knowledge and church doctrine, so familiar from history.
At the same time, there were and are scientists of a different type. Thus, the outstanding inventor, natural scientist, theologian P.A. Florensky tirelessly denounced “inhuman scientific thought”: its truths are always incomplete, probable, approximate, they do not and in principle cannot provide true knowledge. He contrasted them with the “Pillar and Establishment of Truth” - not one of the truths, but “the Truth is all integral and eternal, the One and Divine Truth.” However, as it turns out, to achieve it, a “feat of faith” is necessary, which can only be accomplished by ascetics and saints, spiritualized, liturgical personalities (homo liturgies), who have accepted into the soul 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 to be its Pillar. Such an absolutization of the church (“conciliar”) faith, which rejects any deviations from the canon, is a distinctive feature of Orthodoxy. In this regard, let us at least remember the attitude of the official church to the teachings of the outstanding religious thinker Vl. Solovyov or to the interpretation of Christianity defended by L.N. Tolstoy.
It is not surprising that a believing scientist rejects the ability of science to show him the main thing, namely the path to salvation and immortality. Equally understandable and legitimate is the emergence of anti-scientist doctrines, demands to complement the scientific and technological revolution with a moral revolution, etc. 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 stage of knowledge. Therefore, we should continue the conversation about the specifics of scientific knowledge, its relationship with religious knowledge.
Let us note one curious circumstance. It is clear that a free-thinking scientist, a materialist, will have a sharply negative attitude towards such a concept and 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 to Father Pavel: “This stylized simplicity, stylized quietness, stylized humility emanates an eerie deadness. When you read this suffocating book, you want to escape into the fresh air, into breadth, into freedom, into the creativity of the free human spirit. He crushed within himself a wonderful scientist, mathematician, philologist, perhaps a researcher of occult sciences.”
Science only gradually acquired organizational forms and improved sophisticated research tools that allowed us to penetrate deeper into the hidden essence of phenomena. Over time, the specificity of science became more and more clearly visible, distinguishing it from other forms of culture, 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 specific statements. This is a special type of social activity, a method of spiritual production, an area of professional mental work. It constitutes an organic component of human culture and is in close connection with the spiritual climate of society. Moreover, this is a two-way connection.
On the one hand, scientific activity, like any other human activity, is purposeful in nature, 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 value systems (reliance on experience and experiment, fidelity to the truth, independence from prejudice and inertia, willingness to defend its 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 previous ideas - this, in fact, is the pathos of science. Religion also declares that it is concerned with finding truth, but the content of this term turns out to be different. The scientist strives for knowledge that is not yet known to anyone. The final truth is already clear to a believer or theologian; he knows when and by whom it was formulated. The main thing is not to discover it, but to experience it internally as the truth of salvation.
Thus, it is wrong to reduce the essence of the confrontation between science and religion to a polemic around certain specific natural scientific provisions. This is only the upper, conspicuous part of the iceberg, under which their incompatibility as types of social activity is hidden (but only that, 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, and the right to formulate conclusions without regard to church orthodoxy. Philosophers such as R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, D. Hume and many others played a huge role in overcoming the spiritual despotism of the church. This activity found a worthy conclusion in the works of I. Kant. He argued that a religion that does not hesitate to declare war on reason will not be able to withstand it for long.
The Reformation broke the church unity of Europe, and by the 17th century, anti-clerical protests reached their peak, preparing the emergence of actual atheistic concepts, primarily the French materialists of the 18th century. Independent religious studies disciplines are gradually being formed, striving to apply strictly scientific approaches. On the basis of evolutionary theory, various forms of natural science atheism arise. This is the heyday of the theologically destructive positivism of O. Comte, J. Mill, G. 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 - the time , which ended with the gloomy statement of F. Nietzsche: “God is dead!” In academic circles, the conviction grew stronger in the final triumph of rationalism and scientific knowledge, in the imminent advent of an “irreligious future” that would bring people deliverance from social evil.
