What are people who do not believe in God called? Atheism is the natural state of a normal person

Today, when it has become fashionable to consider themselves adherents of a wide variety of religions, some people, trying to emphasize their disbelief in God, call themselves atheists. Who are atheists? Can a person who denies belief in God (Allah) call himself an atheist? Who are such well-known atheists as Pyotr Gannushkin, Evgraf Duluman and their followers? Let's figure it out.

Who are atheists?

Atheism is a term that translates as "godless". The concept came from France, but combined all forms of the denial of God and religion. Atheists are sure that any religion is an illusory consciousness,

based on the denial of the naturalness of the surrounding world. How are atheists different from believers of any denomination? The first believe that the nature of things is natural, and religion, whatever it may be, was invented by people. The latter, on the contrary, believe that God (in any manifestation) is primary, and the world is nothing but his creation. Atheists perceive reality by studying and comprehending it. They try to find a scientific explanation for every phenomenon.

Are all people who do not believe in divine origin of the world and not belonging to any of the confessions can be considered atheists? No, not all. Who are atheists? People for whom disbelief and desire for scientific knowledge world is the basis of the worldview. They carry their unbelief into the world, but do not impose it by force,

but they try to do this only if they know well the history of religious teachings and the peculiarities of each faith. People who simply deny their own but believe in ghosts, druids, Cthulhu, lamb or other mystical manifestations cannot consider themselves atheists.

Desk book atheist

AT Soviet times even a special manual was issued for lecturers. It was called "Atheist's Handbook". Target audience publications were party workers, students, educators. The publication cannot be called unambiguous. On the one hand, the book gave clear answers to the questions "Who are atheists?", "What is religion?". Employees of universities and those who took part in compiling the manual and its appendix (it was called "Atheist's Companion"), introduced the history of religious movements and directions, their features. The compilers warned of the dangers of wholehearted adherence to the teachings and the perniciousness of blind faith. On the other hand, the publication was quite politicized and often characterized religions not in terms of scientific achievements,

but from the standpoint of partisanship and ideology. This way of presentation was not always conclusive. Today, the publication is of interest to modern atheists and collectors of rare books (although the mass circulation of the manual cannot be called rare).

Summing up

So, real atheists - who:

get to know the world scientific methods;

Recognize the inherent value of a person as a person, and not as a follower of the doctrine;

They consider the well-being of a person to be the main criterion for the development of any society;

They do not fight with religion, but carry out explanatory work, assert their worldview and defend human rights.

Some of the greats said that atheism is just another religion. There is a sound grain in this statement: believers believe in God, and atheists - in godlessness and the power of science.

Science develops with great speed, new discoveries are being made, research is being carried out that contributes to technical progress, and everything appears more people who believe only in what you can see with your own eyes, logically explain, prove. To adherents of religions, such people say: “Prove that you have a soul! How can you justify this? Show God! I want to see him! You can not? So it doesn't exist!" The motto of atheists is: "I will see - I will believe," while, as with believers: "Believe, you will see." So I want to tell one legend to those people who do not believe in God, but believe only in their own eyes and the evidence of scientists.

Imagine that the planet Earth became uninhabitable and in order to save the human race, people decided to fly to distant planet neighboring galaxy.

The construction of a huge spaceship took several hundred years, and now, finally, he was ready for a long-distance flight.

Which God to believe inMany years ago, when I believed in the support of the Higher Forces, as well as in myself Higher power, I began to search for "my" God.

Angelina Jolie

It would seem, so who, but not her. Ambassador good will The UN, a person who fights for peace, helps the oppressed and offended, adopts children, giving them a start in life, we are used to the fact that Jolie has always been the personification of kindness and mercy. It seemed that the actress is a convinced atheist. Answering the question "Is there a God in heaven?" the actress said thoughtfully, “Hmm… For some, it might be. I hope that somehow calms them down. Personally, I don't need it to exist. It's all on spiritual level. Who needs, he believes. I do not like to do things that are dictated solely by the beliefs of other people who have nothing to do with me. But I also don't know if it's good for a person not to believe in anything at all."

