What features are inherent in the religious? Elements and structure of religion. The language of religion and the dialogical nature of consciousness

In the process of growing up, a person strives to self-identify and become aware of himself in society. He inevitably faces the question of what is characteristic of religious consciousness. From childhood it becomes clear that there are different religions. There are also those who do not believe in anything. How to define religious consciousness, how does it differ from national consciousness, for example? Let's figure it out.

Religious public consciousness has existed as long as humans. Gods began to be invented when, so to speak, they came down from the branches. Of course, it is not worth understanding what is characteristic of religious consciousness based only on the experience of the ancient world. But we also cannot reject the deep roots on which this consciousness is formed. The fact is that the process of human self-awareness is eternal. It is constantly developing and improving, based on the knowledge gained. Jesus articulated the depth of the problem when he revealed the meaning of the temple. According to him, a church is a community of believers who perform rituals together. That is, a religious person builds around himself a certain reality in which certain rules apply. All his actions and thoughts are consistent with the latter. In order to understand what is characteristic of religious consciousness, it is necessary to reveal the meaning of the formation of an individual’s worldview. It consists of traditions, rules, behavioral models accepted in a given society. Religion is part of this world. With its help, a person learns to communicate with a reality that lies beyond ordinary experience. There is a space in which we live, and rules of behavior in it. Religious consciousness concerns the second, influencing through man the first.

Forms of religious consciousness

It should be noted that beliefs have changed during the progressive development of mankind. In ancient times, people deified phenomena and animals, water and the sky. The directions of ancient beliefs are divided into fetishism, totemism, shamanism and others. Later, so-called national religions began to emerge. They reached more people, uniting them. For example, Chinese, Greek, Indian religions. Each of them has its own characteristics. The essence remained the same. Religion created certain behavioral rules that were mandatory for all members of society. In this way, an understanding of one’s place in the world was introduced into the human psyche. He seemed to rise above his semi-animal existence. A different reality was revealed to him, conducive to the development of intelligence and the creative process. Monotheism arose about two thousand years ago. It further limited human animal instincts by introducing the concepts of sin and conscience into society. It turns out that religious consciousness is an intellectual superstructure over the physical world, an artificially created reality with which a person must coordinate his actions.

What is characteristic of religious consciousness

If you look carefully at all the beliefs known to us, you can identify what they have in common. These will be behavioral restrictions recognized by the community. That is, religious consciousness is characterized by the perception of moral norms. These are unwritten rules accepted by all members of the community. They are so deeply embedded in people’s consciousness that violating them is an out of the ordinary act. Religious consciousness includes centuries-old traditions, rules, norms that are useful for the development of humanity. For example, the commandment “thou shalt not kill” is accepted by people because it helps population growth. It may look mundane and not spiritual, but any religion developed laws that contributed to the preservation of the society that it united. Otherwise, it was difficult to survive in ancient times. And even today, with the development of science and technology, moral norms have not lost their progressive meaning. Unfortunately, they undergo changes, not always useful. An example is the recognition of same-sex marriage in Western countries. This is an attitude towards the reproductive function that is artificially introduced into consciousness as unnecessary, not sacred.

Conclusion

Issues of religious consciousness are very complex and important for society. Without their understanding, harmonious development of personality is impossible. And even though it exists in some unreal, mythical world, it allows different people to interact normally, avoiding confrontation and disasters.

ELEMENTS AND STRUCTURE OF RELIGION

The elements and structure of religion develop and change during

stories. In primitive society, religion as a relatively independent

significant education has not yet emerged. Later, becoming

a relatively independent area of spiritual life, it is together

At the same time, it became more and more differentiated, elements stood out in it,

connections between these elements were formed. As was said, in the now

religions highlight religious consciousness, activities, relationships,

institutions and organizations.

§ 1. Religious consciousness

Religious consciousness is characterized by sensory clarity, created

images created by the imagination, a combination of what is adequate to reality

strong emotional intensity, functioning with the help

religious vocabulary (and other special characters). Named

traits are characteristic not only of religious consciousness. Sensual on-

visibility, fantasy images, emotionality are characteristic of art

ties, illusions arise in morality, politics, social sciences,

unreliable concepts and theories are created in natural science, etc.