These attitudes 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 transforming society. The most striking example is “social evangelism,” which became the dominant trend in American Protestantism at the beginning of the 20th century. Its main author, W. Rauschenbusch, passionately argued: the “great day of Christ” had arrived, when the opportunity opened up to create the “kingdom of God” by restructuring all social relations in the spirit of gospel morality, which should be the main task of the church, appealing to the conscience of people. Confident of the possibility of transferring the “harmony of Heaven to Earth,” the leading Protestant churches energetically expanded their sphere of public activity; In theological educational institutions, courses in sociology, social ethics, psychology of faith, and comparative religion were introduced, which emphasized the need to use the achievements and methods of science to restore the true meaning of the Bible and to implement reformist plans. Modernism triumphed, theologians took meaningful steps towards science. However, the dominance of this trend was short-lived.
Social disasters of the 20th 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 20s of the so-called dialectical theology, or theology of crisis (K. Barth, R. Bultmann, R. Niebuhr, P. Tillich, etc.), which directly and uncompromisingly set 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 the categories of changing culture?; and, finally, what are the prospects for curbing destructive demonic forces?
Dialectical theologians were clearly aware of the vulnerability of traditional religious teachings, existing, as M. Heidegger put it, 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 secular interpretations of the Message of Christ. And this meant affirming the concept of a transcendent God, condemning attempts to dissolve the proclamation of Jesus Christ in the social ideals and values of worldly civilization, a sharp contrast 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 a “coming of age 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, executed for participating in the fight against the Nazi cult of race, Teutonic exclusivity, the Fuhrer, the totalitarian order, consecrated by German Christians. True faith, Bonhoeffer insists, is expressed not in human ideas about God, not in prayers for reward beyond the grave and escape from all earthly trials, but in the readiness to take full responsibility before the demands of this world and, like Christ, to drink to the end the earthly cup, following his commandment of love for all people. This approach was further developed in the works of theologians, symbolizing the most dynamic development of modern theological thought. Let us call in this connection J.A.T. Robinson, H. Cox, representatives of the theology of the genitive case (“theology of the Death of God”, “theology of hope”, etc.).
The views of major Protestant theologians indicate that the processes of rationalization of religious faith, the convergence of scientific knowledge and religious consciousness are very difficult. We have to one way or another recognize 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 indicate the fundamental impossibility of cooperation - a dialogue between religion and science in solving many problems, including the problem of human improvement. There is no doubt that many improvement concepts are based on precisely such cooperation.
As part of the implementation of a 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. We need to seriously explore the inexhaustible mysteries of religious faith, as it manifests itself in people’s worldview and way of life. It would be worthwhile, for example, to more clearly distinguish between two concepts: “God” and “idea of God.” “God” is an attitude of religious consciousness, that is, an affirmation of the existence of an omnipotent Creator and Ruler of the world, in other words, an ontological, existent category, which is rejected by secularized consciousness. The “idea of God” is a different matter. This is a kind of given, empirical evidence of consciousness, that is, an epistemological category. Even the most determined atheist cannot deny its reality and historical justification, and in this sense the failure of the ontological proof of the existence of God has no significance.
Moreover, recognition of the historical regularity of the idea of God is a prerequisite for any serious study of religion, regardless of whether it is oriented towards its criticism or defense. 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 research: based on generally accepted facts, he finds out the reasons for the origin, change, stability of such an idea, without at all committing 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 dramatic changes. Thus, the object of knowledge within the framework of the post-non-classical scientific paradigm also includes subjective characteristics that reflect the subjective characteristics of the knowing subject. The subject of cognition is an abstract representative of culture - a mysterious carrier of a concept, or a conceptual character.
The hermeneutic paradigm of dialogic communication replaces subject-subject relations. The representative nature of knowledge is replaced by a systemic - communicative dialogue epistemology. The subject and object of cognition are interpreted as a creation arising from the chaos of actualization of the virtual world. There is a dynamic approach to the 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 nonlinear processes, unstable self-developing systems, effects of coherence, synchronicity, and coevolution. This type of rationality is characterized by the rejection of dichotomies and co-occurrences, and the avoidance of unambiguous answers to the most significant questions.
