In the whirlpool of everyday life, the question once arises in the soul of every person: does God exist. They say that there are no atheists on board the falling plane. But what about faith when there are no signs of trouble, you are well-fed, healthy and relatively happy? First, you need to figure out what faith means to you. Psychologists look at this phenomenon as the predominance of intuitive thinking, theologians as a result of evolution, doctors as the triumph of pleasure hormones.
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But they have one thing in common: faith is the opposite of science. At all times and in any culture, they prayed to the gods and made sacrifices.
Even in ancient times, when people had not yet formed their vision of the world, hunters and gatherers believed that plants, animals and even stones had a soul.
The Vikings revered the stern Odin and dreamed of going to Valhalla, the Greeks built temples and palaces in honor of Zeus and his bloodthirsty wife. Why can’t humanity imagine its existence without faith?
In this article:
What does faith in God give to a person? Does faith in God make people happy? Faith in God versus medicine: can prayer save a dying person?
What does faith in God give a person?
Recently, the media has been filled with scandals on religious grounds. In the age of the power of technology, many are irritated by the fact that there are still those who believe in something higher and wiser than the latest iPhone model.
There are legends about how easy it is to offend the feelings of believers and what quick and severe punishment awaits a careless servant of God from law enforcement agencies for this. It would seem that the church and the law should be on opposite sides of ethics and morality. But, alas.
Why does it happen differently and what is it about religion that makes people turn off logic and follow, sometimes completely contradictory instructions from above?
Why is faith needed?
- Faith as a need for security.
According to Maslow's pyramid, this is one of the basic desires for stability and protection from external threats. Many people need to feel that there is someone above them who knows everything about what is happening in their lives and can control it.
A person realizes his insignificance compared to the vast, boundless Universe and cannot come to terms with loneliness. In this case, God becomes the ultimate source of security and comfort. Sigmund Freud compared submission to God to the submission of a small child to his parents.
- Faith is one of the currents of mass culture.
The value of religion can be viewed in terms of how it has influenced science, art, literature, music and architecture, as well as the way people live. Those societies where religion was banned, such as the Soviet Union, have outlived their usefulness. The influence of Christianity can be seen in its achievements as “a tree is known by its fruit.”
It made a huge contribution to the development of the Russian language and taught us to care for the poor, weak and sick. The Church civilized a scattered people and faithfully served people of all ages from cradle to grave.
- Faith as a symbol of equality.
The gap between social strata of society is huge. But the Bible promises salvation to everyone who respects the laws, regardless of their gender, age and level of income. Everyone is equal before God, and a believer expects that the High Court will judge him fairly, as well as the top elite.
- Faith as a need for a higher goal.
Everything that exists in nature performs a specific function: the sun provides light and warmth, water quenches thirst, and a person must have a special purpose. There comes a stage in the life of most people when they think about the meaning of their existence, why they came into this world: to eat, sleep and work, or for something more and still hidden from their eyes.
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The answer “for the sake of the family or for the sake of the common good” is not entirely satisfactory, since it forces us to go deeper: why does the family and all of humanity exist?
- Faith as a guarantee of life after death.
Man considers himself the crown of creation and cannot come to terms with the fact that even his earthly path is being undermined. Belief in life after death is the main method of speculation for every newly minted prophet. It also serves as a relief to those who have lived a hard but righteous life. The Bible promises them an extraordinary ticket to heaven.
- Faith as hope for the best.
When the chimes strike and the air around becomes light and shimmering like the dress of a young debutante, even the most stern and ossified heart is imbued with the expectation of a miracle. Approximately the same feeling arises in a person who prays. Hope makes it possible to have a dream and maintains vitality. Without hope, as well as without faith and love, a person cannot live. He needs her like air. A person sets a program for himself and sends it into space.
Writer Fyodor Dostoevsky believed that the most important question that determines the meaning of human existence is: “What do you believe in?” Christianity asserts that no one can live completely without sin, and therefore trying to turn to God to receive forgiveness helps fill the inner emptiness.
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The essence of faith lies, first of all, not in relation to a particular religious movement, but in the expression of personal zeal. For some it brings moral satisfaction, for others it is part of a mystical experience, and still others see it as a kind of therapy, overcoming life’s trials with the help of the Bible. Going to church replaces a visit to a psychologist for them.
Relationship between God and man
It is impossible to agree with the existence of God and leave life as before.
This cannot be called faith. We seem to allow God to exist, but we don’t even try to change. A person must decide for himself: if God exists, then he requires something. He reads thoughts and is nearby everywhere, knows the past and sees the future. If He is not there, a terrible conclusion appears: “I do what I want and nothing will happen to me for it.” Pascal at one time reflected on the topic of faith and came to some conclusions: 1. A believer tries to humble himself before his neighbors, to love them, takes on the burden of work and experiences, believes in the immortality of the soul, etc., i.e. actively justifies his faith.