Let's consider how these properties are related to each other in

religious consciousness, what is their subordination in it.

Religious faith An integrative feature of religious consciousness

is a religious belief. Not every faith

there is religious faith. The latter “lives” thanks to the presence of a special

phenomenon in human psychology. Faith is a special psychological

a state of confidence in achieving a goal, in the occurrence of an event, in

expected behavior of a person, in the truth of the idea, provided

lack of accurate information about the achievability of the goal, about

ultimately the event, about the implementation in practice of the foreseeable

behavior, the result of the check. It contains the expectation of fulfillment

the realization of what you want. This psychological state occurs

in a probabilistic situation when there is an opportunity for successful

action, its favorable outcome and Knowledge of this possibility.

If an event has occurred or it has become clear that it is impossible, if

behavior is implemented or it is discovered that it will not be implemented

It is true that if the truth or falsity of an idea is proven, faith fades away. Faith

arises about those processes, events, ideas that have

for people has an essential meaning, and represents an alloy

cognitive, emotional and volitional aspects. Because faith

appears in a probabilistic situation, a person’s action in accordance with

dealing with it involves risk. Despite this, she is an important

a significant fact of integration of the individual, group, mass, stimulus

determination and activity of people.

Religious faith is faith: a) in the objective existence of

substances, properties, connections, transformations that are the product

process of hypostasis; b) the opportunity to communicate with apparent

objective beings, influencing them and receiving from them

help; c) in the actual commission of some mythological events

existences, in their repetition, in the onset of the expected mythological

sky events, in involvement in them; d) in the truth of the corresponding

ideas, views, dogmas, texts, etc.; d) religious

"charismatics", "bodhisattvas", "arhats", church hierarchs,

clergy.

religious consciousness. The symbol presupposes the commission of consciousness

acts of objectification of conceivable content, focus on

objectified object (being, property, connection), designations

this item. Objects, actions, words, texts are endowed

religious meanings and meanings. The totality of carriers of these

meanings and meanings forms a religious-symbolic environment

formation and functioning of the corresponding consciousness.

Connected with faith is the dialogical nature of religious consciousness. belief

the objective existence of beings includes faith in communication with them,

and such communication presupposes dialogue. Dialogue is realized in worship

marriage, prayer, meditation, with the help of sound or internal

Visual imagery

and emotionality

Religious consciousness appears in sensual

ny (images of contemplation, representations) and

mental (concept, judgment, inference)

lure) forms. The importance of the latter increases significantly

conceptual level, in general, sensory images predominate

presentation plays a particularly important role. Source

the figurative material is nature, society, man; accordingly

essentially religious beings, properties, connections are created in the likeness

phenomena of nature, society, and man. Significant in religious

consciousness so-called meaning images, which are transition-

new form from representation to concept. Contents of religious

consciousness most often finds expression in such literary

genres such as parable, story, myth, “depicted” in painting, sculpture

nature, is attached to various kinds of objects, graphic

taniyam, etc.

The visual image is directly related to the experiences that

determines the strong emotional intensity of religious

consciousness. An important component of this consciousness is religious

feelings. Religious feelings are an emotional attitude towards faith

related to recognized objective beings, properties, connections,

to sacred things, persons, places, actions, to each other

and to themselves, as well as to religiously interpreted individual

phenomena in the world and to the world as a whole. Not all experiences are possible

representations, ideas, myths and, because of this, acquired the corresponding

current orientation, meaning and significance. Having arisen, religious

feelings become an object of need - attraction to them

experience, to religious and emotional saturation.

They can fuse with religious ideas and receive

the corresponding focus, meaning and meaning are very different

human emotions - fear, love, admiration, awe, joy,

hope, expectation, sthenic and asthenic, altruistic and

egoistic, practical and gnostic, moral and es-

Tethyan; in this case, the “fear of the Lord”, “love

to God", "a sense of sinfulness, humility, submission", "the joy of God"

communication", "touching by the icon of the Mother of God", "compassion for one's neighbor

mu", "reverence for the beauty and harmony of created nature",

“expectation of a miracle”, “hope for otherworldly reward”, etc.