What do Catholics believe?

If you want to know what Catholics believe, come to any Sunday Mass and you'll hear the Nicene Creed proclaimed. No other church proclaims every Sunday what it believes.

Here we are looking at the Apostles' Creed, more concise and less theological, but abundantly representative of what the Catholic Church believes.

Dogma 1: I believe in God, the Almighty Father, the Creator of heaven and earth. It states that God exists, that he is the Triune God (one God in three persons, known as the Holy Trinity), and that he created the universe as we know it.

Dogma 2: And in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, our Lord. It is stated here that Jesus is the Son of God and that he is beyond doubt divine. The word "Lord" implies divinity because both the Greek "Kyrios" and the Hebrew "Adonai" mean "lord" and are meant only for God.

Mitred Archpriest Anatoly Kirichenko (Kyriakidis)

- The Lord spoke this parable: Become like the Kingdom Heavenly man king, who arrange marriages for your son. And she sent her servants to call those who were called to marriages, and they did not want to come (Mt 22, 2-3)
From the current Gospel and its interpretation, we can see how God calls all people to perfection in peace and love, to the joy of life everywhere and in everything, but since we do not understand what it is about, we refuse God's calling and from God himself. God.

The reasons for our refusal can be very different, but they are all negligible compared to what God offers us. We are aware that, having been born into this world, we could not have survived without the outside help of our parents or patrons who looked after us, raised and educated us. As adults, we perceive life as we see it, according to our knowledge of life - life experience.

This question may seem equally naive, meaningless and unanswerable. Indeed, until recently, most scientists involved in social sciences and the study of cognitive processes, it was ignored.

The situation has changed dramatically in last decade when the renewed debate about the relationship between science and religion spilled over into cultural space and scientists from different fields got involved in disputes. The recently published book Why God Won't Go Away from New York publishing house (Why God Won't Go Away?) illuminates this issue in an interesting and new way, especially from the point of view of neurophysiology, as the subtitle informs the reader: „ Brain Science and the Biology of Belief.

We often hear that supposedly all scientists do not believe in God, and if any scientist believes in God, then most likely this is either unreliable information, or this person is not a scientist at all.
To be honest, it doesn't matter much to me what scientists say or what scientists (large or not so big) believe or don't believe. But, since this is already so important for someone that it can make him think about faith in God and reconsider his attitude to this issue and to God in general, I decided to search the Internet for information about this and post it here. And here's what I found on the subject. It turns out that not all scientists are atheists. There are quite a few scientists, even with a big name, who believe in the existence of a Creator God.

During solemn ceremonies, when celebrities receive awards, we often hear from them: “First of all, thank the Lord God for the opportunity to stand on this stage!” Woman's Day decided to put together a list of stars from which you will never hear "Thank you, Lord."

Let's start with the exemplary British actress Keira Knightley, who admitted that she does not believe in God. But she immediately added that faith gives the possibility of remission of sins and a chance to start everything from clean slate: “It's much better than living with guilt. It's amazing. If I wasn't an atheist, I could get rid of all sins by simply asking for forgiveness."

The list is continued by the keepers of the family hearth and the parents of six children - the Jolie-Pitt family. In 2000, Angelina Jolie said, “I don't need faith in God to do good deeds. Something sublime is already inherent in people at birth. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s possible to live without faith at all…”

Science is developing at a tremendous speed, new discoveries are being made, research is being carried out that contributes to technological progress, and more and more people are appearing who believe only in what they can see with their own eyes, logically explain, prove. To adherents of religions, such people say: “Prove that you have a soul! How can you justify this? Show God! I want to see him! You can not? So it doesn't exist!" The motto of atheists is: "I will see - I will believe," while, as with believers: "Believe, you will see." So I want to tell one legend to those people who do not believe in God, but believe only in their own eyes and the evidence of scientists.

