Does a good person need faith?
Dostoevsky’s thesis: “Russian people without God are rubbish” is a retelling of his own “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” I never understood this thesis and did not accept its absoluteness. Do you seriously think that it is faith that distinguishes man from the beast? And all atheists are completely murderers, thieves, rapists and false witnesses? It seems to me that moral choice depends on the person himself, and not on his faith. And a believer can make a deal with his conscience, and an unbeliever can resist and not give in...
Very often in discussions on religious topics, I have to deal with puzzling questions: “Is it really necessary to believe in God in order to be a good person?”, “Does living according to high moral principles necessarily follow from religious experience?” And in general, “is your God really necessary in order to achieve harmony with the world around you and yourself?” Such questions can indeed be perplexing. For more than 70 years we lived in a country where the main state ideology was atheism, which denied the very existence of God. But weren’t there enough honest and decent people in the Soviet Union who sincerely loved their people and were ready to give their lives for them? Personally, I think that there are much fewer of them in modern Russia. And yet we must be able to answer such questions. First of all, for the sake of the memory of thousands of Russian new martyrs who accepted death to preserve the faith of Christ on our land. Below is a fragment similar to a discussion with one of the famous physicists Peter N. This topic is especially painful in the era of the indifferent attitude of many Russian people to the Orthodox faith. But it is also important that both believers and non-believers begin to talk about it. We hope for your understanding and response.
Dmitry Novgorodsky
A man without God is rubbish?
Peter:
Dostoevsky’s thesis: “Russian people without God are rubbish” is a retelling of his own “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” I never understood this thesis and did not accept its absoluteness. Do you seriously think that it is faith that distinguishes man from the beast? And all atheists are completely murderers, thieves, rapists and false witnesses? It seems to me that moral choice depends on the person himself, and not on his faith. And a believer can make a deal with his conscience, and an unbeliever can resist and not give in.
The concept of a good person is very simple: act in such a way that people will later remember you and talk about you with a smile, joy and gratitude. This is not as difficult as it seems at first glance, and you don’t need to be Orthodox at all to do this. I know Orthodox Christians who often commit actions that make their family and friends feel bad. I won’t elaborate, but take my word for it. And again, I know people who are ready to defend their principles that do not have God at their core. The question is - for what? Yes, for the same reason as for a believer - for the sake of peace with oneself. Even in the face of death. Loyalty to principles should not be monopolized.
Dmitriy:
I understand what you want to say: that there are people who do not believe, but live according to the internal moral law (the categorical imperative in Kant’s philosophy). And at their core, they are also good people. You know, not a single Christian will argue with this thesis, for it follows from Christian theology and Christian anthropology. Let me remind you of the words of the 3rd century philosopher and theologian Tertullian: “The soul is by nature Christian,” i.e. Christian qualities - love, mercy, chastity, truth, patience, humility, kindness, etc. are initially characteristic of the human soul, are the vector of its development, because they are invested in it by the Creator Himself. Whereas hatred, debauchery, violence, lies, etc. are unnatural for a person, and arise as a result of a distortion of virtues, a change in the vector of mental development. For example, one person begins to develop a passion for acquisitiveness, he gets money, but it becomes less and less for him, and then he reaches a certain point and transgresses his internal moral law, becomes a thief, a liar, etc. Do not forget that all people are given a conscience - the voice of God in the soul, clearly monitoring every action of a person and evaluating it. Conscience cannot be deceived, it can only be drowned out, crushed.
Therefore, if a person, even an unbeliever, strives to live according to spiritual laws, it means that his soul has not yet hardened, but his heart is seeking the Lord. After all, it is natural: having realized that the main spiritual laws of this world are love and goodness, to strive for the Creator of these laws - Absolute Love and Goodness. And I will not call such a person an atheist; for me, he is a person who seeks God and thinks about God, he is to some extent a believer, but does not yet understand the meaning of his faith. The ancient philosophers were precisely such people, exposing the vices of the pagan world and waiting for the Revelation of the True God.
It’s another matter if a person consciously does not want to seek the Creator, rejects Him: “God cannot exist, because it cannot exist, because, in the end, I don’t need Him, I live just fine without Him.” Such people, if they adhere to moral principles, do so for the sake of their own interests. It is beneficial to be merciful and charitable - the advertising will be good. It is beneficial to greet everyone with a smile (remember the advice of insurance agent Dale Carnegie). It is beneficial to appear honest and kind - people will trust you. Beneficial... for the sake of peace with yourself - mind you, not for the sake of peace with God, not for the sake of love for people, but for the sake of yourself. Such morality is based on selfishness, and it easily turns into immorality. Proof: life in the Western world. I have friends who live in Western Europe. They honestly admit that people in these countries have almost no real friendships based on love for each other. Everything is based on profit. And how in these countries (and sometimes in our country) they speculate on moral concepts: euthanasia, abortion (murder) - this is moral because it is mercy for people; homosexuality, polygamy, corruption of youth, prostitution, light drug addiction (in the same Holland) - also in moral norms, because they are the free choice of a person, determined by the needs of his body, character, etc.