In connection with the change in the nature of cognition as object-subject relations, methods of scientific research and the structure of science, the understanding of truth as the goal of cognition changes. 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.
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 in scientific research one should take into account not only the objective properties of the phenomenon being studied, but also the value-target characteristics of the researcher’s activity, which is inherent in aesthetic and moral culture. In this regard, close to the image of modern science is art, the reflection of reality in artistic images that represent the unity of the abstract and the concrete, the emotional and the rational, the intuitive and the logically conditioned. Many outstanding scientists, artists and scientists admit that scientific ideas often come to them under the influence of artistic thinking and artistic images. In the work of scientists and artists, we see how an appeal to artistic thinking helps the creation of scientific theories, contributes to the discovery of new things, and an appeal to scientific thinking enriches the artist’s creative palette (A. Einstein, N. Bohr, D. Bohm, D. Melchizedek, Leonardo da Vinci, L. Wittgenstein, G. Weil, M. Prishvin, E. Robbins).
From this analysis it is clear that science is becoming closer and closer to art and, ultimately, to religion. For us, this is especially important to note because, as we believe, human improvement presupposes the unity of science and religion as an indispensable condition. 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 definitional analysis of religion and science shows that despite all the external dissimilarity and incompatibility of these phenomena, there are nevertheless significant, immanent prerequisites for dialogue, cooperation, synthesis of religious and scientific forms and methods of knowing the world and man, arising from their very internal nature. This tendency of interpenetration and interaction of religion and science is especially clearly manifested when solving the problem of human improvement.
— Excursions into history make it possible to clarify the 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 ideological needs of millions and millions of people at a given stage of social development.
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To sum up, we can say that science and religion are necessary for each other. These are two complementary ways that can help us fully understand the world in which we exist. Therefore, we do not need to choose between science and religion. Natural sciences can reveal the laws of the physical world and contribute to the development of technologies that will create a high level of material well-being for us. However, science needs moral values, which have their origins in religion, in order to guide its own activities and to carry out the responsible use of scientific knowledge for the benefit and not the harm of humanity. As Albert Einstein said: “Science without religion is defective, religion without science is blind.”
conclusions
To summarize 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, most scientists and clergy are still inclined towards the type of “non-contradiction”, or one might even say “synthesis” of these spheres.
When religion and science profess belief in God, the first places 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 minds because it separates two important aspects of human nature - the physical and the spiritual. Science should in no way deny spiritual experience, just as religious faith cannot exclude 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, fueled by man's ability to wonder 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 the greatness of the Universe inspires in us, on the other, in the desire to know the Creator and our place in the implementation of His plan.
This approach to the problem of the relationship between science and religion will allow a person to live in a civilized world “created” by science, without losing his spiritual and cultural values.
A person has an inherent desire 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 and understanding of the surrounding reality. For many centuries there was practically no difference between these ways of knowledge. Together they satisfied man's basic needs and confirmed his intuition that the universe was meaningful, orderly, intelligent, and governed by some form of just laws, even if those laws were 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 understand reality using 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. Natural sciences focused on explaining and understanding the material side of reality, while the main subject of religious knowledge became the spiritual dimension of reality. A contrast between science and religion arose, partly because at times representatives of religion tried to arrogate to themselves absolute authority in matters of interpretation of the material nature of the world. In response, some scholars considered religion to be a collection of superstitions and 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. The point is not that one direction is correct 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, as far as it can be understood by man, belong to the sphere of philosophy.
Questions about how the world works fall within the purview of science.
Questions about why the world is arranged in this 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 scientifically proven laws of the structure of the world. 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 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 the means of “dominion over the earth” (Gen. 1:28), and man has the moral right to experiment and create.
Ber Levin
Science and religion - mutual negation or complementarity?