2. If a person made a mistake and there is no God, he still does not lose anything. He tried to live a righteous life, after death he did not find justification for his hopes, but he died, like everyone else, leaving behind a good memory. If there is a God, then the believer will benefit many times over by being close to the Almighty and reaping the fruits of his faith.
3. If a non-believer is right, he gains nothing. He lives, believes that there is no conscience, no afterlife, no reward for the righteous and no punishment for the sinner, and then dies. And if he turns out to be wrong, he loses everything. Leaving after death into another reality, the unfortunate person finds confirmation of what he denied and is deprived of the kingdom of God.
It is impossible to convince yourself of the existence of God with the help of training and volitional exercises. Help from grace is needed, because it is impossible to know God without God. There is a spiritual law that states that God needs to find at least one believer in order to attract many to Him through him.
The first such person was the Old Testament Abraham. At that time there were already many people on Earth, but God was looking for a person who could completely surrender to him. He led him around the Earth, not allowing him to “take root”, tested him with childlessness, talked to him, and once, having demanded to kill his own son and testing his faith, he produced an entire people from him, to whom he gave his law and began to communicate even more deeply with man.
Does believing in God make people happy?
One of the questions that ardent minds are raising concerns the relationship between faith and well-being. A number of studies report that among a control group of more than 160,000 Europeans, 85% of those who regularly go to church confidently said they were “very satisfied with their lives.” At that time, the percentage was slightly lower among atheists - 77%. Psychologists insist on three factors why this happens:
- social support. Faith is not individual and implies integration into groups of practitioners who provide each other with psychological and material assistance;
- finding the purpose of existence. The level of happiness and well-being increases when a person understands why he lives and what he strives for;
- feeling of emotional unity. Communication with God brings a person a sense of satisfaction and increases his personal significance.
Why are most modern scientists and philosophers non-believers?
It must be said that the dynamics in the philosophical environment are more favorable for theism; believers occupy an increasing place among philosophers - but in any case this is not important from the point of view of the truth about the world. In XIII, 100% of philosophers were theists, but a survey conducted at the philosophy department of Moscow State University in 1975 would show 100% atheists and materialists. Truth is not determined by a majority of votes, much less a majority of votes in a particular environment at a particular time. The predominance of certain views is a feature of the cultural environment. In American colleges - which is where most surveys of this kind refer - it is quite left-wing and atheist.
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.
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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.
How to come to God
Most modern people are not given the ability to talk with God, they are not even able to think about him. Contemporaries would rather believe in flying saucers, kikimora, brownies or some kind of cosmic intelligence than in an omnipotent God. The reason is simple: people don’t want to change themselves because... this is precisely what the Orthodox faith requires.
Every believer is commanded to speak to God and listen to His words through the holy scriptures. When we read the Bible, He speaks to us. Each of us must seek and find God, and this is one of the main tasks of human life. If we put God in the main place, everything else will be harmoniously built in our life. If the Lord is repressed to the periphery of consciousness and is completely unnecessary, then everything in life will become confused, and chaos will ensue in life.
There is an opinion that mostly older people, beaten by life and wise by experience, come to God, but in fact, young people need God even more. They are predisposed to religious life. Young people are uncompromising, ardent and have not yet had time to wallow in sins. They are in search of the meaning of life, and their energy is overflowing. This is exactly what they need from the Lord.
It’s already hard for old people to repent. Their memory is weak, it is difficult to walk and they do not pay attention to prayer. Such people are already tortured by life. So you shouldn’t put off repentance until old age. After all, you may not live to see it...
There are episodes in our history in which Christianity could cease to exist. In the thirties of the last century, the Soviet government planned to remove the word “God” from the Russian language. There were real plans to achieve the triumph of atheism throughout the country. However, after 70-80 years, we again have the opportunity to talk about the meaning of life, about life after death and about moral laws. While there is time, everyone can join this source of all-consuming love called God.
Based on the sermon of Archpriest A. Tkachev
Believe in God or believe in God?