Imagine that the planet Earth has become uninhabitable and in order to save the human race, people decided to fly to a distant planet in the neighboring Galaxy.

The construction of a huge spaceship took several hundred years, and now, finally, he was ready for a long-distance flight. According to the calculations of astrologers, the journey was supposed to take more than 500 years, and therefore, the production of food and everything necessary for the comfortable life of mankind was established on board the ship. What will happen for the first hundred years of flight? People who have lived more than half of their lives on Earth will create families, give birth to children and tell them about life on the planet, that they are flying in a spaceship to a distant planet in order to survive. Some of the most talented eyewitnesses will write books detailing life on earth. In a few decades, their children will pass from mouth to mouth the story we know, and they, in turn, will tell their children.

In a couple of hundred years, the information will begin to be distorted, then forgotten and turn into myths and legends of ancient times. Eyewitnesses and their direct heirs will no longer be alive, and their followers will no longer believe in a legend that cannot be proved in any way. How will they perceive their life? They will assume that the boundaries of this spacecraft are their universe, and they will not know that this is a flying machine. Accordingly, they will not even have the thought that they are flying somewhere, the mission, and the meaning of what is happening will be lost. Of course, the best scientists will work aboard their Universe, they will learn how to conduct research, perhaps even prove that the boundaries of their Universe are made of steel, have a certain thickness and other properties discovered during experiments. And people will believe them, and not those units that will find on board the ship old manuscripts that describe life on Earth, their spaceship, and most importantly - the mission with which people went to another galaxy.

And how can people who do not believe in God know the truth? Either from old manuscripts, the records of which have long turned into legends, or from outside, listening to the voice of intuition, dreams-cues.

Does this remind you of anything, people who do not believe in God?

With love, Yulia Kravchenko

If you want to ask me a question, you can do so. I will gladly answer it!

Q

Atheism... Unwillingness to deny the obvious...

Somewhere on our planet, a man has just kidnapped a little girl. Soon he would rape her, torture her and then kill her. If this monstrous crime is not happening right now, it will happen in a few hours, maximum days. We can talk about this with confidence statistical, ruling life 6 billion people. The same statistic says that right at this moment the girl's parents believe that the almighty and loving god takes care of them... Do they have reason to believe it? Is it good that they believe in it?.. Not...

The whole essence of atheism lies in this answer. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a world view; it's just an unwillingness to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world where denying the obvious is a matter of principle. The obvious has to be stated again and again. The obvious has to be defended. This is a thankless task. It entails accusations of selfishness and callousness. Moreover, this is a task that an atheist does not need. It is worth noting that no one has to claim to be a non-astrologer or non-alchemist. As a consequence, we have no words for people who deny the validity of these pseudosciences. Based on the same principle, atheism is a term that simply should not exist.

Atheism - natural reaction reasonable person on the .

Atheist is everyone who believes that the 260 million Americans (87% of the population), who, according to polls, never doubt the existence of God, should provide evidence of his existence and especially his mercy - given the incessant loss of innocent lives that we are witnessing we become every day. Only an atheist can appreciate the absurdity of our situation. Most of us believe in a god who is as believable as the gods of ancient Greek Mount Olympus. No person, regardless of his merits, can apply for an elected position in, if he does not publicly declare his confidence in the existence of such a god.

A significant part of what is called in our country " public policy”, subject to taboos and prejudices worthy of a medieval theocracy. The situation we are in is deplorable, unforgivable and terrible. It would be funny if there wasn't so much at stake. We live in a world where everything changes, and everything - both good and bad - sooner or later comes to an end. Parents lose children; lose their parents. Husbands and wives suddenly part, never to meet again. Friends say goodbye in a hurry, not suspecting that they saw each other for the last time. our life, as far as the eye can see, is one grandiose drama of loss. Most people, however, think that there is a cure for any loss.