(analysis of statements by academician V.L. Ginzburg)
On various Jewish blogs, websites, and chats, people of the atheistic “confession” often raise the banner of war against religion. The range of tonality of their statements against faith and believers ranges from mild contempt to flows close to swearing. And often such fighters against religion make their main bet on science, as if refuting all the “fairy tales” of these stupid believers. The most prominent name among such disputants is the famous academician, plus a Nobel laureate, who posted his angry articles, a total of three, on the well-known portal “Notes on Jewish History.” In those articles, he directly states the sharp and irreconcilable antagonism of Faith and Science.
Well, the question is really interesting: are Science and Faith really completely mutually exclusive categories? To understand it, it is very useful to take a close look at the arguments of the side that completely rejects the legitimacy of a religious approach to the world. This is what we will do now.
At one time, this article was proposed to the same place where the academician’s articles were posted, but was rejected by the editor of the portal. It is being made public here for the first time.
There is no need to analyze all three publications of the academician on that portal, because in many ways they simply repeat each other. He ended one of them with five theses, concisely and specifically setting out his main thoughts on this topic. (see http://berkovich-zametki.com/Nomer46/Ginzburg1.htm) Therefore, it is quite convenient to go through the analysis specifically according to them, which is done below.
So, let's start straight from his theses.
Thesis 1.
Atheism, i.e. denial of the existence of God, as well as belief in God, are intuitive judgments (concepts). They cannot be strictly proven or disproved (like, say, mathematical theorems).
Here the respected nobleman bypassed some things. Mathematics is, of course, a rigorous science, but... And it, no less than religion (together with atheism), is based on “intuitive concepts.” Concepts such as point, line, natural number series, operations of addition, subtraction, etc. and so on. - the concepts are intuitive, purely intuitive. They have never been “proven” by anyone, they simply cannot be proven 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 to the appearance of the Creator on Mount Sinai, and their specific evidence, too. Those who don’t believe in them, well, that’s their business. But there is no sufficiently solid and convincing evidence that these recordings are lies. But there is, again, a clearly recorded chain of real personalities who passed on these “witness testimonies” from mouth to mouth from the event itself right up to the very last – our – days (for a detailed and clear statement 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 propositions, some of which are taught even in school (for example, the postulates of Euclid). Well, then - the further into the forest, the more firewood. Any natural science is built on an even larger number of initial, indefinable, i.e. intuitively accepted concepts. So, who has 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 all that. However, it is worth emphasizing that this is by no means a superposition: they say, either this or that. The combination of these positions is by no means prohibited, but who understands the relationship between these faiths, i.e. ranking them, there is no need to chew on what lies at the basis 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 even the most inveterate atheist, even crowned with all sorts of laurels, can do without one faith or another.
But in general, regarding this first thesis, it can be noted that here the author lays it out quite softly - he recognizes a certain equality of faith and atheism. What will be the procedure for putting him to sleep on this “soft” bed - we’ll see further. And to do this, let’s go sequentially through its points
Thesis 2.
Atheism does not in the slightest degree contradict the recognition of freedom of conscience, i.e. freedom to believe or not to believe in the existence of God. The identification of atheists with militant atheists is absolutely incorrect and is similar to, say, the identification of Christian believers with supporters of the Inquisition.
This thesis has a passing meaning: well, the author is somehow justifying himself, trying to distance himself from someone there... However, how legitimate is his disavowal of the “militant atheists” - we will see a little later. In the meantime, let's move on and leave this point for later.
Thesis 3.
It is necessary to distinguish between those who believe in God, in the existence of some absolute, etc. in a rather abstract sense (to be specific, deists) from religious people belonging to some denominations, to be specific, theists. A theist not only believes in the existence of God, but also in the holiness of the Bible (or Koran), in the existence of miracles, etc.
