Religion and religiosity
Religion is human attempts to understand the spiritual world through matter. People invented rituals of worshiping the gods and compiled sacred scriptures. Most treatises belonging to different religious denominations describe how to believe in God. Through religion, people acquire a special worldview and begin to follow the spiritual path. But this phenomenon has an earthly, human essence.
It is impossible to gain faith after reading the scriptures, just as it is impossible to become a doctor only after studying medical literature.
There must be a desire to know and let the absolute Truth into the soul, as well as a special mental attitude. Without this approach, religiosity can become fanaticism.
Through persuasion to come to faith
The simplest answer to this question that comes to mind is to go outside in the spring, when the gardens are blooming. Inhale the aroma of flowers, consider their beauty, listen to the buzzing of bees. Or see Pushkin’s winter - “frost and sun, a wonderful day.” As the psalmist King David tells us: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament speaks of the work of His hands” (Ps. 18:2). The easiest way to be convinced of the existence of the Creator is to observe the reality around us.
Belief is an element of the cognitive process. A person is unfamiliar with something, but gradually becomes convinced of its existence. This usually turns out either from personal experience or in dialogue with someone who already has knowledge on this issue. For example, a small child does not know what a horse is. They tell him what it is like, show it in books, and only after a while he can see the horse in person. Then he will know and believe that the horse exists, and will be convinced that it is not an invention of the person who told him about it, or the artist who painted it. Faith becomes the highest degree of conviction. Faith is an absolute belief. In the matter of knowing God, we must come to faith through conviction.
Faith in God versus medicine: can prayer save a dying person?
Most religions are closely associated with rituals that help restore health. Christianity despises shamans and healers and treats them as minions of dark forces, reminding us that you cannot give something to one and not take away from another: you have to pay for everything.
Photo by Gift Habeshaw: Pexels
But the main catalog of sins and punishments, the Bible, repeatedly mentions miraculous healings of the dying and welcomes the idea of pilgrimages to holy places.
Does faith really heal? Studies on the effectiveness of motives and rituals, yes, there are even such enthusiasts, show contradictory results. When it works, believers think it's a miracle, while skeptics insist it's a coincidence and a placebo effect. Success is explained, rather, by moral relief, which often affects the physical state.
Of course, treating cancer with holy water is dangerous and ineffective, but if faith in God helps you cope with minor everyday troubles and is spiritual support for medical therapy, then why not? You're right, it won't get any worse.
For a reasonable person, faith is a continuation of the spirit, the ability to see the invisible and do the impossible, to find the strength to hold on when everything around is falling apart.
The path of the curious
The Apostle Paul says that faith is a gift of God: “It is through faith that you have been saved, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). What then about conviction? To achieve it, we need to go through a certain path. To do this, first of all, you need to be inquisitive.
I think science can help us verify the existence of God. I mean the natural sciences that we study from school, which we encounter every day. I am very close to the words of Nobel laureate in physics Max Planck, who said that faith in God for a believer is the beginning of the path: he accepts it as truth and builds his worldview on this foundation. And for a person who follows the path of science, this is the end of the path, its peak. The scientist comes to the conviction of the existence of God as the cause of everything that happens.