If we live righteously - not necessarily in accordance with ethical standards, but within the framework of certain ancient beliefs and codified behavior - we will get everything we want - after death. When our bodies are no longer able to serve us, we simply dump them like unnecessary ballast and go to the land where we will be reunited with everyone we loved in life. Of course, too rational people and other rabble will remain beyond the threshold of this happy haven; but on the other hand, those who, during their lifetime, drowned out skepticism in themselves, will be able to fully enjoy eternal bliss.

We live in the world hard to imagine, amazing things - from the energy of thermonuclear fusion that gives light to our sun, to the genetic and evolutionary consequences of this light, which have been unfolding on Earth for billions of years - and with all this Paradise meets our smallest desires with the thoroughness of a Caribbean cruise. Indeed, it is amazing. Someone gullible might even think that man, fearing to lose everything that is dear to him, created both paradise and its guardian god. in his own image and likeness. Think of a hurricane Katrina, devastated . More than a thousand people died, tens of thousands lost all their property, and more than a million were forced to leave their homes. It's safe to say that at the very moment the hurricane hit the city, almost every New Orleans person believed in an omnipotent, omniscient, and merciful god.

But what was god doing while the hurricane was destroying their city?

He could not but hear the prayers of the old people who were looking for salvation from the water in the attics and eventually drowned. All these people were believers. All these good men and women prayed throughout their lives. Only atheist I have the courage to admit the obvious: these unfortunate people died while talking to an imaginary friend. Of course, that a storm of biblical proportions was about to hit New Orleans was warned more than once, and the measures taken in response to the outbreak were tragically inadequate. But they were inadequate only in terms of Sciences. Thanks to meteorological calculations and satellite images, scientists made the mute nature speak and predicted the direction of Katrina's strike.

God did not tell anyone about his plans. If the inhabitants of New Orlen had relied entirely on the mercy of the Lord, they would have known about the approach of a deadly hurricane only with the first gusts of wind. However, according to a survey conducted by the Post, 80% survivors of the hurricane claim that it only strengthened their faith in God.

While Katrina devoured New Orleans, almost one thousand Shiite pilgrims were trampled to death on a bridge in Iraq. There is no doubt that these pilgrims earnestly believed in god described in the Koran: their whole life was subordinated to the indisputable fact of its existence; their women hid their faces from his gaze; their brothers in faith regularly killed each other, insisting on their own interpretation of his teachings. It would be surprising if even one of the survivors of this tragedy lost faith. Most likely, the survivors imagine that they were saved thanks to God's grace.

Only atheist fully sees the boundless narcissism and self-deception of believers. Only an atheist understands how immoral it is to believe that the same one saved you from disaster and drowned babies in their cradles. Refusing to hide the reality of human suffering behind a sugary fantasy of eternal bliss, atheist acutely feels how precious human life- and how unfortunate that millions of people subject each other to suffering and refuse happiness at the whim of my own imagination.

It is hard to imagine the magnitude of a catastrophe that could shake religious faith. was not enough. Not enough genocide in - even despite the fact that among the killers, armed with machetes, there were priests. Least, 300 million people, among them many children, died of smallpox in the 20th century. Verily, the ways of the Lord are inscrutable. It seems that even the most glaring contradictions are not a hindrance to religious faith. In matters of faith, we are completely off the ground. Of course, believers never tire of assuring each other that God is not responsible for human suffering. However, how else are we to understand the statement that God is omnipresent and omnipotent? There is no other answer, and it's time to stop dodging it.

Problem theodicies(God's justification) is as old as the world, and we must consider it settled. If a god exists, he either cannot prevent horrendous disasters, or is unwilling to do so. Therefore, God is either powerless or cruel. At this point, pious readers will resort to the following pirouette: one cannot approach God with human standards of morality. But what yardstick do believers use to prove the goodness of the Lord? Of course, human. Moreover, any god who cares about little things like same-sex marriage or the name that worshipers call him is not at all so mysterious. If the god of Abraham exists, he is unworthy not only of the grandeur of the universe. He unworthy even of a man.