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 need to pay attention to how the author contrasts deism with all other faiths. According to his ideas, deists differ from theists (i.e., from traditional believers) by a simple and unpretentious belief in God, not burdened by any other incidental circumstances. But theists for some reason add to this - such a pure - faith a belief in miracles and in holy books. (*)
A remark slightly to the side (but an important one) from the current line of reasoning: the author considers only the Bible and the Koran to be holy books. Likewise, 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 even disgusting to the point of untouchability, although his writings analyzed here are exhibited on the Jewish portal, and in one of them he directly appeals to the Jews. It’s somehow strange - he addresses Jews, and selects all kinds of evidence (for further kicking them) from Christian opuses. But I am a Jew, and for this reason I leave other religions aside - there is no need to discuss them here. Therefore, in further consideration I will be based exclusively 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 this belief only in the Creator of the world (i.e., among deists) fundamentally different from the faith of other faiths - this is still known only to the author himself. His position that traditional confessions believe in miracles, but deists do not, alas, does not pass. It simply does not correspond to the truth, because... both believe in the most important miracle - the creation of the world and man.
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 stated very clearly 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 centuries, is incompatible with the scientific worldview, with science.
To this thesis point, we can add that in his texts he has an even cooler twist (more than once, and every time it gets cooler):
...religion is a relic of backwardness, a rotten fruit of lack of education...
... religion (theism, Buddhism, etc.) is a relic of lack of education and scientific ignorance.
Etc.
That's it, the dots are set, the nails are firmly driven into the coffin lids. All “philosophical” (according to the author) religious movements turn out to be acceptable (**), and only the original confessions are bad, nasty and pseudoscientific. Well, it turns out that this very atheism completely denies my faith - what can I do? All that remains is to lie down in the coffin... But before I climb into it, I’ll still risk asking one more question: what are the grounds for such an absolute denial? Is it really in the author’s opinion expressed here that religion is incompatible with science? Or maybe not with science, but with him personally, with his mentality?
Well, let’s try to figure it out here - the question of compatibility and incompatibility.
Let me start with the fact that such statements are terribly typical for atheists - we are supposedly the smartest. Or more precisely: ONLY WE are smart. And all the rest are hopeless fools.
We've already heard something very similar, haven't we? Well, the academician himself suggested to the readers of his articles where we heard something similar - of course, in the slogan: “Religion is the opium of the people,” which he quotes with a certain reverence. (This is literally identical to K. 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 completely agree with this formulation). All that remains is to supplement what he left out: this slogan actively worked as a killer cliche for communist propaganda in the USSR all the years of the existence of this state.
Here it is useful to return to the above thesis 2. In it, the respected comrade academician tried with all his might to disown the militant atheists in the Soviet era - supposedly, he himself is not like that, and in general, normal atheists are not so militant. However, there is a question - is its label: “pseudoscience” really so different from the work of those same atheists: “opium”? What's the difference? There is none, there is no difference between these two brands, either in terms of content or in the degree of contempt and reproach.
And then - more: our nobeliat could not stay at the level of a simple label (“pseudoscience” - and that’s it; or “opium” - and that’s it); no, he immediately hurled at religion (again in the wake of the “militant atheists”) just a bunch of insults: decrepitude, backwardness, relic, rottenness, lack of education, ignorance.
The highly scientific academician does not bother himself with proof of these principles; he works on pure emotions. In fact, the calculation of believing and non-believing scientists, which is completely empty – both in essence and in execution – cannot be considered as any significant evidence. Or, in addition to this, an indication of the billion illiterates in the world, with the crystal clear idea that religion is just the lot of such illiterate people. Well, well, the Jewish laureate seems to have no idea that in all centuries literacy has been universal among the Jewish people, and practically obligatory for those who profess Judaism - you have to read the prayers yourself, and pass it all on to the priests - in our country it’s not at all in the factory. And what he really doesn’t know anymore (it’s not possible for him to know) is that now in the synagogues there are a lot of Jews who are not just literate, but downright highly developed intellectuals and intellectuals, workers in the arts, science, medicine, etc.