Just recently, a survey was conducted in Moscow schools, in which thousands of students took part. To the question: “could you give up your moral principles for good material gain?” more than 60 percent answered yes. These are all children who grew up in families where they believe that faith in God is not at all necessary in order to become a good person. I hope you understand how different morality is, which is based on faith in God and love for people, and “pseudo-morality” for one’s own benefit.
The meaning of an atheist's life
Now let's talk about the meaning of life of a true atheist. What can he live for? I see only 3 options: 1) for the sake of the children 2) for the sake of pleasure 3) for the sake of some idea (in the spirit of building communism).
An atheist who believes in the eternal destruction of man (for he lives once, and man does not have a soul as a spiritual substance at all - we read from the classics of Marxism), thus dooms his children to destruction. An atheist who lives only for his own pleasure very often crosses moral boundaries (examples were given above). An atheist who lives for the sake of an idea can become a truly terrible creature, because the idea for him becomes more valuable than the people themselves (remember the history of the 20th century: the Bolsheviks, fascists, etc.)
As a rule, such atheists not only do not believe in God, but actually fight against God (a striking example: the bloody terror against the Church unleashed by atheist communists in our country). Often, when a person becomes an atheist, he simply wants to justify his passions - the desire for debauchery, drunkenness, drugs and other bodily “pleasures”, for luxury, fame and power over people. Rather than observing spiritual laws, it is easier to say: “Yes, these laws do not exist at all - I live as I want.” This is what Dostoevsky spoke about in his famous thesis: “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” He was a great Russian prophet and predicted the terrible tragedy that befell the Russian people in the 20th century.
Regarding upholding principles: what matters is not how you uphold principles (Satanists and terrorists also go with their principles to certain death), but for what purpose. And here Christianity gives an unequivocal answer: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
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Truth without love is a lie
Dostoevsky quotes about love
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With love, everything is bought, everything is saved... Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and you can redeem not only your own, but also the sins of others.
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In a truly loving heart, either jealousy kills love, or love kills jealousy.
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Seek love and store love in your hearts. Love is so omnipotent that it regenerates ourselves.
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If you love purely and love her purity in a woman and suddenly you are convinced that she is a lost woman, that she is depraved - you will love her depravity in her, this disgusting thing that is disgusting to you, you will love her... this is what love is like!..
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Why is love praised? For suffering. People like to feel like holy martyrs, hostages of passions. Love is the most complex emotion, but it is finite, like everything in this world. And there is nothing sacred in it, as well as in those who believe and wait for it.
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My longing for her would have driven me to my grave and literally driven me to suicide. I'm a miserable madman! Love in this form is a disease.
Life goes breathless without an aim. Fedor Dostoevsky
Quotes from Dostoevsky about liberals
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“Higher liberalism” and “highest liberal,” that is, a liberal without any goal, are possible only in Russia alone.
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Our liberal is never able to allow someone to have his own special conviction and not immediately respond to his opponent with a curse or even something worse...
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Liberalism is not a sin; it is a necessary component of the whole, which without it would disintegrate or die; liberalism has the same right to exist as the most well-behaved conservatism; but I attack Russian liberalism, and again I repeat that, in fact, I attack it because a Russian liberal is not a Russian liberal, but is not a Russian liberal. Give me a Russian liberal, and I’ll kiss you right now in front of you.
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Russian liberalism is not an attack on the existing order of things, but is an attack on the very essence of our things, on the things themselves, and not on the order alone, not on the Russian order, but on Russia itself.
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My liberal has gone so far as to deny Russia itself, that is, he hates and beats his mother. Every unfortunate and unfortunate Russian fact arouses laughter and almost delight in him. He hates folk customs, Russian history, everything. If there is an excuse for him, it is that he does not understand what he is doing, and mistakes his hatred of Russia for the most fruitful liberalism.
Even in physical abilities, Russians are not similar to Europeans. Fedor Dostoevsky
Earn God by hard work!
Quotes from Dostoevsky about God
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It's not there, but it's there. There is no pain in a stone, but there is pain in the fear of a stone. God is the pain of fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will himself become God. Then a new life, then a new person, everything new...
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Earn God by hard work!
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God is the synthetic personality of the entire people, taken from its beginning to its end. It has never happened before that all or many peoples had one common God, but each one always had a special one.