There is, of course, another answer - the most reasonable and the least odious at the same time: the biblical god is a figment of the human imagination.

As noticed Richard Dawkins, we are all atheists in relation to Zeus and . Only atheist understands that the biblical god is no different from them. And, as a result, only atheist may have enough compassion to see the depth and meaning of human pain. The terrible thing is that we are doomed to die and lose everything that is dear to us; it is doubly terrible that millions of people needlessly suffer even during their lives. The fact that a large part of this suffering is directly to blame - religious intolerance, religious wars, religious fantasies and the waste of already meager resources for religious needs - makes atheism moral and intellectual necessity. This necessity, however, places the atheist on the fringes of society. Refusing to lose touch with reality atheist is separated from illusory world their neighbors.

The nature of religious faith...

According to the latest polls, 22% Americans are absolutely sure that Jesus will return to Earth no later than in 50 years. More 22% believe that this is likely. Apparently, these 44% - the same people who attend church at least once a week, who believe that God is in literally bequeathed the land of Israel to the Jews, and who wants our children not to be taught scientific fact evolution. The president Bush well understands that such believers represent the most monolithic and active layer of the American electorate. As a consequence, their views and prejudices influence almost every decision. state importance. Obviously, they have drawn the wrong conclusions from this and are now frantically leafing through the Scriptures, puzzling over how best to appease the legions of those who vote on the basis of religious dogma. More 50% Americans have a "negative" or "extremely negative" attitude towards those who do not believe in God; 70% believe that presidential candidates should be "deeply religious".

Obscurantism in the United States is gaining strength– in our schools, in our courts, and in all branches of the federal government. Only 28% Americans believe in evolution; 68% believe in Satan. Ignorance such a degree, penetrating the whole body of clumsy , is a problem for the whole world. Although everyone smart man can easily criticize religious fundamentalism, the so-called "moderate religiosity" still retains a prestigious position in our society, including academia. It has certain share irony, since even fundamentalists use their brains more consistently than "moderates."

Fundamentalists justify their religious beliefs with ridiculous evidence and untenable logic, but at least they try to find at least some rational justification. Moderate believers, on the contrary, usually confine themselves to enumerating the beneficent consequences of religious faith. They don't say they believe in God because Bible prophecy has been fulfilled; they simply claim to believe in God because faith "gives meaning to their lives." When several hundred thousand people died the day after Christmas, the fundamentalists were quick to interpret it as evidence of God's wrath. It turns out that God sent another vague warning about the sinfulness of abortion, idolatry and homosexuality. Although monstrous from a moral point of view, such an interpretation is logical, if we proceed from certain (absurd) premises.

Moderate believers, on the other hand, refuse to draw any conclusions from the actions of the Lord. God remains the secret of secrets, a source of comfort easily compatible with the most nightmarish atrocities. In the face of catastrophes such as the Asian tsunami, the liberal religious community readily sugary and mind-numbing nonsense. Yet men of good will quite naturally prefer such truisms to the odious moralizing and prophecy of true believers. Between catastrophes, the emphasis on mercy (rather than anger) is certainly the merit of liberal theology. However, it is worth noting that when the bloated bodies of the dead are pulled out of the sea, we observe human, not divine mercy.

In days when the elements snatch thousands from the hands of mothers and indifferently drown them in the ocean, we see with the utmost clarity that liberal theology is the most blatantly absurd of human illusions. Even the theology of God's wrath is more intellectually sound. If a god exists, his will is not a mystery. The only thing that is a mystery during such terrible events is the readiness of millions of mentally healthy people believe into the incredible and consider it the pinnacle of moral wisdom. Moderate theists claim that man of sense may believe in God simply because such a belief makes him happier, helps him overcome his fear of death, or gives meaning to his life.

This statement - clean water absurd.