Well, okay, from these insults, from dirty epithets, let’s return to a more specific accusation, to the label “pseudoscience.” Here is the place for my great surprise: did the author even understand what he was writing about? Under Soviet rule, in the years 40-60, this particular term was in great use among the official deniers of genetics and cybernetics. Not only has this academician put himself on a par with these little-respected figures, but with his meaning the situation is even worse than that of the Soviet officialdom - much worse. There they really were talking about specific sciences, therefore calling them “pseudosciences” - although it is a clear insult (that’s what it was intended for), but 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 contained in the term “pseudoscience” (albeit in an offensively negative sense) to a fundamentally different phenomenon, which was never squeezed into any scientific framework, and never sought to fit into it. 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 the incompatibility of concepts. For example: “Poetry is a pseudoscience.” And then it goes like this: “Science is a false art.” Or this: “morality is pseudo-mathematics.” Well, what about the hearing - doesn’t it hurt?
Logic, and simply the ability to comprehend what is written or said, turns out to be at the same level among all religion detractors - both laureates and ordinary Internet bullies of the atheistic front. And this level speaks for itself. Everything in their writings is based on raw emotions, unsubstantiated, but loud-drumming statements, and is always based on complete ignorance of the subject of their criticism, i.e. religion. And in all these qualities they - these despoilers of faith - are surprisingly close to the despoilers of Jewry, i.e. simply - to anti-Semites.
At the end of this section, it makes sense to formulate a positive statement about the relationship between science and religion, as an alternative to the destructive statements of the academician. These two areas - each of them - have completely different, non-overlapping basic foundations, and therefore develop without interfering with each other. Science is unable to prove the absence of G-d (which is admitted to some extent even by the author - see his point 1), as well as, conversely, to confirm his existence. Both are not given to her in principle, due to her 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 public spaces and in the consciousness of each individual.
This does not mean that these two phenomena have no points of intersection at all. Since both are simultaneously inherent in human self-awareness, then there will certainly be areas of their joint application. And some visible conflicts and contradictions may already be identified in them. Well, for example, contradictions in determining the age of the world around us. However, based on the basic provisions formulated above, such conflict (or rather, even pseudo-conflict) situations can always find a resolution - if only there is a desire and desire for this. (see here - in a detailed presentation or - the same thing in a brief, abstract 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 the fight against pseudoscience, for example, with astrology, is necessary. The task of atheists is not to fight religion, but to educate atheists, in particular, to expose creationism and all other anti-scientific “theories.” ….
Here I will not defend poor astrology - I have little understanding of it, so expressing my opinion would be unforgivable stupidity. It’s just that from the moral point of view, such swearing doesn’t look very nice - indiscriminate vilification without any evidence. Oh, how it seems that the author understands astrology to the same extent as I do.
However, let us remember that the author called the same religion a pseudoscience (one point above), and also did not bother to justify such a sharp attack. And at this point, however, he - that is, religion - seems to be taking it out from under his blow, but he does it in a completely Jesuitical way.
You see, there is no need to persecute religion - it turns out that it is somehow connected with ethics and good intentions. The academician's discovery of this America is quite eloquent. He does this this way through clenched teeth, through “generally speaking,” i.e. as some kind of private circumstance that somewhat mitigates the guilt of the defendant and somehow lightens his sentence... And he doesn’t bother to comprehend that this is precisely the essential difference between religion and science.
Science is responsible for the material world, and 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, etc. This is precisely what our Torah is dedicated to.
But such a moral prerogative is available only to a full-fledged religion, i.e. in the academician's terminology - 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, no moral principles. 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 over some commandments, and then calmed down and stopped monitoring the situation.)
Regarding education, there is an interesting nuance here - the whole 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 domination (read obscurantism) to put a strict barrier, but he gives a green light to atheistic propaganda in the field of education, considers it a direct duty - not only his own, but, as it were, the entire society (say, “progressive humanity").
And here, naturally, a small question arises about the presence of honesty in this selective approach. Wouldn’t it be fairer, after all, for religion and atheism to compete on equal initial conditions? But somehow it doesn’t turn out well - during the years of the dominance of communal-atheistic propaganda in schools (and not only in them), I didn’t hear anyone’s indignation against this kind of brainwashing. And the academician was silent then - like everyone else. But regarding Christian agitation, he immediately rebelled sharply, using almost street abuse, and, at the same time, loudly declaring the right to agitate atheistic views.