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I need God because he is the only being who can be loved forever...
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If somehow it turned out... that Christ is outside the truth and the truth is outside Christ, then I would prefer to remain with Christ outside the truth...
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Anyone who wants to see the living God should look for him not in the empty firmament of his own mind, but in human love.
Quotes from Dostoevsky about children
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The soul is healed next to children.
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Big people don’t know that a child, even in the most difficult matter, can give extremely important advice.
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Be kind, and let your child understand that you are kind (on his own, without prompting), and let him remember that you were kind, then, believe me. You will fulfill your duty to him for the rest of his life, because you will directly teach him that good is good.
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Without children it would be impossible to love humanity so much.
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I would believe in you, God, if the children did not cry.
However, how joy and happiness make a person beautiful! "White Nights"
Quotes from "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Pass us by and forgive us our happiness!
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He respected his wife so much and sometimes feared her so much that he even loved her.
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I want to talk to at least one person about everything, as if I were talking to myself.
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The point is in life, in one life - in its opening, continuous and eternal, and not in opening at all!
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People are created to torment each other.
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Compassion is the most important and, perhaps, the only law of existence for all humanity.
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What began as a lie must end as a lie; this is the law of nature.
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You blush, this is a trait of a beautiful heart.
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To kill for murder is a disproportionately greater punishment than the crime itself.
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But the main, most severe pain may not be in the wounds.
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In abstract love for humanity, you almost always love only yourself.
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The law of self-destruction and the law of self-preservation are equally strong in humanity!
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But everything was ahead, time endured, time endured everything, and everything had to come with time and in its own way.
Did I kill the old lady? I killed myself, not the old woman!
Quotes from “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right...
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Poverty is not a vice, it is the truth.
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There are other meetings, even with people completely unfamiliar to us, in whom we begin to be interested at first sight, somehow suddenly, suddenly, before we say a word.
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He is a smart man, but to act smartly, intelligence alone is not enough.
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A hundred rabbits can never make a horse, a hundred suspicions can never make a proof.
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There is nothing in the world more difficult than straightforwardness, and nothing easier than flattery.
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In everything there is a line beyond which it is dangerous to cross; for once you have stepped over, it is impossible to go back.
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Suffering and pain are always necessary for a broad consciousness and a deep heart.
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Did I kill the old lady? I killed myself, not the old woman!
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Truly great people, it seems to me, must feel great sadness in the world
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I drink because I really want to suffer!
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The black snake of stung pride sucked his heart all night.
Russians often laugh when they should cry.
The best quotes from the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Russians often laugh when they should cry. Man seeks not so much God as miracles. The main thing - do not lie to yourself. He who lies to himself and listens to his own lies reaches such a point that he no longer discerns any truth either in himself or around him, and therefore begins to disrespect both himself and others. "The Brothers Karamazov"
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Man is a creature that gets used to everything, and I think this is the best definition of him. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that you can recognize a person by their laughter, and if from the first meeting you enjoy the laughter of someone from complete strangers, then feel free to say that this person is a good person. "Notes from the House of the Dead"
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If you want to be respected, first and foremost, respect yourself. How much evil can be eliminated by frankness! A generous heart can love out of pity. They say that the well-fed cannot understand the hungry; and I, Vanya, will add that even a hungry person will not always understand a hungry person. "Humiliated and Offended"
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A low soul, coming out from under oppression, oppresses itself. "The village of Stepanchikovo and its inhabitants"
If you want to conquer the whole world, conquer yourself.
Quotes about the Russian people
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The Russian people seem to enjoy their suffering.
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The measure of a people is not what it is, but what it considers beautiful and true.
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The owner of the Russian land is only Russian. This is how it was and always will be.
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Russia is all open to Europe, the Russians are holding themselves completely wide open to the Europeans...
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They know about Russia that people live in it, even Russian people, but what kind of people? This is still a mystery, although, however, Europeans are sure that they have comprehended us long ago...
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Yes, we believe that the Russian nation is an extraordinary phenomenon in the history of all mankind. The character of the Russian people is so different from the characters of all modern European peoples that Europeans still do not understand it and understand everything about it backwards...
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The Russian person does not have the European angularity, impenetrability, or inflexibility. He gets along with everyone and gets used to everything. He sympathizes with everything human, regardless of nationality, blood and soil. He has an instinct for universal humanity.
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And it’s scary to what extent the Russian man is free-spirited, to what extent his will is strong!
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The Russian people, thanks to their benefactor and his reforms, have finally, little by little, become in such a position that they will inevitably become accustomed to efficiency, to self-observation, and this is the whole point.
Conscience is the action of God in man. Fedor Dostoevsky