Connection of adequate

and inadequate

In religious consciousness there are adequate reflections

Zheniya are connected with inadequate ones. No basis

you should not approach such a connection

axiologically, with a deliberately positive or negative assessment. People

were never free from illusions, without delusions there was no

searches for truth, they are not “guilt”, but inevitability (about conscious deception-

not with bad intentions and falsifications speech in this case

doesn't work!). In certain historical situations and points, individual

In order to survive, people need illusions.

It is wrong to assert that religious consciousness is “ab-

completely false": it has content adequate to the world. For example,

in the Christian connection of God as a creative being, omnipotent

good, all-good, omnipresent and man as created, weak,

sinful, limited, relations of unfreedom and

dependencies. Religious images as components have co-

data of sensory experience corresponding to reality (astro-

morphism, zoomorphism, phytomorphism, anthropomorphism,

psychomorphism, sociomorphism). In a religious myth, a parable, the

real phenomena and events are given in the same way as this

occurs in art, in artistic images, in literary

narration. In addition, these elements do not exhaust everything

they developed natural science, logical, historical,

psychological, anthropological and other knowledge. Interacting

with other areas of spiritual life, religion includes eco-

nomic, political, moral, artistic, philo-

Sophian views. They were delusions, but among them there are

and those that provided reliable information about man, the world,

society, expressed objective development trends. In religions

spiritual content adequate to reality is produced. And that's it

It is also legitimate to take into account that this content is in religious pre-

statements, concepts, ideas merged with images of the imagination, as a result

Therefore, the holistic picture can hide objective connections.

"Fundamentals", "premises", "doctrinal axioms", "main

Truths" were not substantiated using scientific methods

knowledge and ultimately are the subject of faith.

Linguistic expression Religious consciousness exists,

functions and is reproduced through

a lot of religious vocabulary, as well as other derivatives from natural

language of sign systems - objects of worship, symbolic

actions, etc. Religious vocabulary is that part of the vocabulary

natural language through which religious beliefs are expressed

meanings and meanings. Religious vocabulary names can be divided into

two groups: 1) meaning real objects with

attributed properties, for example "icon", "cross", "temple",

"cardinal", "monastery"; 2) meaning hypostatized beings

va, properties, connections, such as “God”, “angel”, “soul”, “miracle”, “hell”,

Thanks to language, religious consciousness turns out to be practical,

effective, becomes group and social and thus

zom, existing for the individual" In the early stages, language exists

existed in sound form, religious consciousness was expressed and

transmitted through oral speech. The appearance of the letter allowed

record religious meanings and meanings also in writing

form, sacred texts were compiled. The power of words, effectiveness

First of all, the sounding speech was reflected in religion. For example, good

The Christian teaching about the Logos is known: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word

was with God, and the Word was God... Everything came into being through Him, and without

For him nothing began to be that has come into being" (John 1:1,3).

The belief arose that the very knowledge and pronunciation of the name had

impact on an object, person, creature. Associated with this is the appearance

speech magic, as well as verbal taboos: many tribes have completely

or in most cases it was forbidden to pronounce the names of the leaders,

totems, spirits, gods. Such taboos are reflected in the Old Testament - name

God "Yahweh" is forbidden to pronounce, it is replaced by others,

for example, they read and say “Adona” (“My gods”).

Levels of Consciousness

Religious consciousness has two levels -

mundane and conceptual. Ordinary

religious consciousness appears in the form of images, ideas,

stereotypes, attitudes, mysteries, illusions, moods and feelings,

beliefs, aspirations, direction of will, habits and traditions that

are a direct reflection of the living conditions of people. It

appears not as something whole, systematized, but in fragments

packaged form - disparate ideas, views or individual

nodes of such ideas and views. At this level there are

rational, emotional and volitional elements, however

the dominant role is played by emotions - feelings and moods, containing

The desire of consciousness is clothed in visual and figurative forms. Among the compo-

nents of everyday consciousness are relatively stable,

conservative and mobile, dynamic; the first can be attributed

traditions, customs, stereotypes, and the second - moods. Should be under-

It should also be emphasized that at this level traditional methods predominate.

ways of transmitting ideas, images of thoughts, feelings, illusions,

religion is always directly related to the individual, always acts

in personal form.