Here, it seems, it would be appropriate to cite the following parable from our ancestors. Jewish parents teach their growing son: “Son, when you take a cab, look at him when you pass by the church. And if he does not cross himself, immediately stop the carriage and get off - such a driver, who does not believe in anything, will not lead to any good.”.
This is a simple approach to neighboring Christians. Well, now the sons of these sons have completely erased the old Jewish wisdom from their consciousness. These progressive descendants are not satisfied with such “obscurantism.”
And the last thing here is about creationism (according to the last line in the above part of thesis 5). Here is another “pseudoscience” from the academician, and, even more strongly, it is downright “anti-scientific theory.” At the same time, he does not stoop to explain (i.e., define) the signs by which he separates scientific theories from anti-scientific ones. And how did the creationist theory screw him up so much? - no answer yet. There is simply pinning on another expletive label.
The counterbalance to “anti-scientific” creationism is not directly named here, but, in principle, it is completely 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 these two theoretical constructs 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 attaching the stigma of “anti-science” to creationism, took the trouble to explain what, in his opinion, is the higher “scientific nature” of evolutionism. That same evolutionism, which in many respects has reached a dead end. For example, (a) evolutionism could not anywhere and never, despite all efforts, record the gradual transition of one species to 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) a 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 living things came from non-living things, and at the same time in violation of all natural laws formulated in physics, chemistry and other sciences.
So, since such delicious denunciation of a theory objectionable to an atheist was given, it would be necessary to provide evidence of the “scientificness” of another theory, more dear to the author’s heart. However, I don’t know - should we have expected such an analysis from a physicist? – it doesn’t look like he would have a competent understanding of these areas. For some reason, our Jewish physicists really like to get into something that is not their own domain - where they understand little, but at the same time they speak out with self-confident and infallible aplomb (see also, for example, about some similar “physical” reprisal with the concept “ Jew" - )
Thesis 5. (its end)
I would especially like to note the complete inconsistency of the fairly common thesis: “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” Theism indeed in a number of cases, but not always (see some trends 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 unfounded statement. It would be very interesting to know where and how this “confession” of atheism of some moral norms was 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!?
Well, in the 20th century - the bloodiest in all of human history - we have a lot of evidence of the violation of all social foundations. And, namely, primarily on the part of atheists, who have absolutely no moral restrictions. Well, let’s remember, for example, the communist governments of any continent and race, or even just leftist (i.e. social-communist) terrorist formations of different countries, such as all sorts of “red brigades”, “Ulrike Meinhopf group”, etc. We can cite many There are no 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 this.
I will limit myself here to a certain example from the everyday level - behavior, as it seems to many here, not even of a terrible nature. But, nevertheless, this will be a useful illustration of the ethics (i.e., moral level) of the parties under discussion, and, moreover, as applied specifically to our people. The above-mentioned swearing (even to the point of insulting) on various chats from Jewish atheists, their trash-talking of their religious brothers, including insults to religion in the works of our academician being analyzed - all this is located very, very low on the ethical scale. But for some reason we don’t hear anything even close to this 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, protect my tongue from slander...” And this penetrates into his essence , becomes his character.
The same can be said about other moral norms. It’s much easier for atheists to live without them, that’s why they defend their positions with such foam-at-the-mouth. But the poor fellows don’t have any significant evidence, so they start cursing and insulting the opposing position - maybe it will pass as evidence.
Well, it’s also worth adding a small consideration of the views of an atheist academician, not reflected in the analyzed 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 outdated 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 humanism.
And again - naked slogans, not supported in any way by any arguments, plus repeated defamation of religion over and over again. I’m already omitting this last one - that’s enough about it. What is interesting here is the direct connection between the goal of eradicating religion and the construction of a “bright, humanistic society.”