Its absurdity becomes apparent as soon as we replace the concept of "God" with some other comforting assumption: imagine, for example, that someone wants to believe that somewhere in his garden a diamond the size of a refrigerator is buried. Without a doubt, to believe in such a very Nice. Now imagine what would happen if someone followed the example of moderate theists and defended their faith in the following way: when asked why he thinks that there is a diamond buried in his garden that is thousands of times larger than any known one, he gives answers like "this faith is the meaning of my life", or “on Sundays my family likes to arm themselves with shovels and look for him”, or "I wouldn't want to live in a universe without a fridge-sized diamond in my garden".

It is clear that these answers are inadequate. Worse than that: so answer can either madman, or moron.

Neither Pascal's wager, nor Kierkegaard's "leap of faith", nor the other tricks that theists resort to, are worth a damn. Faith into the existence of god means faith that his existence is in some way related to yours, that his existence is the immediate cause of belief. There must be some causal relationship or the appearance of such a relationship between the fact and its acceptance. Thus we see that religious statements, if they claim to describe the world, must bear evidentiary nature- just like any other statement. For all their sins against reason, religious fundamentalists understand this; moderate believers, almost by definition, do not.

The incompatibility of reason and faith has been for centuries obvious fact human knowledge and public life. Either you have good reasons adhere to certain views, or you have no such reasons. People of all persuasions naturally recognize the rule of reason and resort to his help at the first opportunity. If a rational approach allows one to find arguments in favor of a doctrine, it will certainly be adopted; if the rational approach threatens the doctrine, it is ridiculed. Sometimes it happens in one sentence. Only when rational evidence for a religious doctrine is weak or completely absent, or when everything points against it, do the doctrinalists resort to "faith". In other cases, they simply give reasons for their beliefs (e.g., " New Testament confirms the prophecies”, “I saw the face of Jesus in the window”, “we prayed and our daughter’s tumor stopped growing”). As a rule, these reasons are insufficient, but still they are better than the complete absence of reasons.

Faith is just a license to deny reason given by followers of religions. In a world that continues to be shaken by the squabble of incompatible creeds, in a country that has become a hostage to medieval concepts of "God", "end of history" and "immortality of the soul", the irresponsible division of public life into questions of reason and questions of faith is no longer acceptable.

Faith and the public good...

Believers regularly claim that atheism is responsible for some of the most heinous crimes of the 20th century. However, although the regimes of Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot were indeed in varying degrees anti-religious, they were not distinguished by excessive rationality. ["Stalin" and "" are added here clearly for reasons of loyalty, which somewhat excuses the author - conformism is excusable, since strength breaks straw. But oblivion - for exactly the same reasons - that Hitler's regime was more than religious and persecuted atheists - no longer, since Mr. Harris himself chose the topic "for atheism", and the lie about the "atheism" of the Nazi regime is a favorite device of clerical propaganda. - VK.]. Their official propaganda was a terrible hodgepodge of misconceptions—misconceptions about the nature of race, economics, nationality, historical progress, and the dangers of intellectuals. In many ways, religion has been the direct culprit even in these cases.

The truth, as shocking as it sounds, is this: a person can be so well educated that he can build atomic bomb without ceasing to believe that in Paradise 72 virgins are waiting for him. Such is the ease with which religious faith splits human consciousness, and such is the degree of tolerance with which our intellectual circles treat religious nonsense. Only atheist understood what should already be obvious to any thinking person: if we want to eliminate the causes of religious violence, we must strike at false truths ...

More detailed and various information about the events taking place in Russia, Ukraine and other countries of our beautiful planet, you can get on Internet conferences, constantly held on the website "Keys of Knowledge". All Conferences are open and completely free. We invite all interested. All Conferences are broadcast on the Internet Radio "Vozrozhdenie" ...

And so, some “stand their ground” to the last and die without repentance and communion. Neither the persuasion of church-going children or grandchildren, nor the tangible presence of the Church in information space. Others, even at the end of their days, open their hearts to God, begin to go to church, and prepare for eternal life.