Religious consciousness at the conceptual level - conceptual

specialized consciousness is a specially developed, systematic

a matizable set of concepts, ideas, principles, reasoning,

arguments, concepts. It consists of: 1) more or less mentioned

a coherent teaching about God (gods), the world, nature, society, man,

purposefully developed by specialists (religion, theory)

logic, theology, creeds, etc.); 2) carried out in accordance with

interpretation in accordance with the principles of the religious worldview

economics, politics, law, morality, art, i.e. religious-eco-

nomic, religious-political, religious-legal,

religious-ethical, religious-aesthetic and other concepts

(theology of labor, political theology, church law, moral

new theology, etc.); 3) religious philosophy, located on

the intersection of theology and philosophy (neo-Thomism, personalism,

Christian existentialism, Christian anthropology, me-

taphysics of unity, etc.).

The integrating component is creed, theology, theo-

logy (Greek theos - god, logos - teaching). Theology (theology)

consists of a number of disciplines that outline and justify various

aspects of faith. Theology is based on sacred texts and

at the same time, it develops rules for their interpretation.

SELF-TEST QUESTIONS

1. What features are inherent in religious consciousness?

Religious consciousness has the following features:

The belief that the source of the main guidelines and values of humanity is God - the highest power in the world;

Moral requirements and norms are perceived in the religious consciousness as a derivative of the will of God, expressed in his covenants, commandments and holy books (the Bible, the Koran, etc., based on certain contacts with a supernatural source;

The combination of content adequate to reality with illusions;

Symbolism;

Allegorical;

Dialogue;

Strong emotional intensity, functioning with the help of religious vocabulary (and other signs).

2. What religions and why are they considered world religions?

World religions include Christianity, Islam, Buddhism. The listed world religions are so called because their followers are represented by a variety of national and ethnic groups. Their belonging to a given religion is not determined by consanguinity and relationships. These religions place their values above the ethno-national identity of their followers.

3. What characterizes religion as a social institution?

Religion is a complex social phenomenon with a variety of forms, cults, functions, and methods of influencing social life. Most religions of the modern world have a special organization - the church with a clear distribution of responsibilities at each level of its hierarchy (structure). For example, in Catholicism and Orthodoxy these are the laity, white clergy, black clergy (monks), episcopate, metropolitanates, patriarchies, etc.

4. What characterizes the current stage of state-church relations in our country?

According to the Constitution adopted in 1993, the Russian Federation is a secular state; no religion is established as state or compulsory. Religious associations are separated from the state and are equal before the law. Citizens are equal in their rights and freedoms, regardless of their attitude to religion. Any form of restriction of rights on this basis is prohibited. Every citizen is guaranteed freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, including the right to profess, individually or together with others, any religion or not to profess any, to freely choose, have and disseminate religious and other beliefs and to act in accordance with them. Agitation and propaganda of religious hatred and enmity, as well as religious superiority, are prohibited.

In Russia in recent decades there has been an increase in the number of religious associations and organizations. Along with numerous religious associations and organizations of traditional Russian faiths, many new cults and religious movements, non-traditional for our country and its peoples, were registered.

5. What, in your opinion, is responsible for the sharp rise in interest in religion in Russian society in recent decades?

A sharp rise in interest in religion is a very characteristic feature of the spiritual life of Russia in the last decade. It should be noted that in many countries of the world, the approaching end of the century and millennium is associated with apocalyptic prophecies of the “end of the world,” and primarily due to deepening problems of an ecological, demographic and other planetary nature, threatening catastrophe and the death of all life on Earth. In Russia, universal anxieties about impending disasters were combined with specific negative phenomena of a protracted social crisis, which seemed to have been predicted by religion. Therefore, they were very, very drawn to her, trying to find hope and salvation in this.

6. What helps maintain interfaith peace?

The state and society actively support various forms of social service of religious associations. Funds are allocated from the state budget for the restoration, maintenance and protection of churches and other objects that are historical and cultural monuments. Anyone who visits a place memorable for Russians - the monument on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, is struck by the fact that religious buildings of Orthodox, Jews and Muslims are located here not far from each other. This is a place of worship for those who died for their Motherland, who were not separated by belonging to different religions.

A system of government bodies is taking shape, and there is a staff of employees who communicate with religious associations. Religious leaders are invited to serve on various advisory councils of federal and regional authorities.