Let me nevertheless note that the construction of a highly moral world on the basis of atheism is not visible in any way - well, simply 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 it has already been demonstrated there), nor in humanism, in which the author already explicitly relies . The same humanism (secular, enlightenment and whatever) promoted 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 very rare exceptions, counted on one’s fingers) did not hesitate to throw European Jews into the jaws of Hitlerism, and often even simply contributed to this. And these same world humanists (as always, “peacemakers”!) are now actively helping Arab terror in its focus on the “final solution to the Jewish question.” This is truly: “Humanists of all countries - unite... against Israel!”
The atheist gentlemen of Jewish blood have very interesting priorities - with anyone, but only against Judaism, even 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 still 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 educated an entire 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 a broad outlook, who is not confined to certain scientific directions, but who knows how to see the world in all its manifestations.
And here, one example of the presentation of his views is his lecture, posted at http://vivovoco.rsl.ru/VV/Q_PROJECT/FEYNMAN/LECTURE5.HTM. In it, he speaks directly about the world around us, about everyday phenomena (not even miracles!) that exist constantly and everywhere, but do not fit into our physical model of the world, seemingly so deeply worked out and seemingly firmly established. The author’s (Feynman’s) “off-screen” surprise and admiration for these circumstances should not escape the attentive reader. And for a truly thoughtful reader it becomes quite clear that, although he does not name a specific name out loud (he is, after all, a physicist, not a preacher, he should not be directly involved in preaching), but all these reasonings inevitably lead to the concept of a Higher Power that created our world.
Well, at the end of the lecture it is directly said about what, according to Feynman, human relationships should be, which directly illustrates our topic here: Neither an understanding of the nature of evil, good and hope, nor an understanding of basic laws in isolation can provide a deep understanding of the world. It is therefore unwise for those who study the world at one end of the hierarchy to treat those at the other end with little respect.
For greater clarity, I will allow myself to paraphrase this statement a little, preserving its semantic load (then the unconditional parts of the above quote are highlighted in red, and in green what is slightly veiled by Feynman): Unable to reachdeep understanding of the world, If physicists responsible forunderstanding of basic laws, And religious thinkers, delving intounderstanding the nature of evil, good and hope,will relate to each other without due respect .
This particular truth, alas, is not yet included in the thinking arsenal of physicists of the Soviet mentality, even with their Jewish nationality.
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Notes:
(*)
Here it is necessary to explain that in my text I had to use the terminology of the author of the theses being analyzed - otherwise a leapfrog of misunderstanding would have begun. But the fact is that his terminology (which I am forced to follow here), this terminology is fundamentally incorrect. “Theism” includes ANY belief in a Higher Power, i.e. both pagans and deists so beloved by the author. His contrast between deism and theism only shows that the respected academician got into the wrong sleigh - he did not understand the basics before getting involved in 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 in all literature is united under the term “monotheism”. And the term “theism” - I’ll explain once again - has a much broader 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 harm's way. Well, it’s terribly interesting, let’s say, about the latter: an agnostic simply claims that he simply DOESN’T KNOW, IS NOT SURE whether the Creator exists or does not exist. So it turns out, in the opinion of our expert on religions, that it turns out that it is possible to doubt and hesitate, but to take a certain side is a no-no.
And one more thing - why does this agnosticism (i.e. avoidance of any decision) according to the author turn out to be a philosophical (!) position? But resolving this issue in a direction he doesn’t like is already obscurantism! The logic, frankly, is mind-blowing - quite in the spirit of socialist realism, where all philosophy is understood as “diamatism”. .
One can make a quiet assumption that the author had both deists and agnostics among his friends or simply academic colleagues, and he simply did not want to conflict with them. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain such selectivity and bias, i.e. the opinion that the G-d, about whom agnostics hesitate, without fundamentally denying him, and the same G-d of the deists, who is completely accepted by them as the Creator - this is completely the 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
Posted to the site "Notes on Jewish History" 15.06.2009
Refusal to publish 16.06.2009
with the wording: does not satisfy
high portal requirements. Although my previous works somehow satisfied these same requirements. Satisfied so much so that my first publication on that portal was placed there directly by the editor (who had previously sought my consent), and I wrote the second of them, in general, at his direct request.