And when you stand at a funeral, the question “why does a person believe or not believe in God” seems to be by no means an abstract philosophical question, and the thought “how much depends on the person himself - to believe or not to believe?” Does not seem at all idle.

Archpriest Alexy Herodov, rector of the Church of the Hieromartyr Vladimir in Vinnitsa, says:

– My deep conviction is that a person believes in God for only one reason: such a person needs God, and the person wants God to exist. And a person does not care if Gagarin saw God in space or not. Such a person does not need proof. The proof for him is his ardent desire, and only then the whole world, which eloquently testifies that without God he could not exist.

A believer seeks God all his life, although he does not see with his eyes. He perfectly understands that he does not see, but his heart knows that God exists. The initiative of faith always comes only from man. First and most important step man does it himself. And already in response to this, God gives a person help that a person feels personally. Unbelieving people think in vain that God has deprived them of something, has not given them faith. I am deeply convinced that there was simply no place to put this faith. Our heart is open before God.

– Does a person have a special gift of faith, the ability to do so?

- There is. Everyone has this gift exclusively. All the good pathos in our life we ​​create ourselves according to our desire. But we do not synthesize. Construction material in equally available to everyone, but everyone acts according to the word of the Savior: “ a kind person out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and evil out of evil evil."

Why do so many people want to believe and can't?

– Because in human life there are things unimaginable and unthinkable. There are many phenomena that we have heard about, and we want to get them, but we do not know what they look like. It is a fact. The gospel calls a way to gain something. It says: "The kingdom of God is in need, and the maids delight it." This principle is not accidental. We see him in Holy Scripture many times. God, as it were, sets a task, and leaves a person to solve it by laboring. For example, he displays animals in front of Adam, so that he in turn gives them names. Or he says to Adam and Eve “be fruitful and multiply”, and does not tell how, so that they themselves fill it with meaning, so that it is their life, and not someone else's. So the Gospel creates a rather strange at first glance space so that a person can personally fill it with his love. So that a person does not have a reason to feel bitterness about the fact that the treasure of his heart was not stolen by what he was told in advance, and was not given a place for his personal love.

– Is there a criterion for the authenticity of faith? This– believes sincerely, and this– pretends? Moreover, he deceives himself.

- Criteria are required, but it is better to answer this question from my previous comment. A person recognizes only those things that are experienced by him, are familiar to him. For this reason, someone else's experience of faith, although useful, can also be understood only through personal labor. It is work, not work. You will find out later that it was work, but for now you are looking - as if you are moving mountains.

It can be difficult to tell a believer from a non-believer. one very important reason. Many people become churched, as it were, from the bottom up - from church tradition to Christ, instead of properly becoming churched - from Christ to tradition. The tradition itself does not lead anywhere, and at the same time it is very “caloric”, so that you can earn all sorts of “digestion” disorders. And that is precisely why people who become churched through tradition act, as they think, prudently. At first they are devoured to the point of disgust by tradition, then they become "philosophers", but they never reach Christ. "They can't anymore." Like Vovochka's girlfriend who doesn't drink or smoke because she can't anymore.

- What do people who do not believe in God count on? And those who say that God is in their soul, that all religions are equal, and that God is one for all?

– My conviction is that such people, as well as atheists, and even suicides, which, in general, are one and the same, are simply original before God. They think that God will certainly be “deceived” by the “beauty of their souls.” Thus, they oppose themselves to everyone around them, pose, and think that God will definitely pay attention to them in this way. This is a sly calculation, and the end of it is death. Unfortunately, these "witty" learn the result of their cunning too late, beyond the threshold of death. It's scary to even imagine how they would like to return. To experience such anguish - and you no longer need any hell.

– What will be the posthumous fate of unbelievers and those who did not go to church, did not partake of the Mysteries of Christ?

– I believe that they will not inherit any salvation, but I am far from forbidding God to come up with something for them at His Righteous Discretion. If I see them in the Kingdom of Heaven, I won't be offended.

Prepared by Marina Bogdanova