Another day was rolling towards sunset. HE continued to live. Live on your day off. When an ordinary person works 5 days (sometimes 6 days) in a row, he has a day off. Day off. And HE worked for 6 years in a row. Yes, he had breaks: to sleep, sometimes to get sick, to congratulate his mother on her birthday, to prepare children for exams at school... but these breaks were more like lunch breaks. This is how the clerk only has time to have a snack, finishing dessert on the way back to the office, and while continuing business calls, finishes chewing the cupcake. And suddenly (and what does “suddenly” mean after 6 years of continuous work?) HE decided to declare himself a day off. And not for a business lunch, but for the whole day. And since HE worked for 6 days in a row (i.e., years), HE declared rest for the whole day (i.e., for a year). Well, how about a vacation... It turned out that it wasn’t exactly idleness that was declared. So on vacation on Sunday you will buy groceries, make calls/sms, and you can answer e-mails, you can sketch ideas on paper/screen... Even if you went hunting or fishing (and HE didn’t go there), you can to catch a few nice ideas that, like you, changed the situation and flew into your head on vacation. So, HE declared himself a day off. Weekend Year. What did this ad look like from the outside? From the side of the clerk returning from a business lunch... HE had much less uncertainty in the business he was dealing with. Many tasks have disappeared (as HE liked to say: “Paused”). There were no new ones on the horizon, but HE dealt with the remaining ones “automatically.” Added to this was either “metal fatigue” or “engineer fatigue”, but HE began to carry out some aspects of things more often and more formally than usual. Of course, he had the strongest logical justifications for this increase in formalism. Justifications are for HIM, not for his customers. But still formalism... Although HE also explained this by increasing professionalism, which was the pure truth. Those. under the guise of formalism there could be (and often was) strict calculations (performed orally and quickly, since they were carried out regularly, starting from Wednesday, at least).
However, there was also another Part, one that was not explained by this professionalism. It is precisely that “fatigue” (both of metal, i.e. tediousness from repetitive tasks, and of “engineer” - exhaustion of the performer (i.e. HIS exhaustion) from repetitions that do not, as it seemed, lead to Development. As to the development of the Performer ( HIS: body, SPIRIT, SOUL), and affairs in general.
So, HE, in his totality of inputs, did not find any other way out (or entrance?) except to declare himself a day off. Weekend Year in the universal human measurement system.
HE believed that such a day off was prescribed for him. Question: Did HE believe, agreeing with the inevitable impoverishment of the situation? Or did HE feel that such a pause was not accidental, it was natural on HIS path of FORMATION? HE began to think about how HE lives, what HE lives with, where HE goes? And does He walk, choosing the Path, or does He go with the flow? HE thought: “Can I choose the Path?” And on what basis (on what basis, by what criteria) could HE choose this Path? Or was it the Path that chose HIM? And all he had to do was “only” GO THIS PATH? HE saw that time had appeared. Time to think about it. And then an opportunity arose. The opportunity for such reflections, which was not there in the bustle of the working week. Then HE could not think about almost anything except work, except business. The process was arranged by HIM in such a way/or maybe the process itself was set up in such a way (?) that HE worked all (!) the time without resting. HE slept, sometimes got sick, and the rest of the time he worked from morning to morning. As HE said: I experienced only one kind of torment, That there was little Light from dawn to dusk.
He was no longer (or not yet) afraid of the possible extinction of HIS business and the drying up of the stream of money flowing from this business to the ridges of the daily flow of existence. HE knew (precisely knew): no matter what happens to you in life, you: A) must go through it; B) you have the strength and ability to get through this.
HE knew that Heaven/Fate/God does not give a person what he cannot go through. But whether you will get through this and how you will get through it depends, first of all, on you. And for Him one of the main questions of existence is: “Do you believe in God?” has sounded for ten years now as: “Do you believe in God?” Those. the pre-question: “Is there a God in the World?”, He changed it to: “Do you trust God?” It was this question that He began to answer in a structured manner on the coming day off, reasoning on paper.
What does it mean to trust God? This means trusting Life! Feel Life, because God is Life! Feel Life in yourself and yourself in Life. Listen to Life, learn from Life, Love Life. Life is your Parent and She wants only the best for you. The best for you. You may not yet know the value of vaccinations; the magic of heavenly ass spankings and their consequences for Destiny; benefits from changing climate zones (husbands, wives, work, business, political views, etc.). But the heavenly parent definitely exists (HE learned this from his own experience) and the heavenly parent knows exactly what you need at the moment. And that's why HE believed God. What did this Faith mean? HE believed that the Path stretching out before HIM was intended specifically for HIM and that this path must be walked. And the sooner and more fully the passage of this path begins, the deeper and clearer IT will become, the more and more Love there will be in it, and the less and less room there will be left for laziness, fears, despondency, and hatred. Believing God meant for HIM, forgetting himself, to love Life in all its manifestations. Believing God meant for HIM to love himself. Clean, light - like an artist loves his work/creation. And there is no contradiction in this. More precisely, in this opposition there is no contradiction: Forgetting Yourself, love Life. Loving Life, remember Yourself. Remembering Yourself - loving Yourself. Loving Yourself – Loving Life. To love Life in Yourself and Yourself in Life. Those. believe God. 2018