TASKS

3. One of the manifestations of interfaith contradictions in the past of mankind was religious wars. From your history course you know what tragic consequences they led to. What measures can prevent the risk of armed clashes based on sectarian hostility? Name the facts that, from your point of view, characterize the development of dialogue between various religious organizations in Russia.

First of all, state policy should be aimed at tolerance in society and this should be provided for at the legislative level.

In the process of growing up, a person strives to self-identify and become aware of himself in society. He inevitably faces the question of what is characteristic of religious consciousness. From childhood it becomes clear that there are different religions. There are also those who do not believe in anything. How can we determine how it differs from the national one, for example? Let's figure it out.

Definition

Religious things have existed as long as humans have. Gods began to be invented when, so to speak, they came down from the branches. Of course, it is not worth understanding what is characteristic of religious consciousness based only on the experience of the ancient world. But we also cannot reject the deep roots on which this consciousness is formed. The fact is that the process of human self-awareness is eternal. It is constantly developing and improving, based on the knowledge gained. Jesus articulated the depth of the problem when he revealed the meaning of the temple. According to him, a church is a community of believers who perform rituals together. That is, a religious person builds around himself a certain reality in which certain rules apply. All his actions and thoughts are consistent with the latter. In order to understand what is characteristic of religious consciousness, it is necessary to reveal the meaning of the formation of an individual’s worldview. It consists of traditions, rules, behavioral models accepted in a given society. Religion is part of this world. With its help, a person learns to communicate with a reality that lies beyond ordinary experience. There is a space in which we live, and rules of behavior in it. Religious consciousness concerns the second, influencing through man the first.

Forms of religious consciousness

It should be noted that beliefs have changed during the progressive development of mankind. In ancient times, people deified phenomena and animals, water and the sky. The directions of ancient beliefs are divided into fetishism, totemism, shamanism and others. Later, the so-called They began to emerge, covering a larger number of people, uniting them. For example, Chinese, Greek, Indian religions. Each of them has its own characteristics. The essence remained the same. Religion created certain behavioral rules that were mandatory for all members of society. In this way, an understanding of one’s place in the world was introduced into the human psyche. He seemed to rise above his semi-animal existence. A different reality was revealed to him, conducive to the development of intelligence and the creative process. Monotheism arose about two thousand years ago. It further limited animals by introducing the concepts of sin and conscience into society. It turns out that religious consciousness is an intellectual superstructure over the physical world, an artificially created reality with which a person must coordinate his actions.

What is characteristic of religious consciousness

If you look carefully at all the beliefs known to us, you can identify what they have in common. These will be behavioral restrictions recognized by the community. That is, religious consciousness is characterized by the perception that these are unwritten rules recognized by all members of the community. They are so deeply embedded that violating them is an out of the ordinary act. Religious consciousness includes centuries-old traditions, rules, norms that are useful for the development of humanity. For example, the commandment “thou shalt not kill” is accepted by people because it helps population growth. It may look mundane and not spiritual, but any religion developed laws that contributed to the preservation of the society that it united. Otherwise, it was difficult to survive in ancient times. And even today, with the development of science and technology, they have not lost their progressive meaning. Unfortunately, they undergo changes, not always useful. An example is the recognition of same-sex marriage in Western countries. This is an attitude towards the reproductive function that is artificially introduced into consciousness as unnecessary, not sacred.

Conclusion

Religious consciousness is an illusory reflection of reality; it is characterized by understanding not real reality, but fictitious reality. Religious consciousness, both of an individual and a group, cannot exist outside of certain myths, images and ideas that are acquired by people in the process of their socialization. Therefore, attempts to present religious experience as a purely individual phenomenon that arises independently of the social environment are fundamentally untenable. In no way can we agree with the desire to tear away the mental processes that characterize religious experience. (eg, intense emotional experiences) from ideas and beliefs specific to religion. This groan is especially important methodologically for understanding the relationship between the functional and ideological aspects of the psyche of believers.

In general, religious consciousness is distinguished by high sensory clarity, the creation of various religious images by imagination, the combination of content adequate to reality with illusions, the presence of religious faith, symbolism, dialogism, strong emotional intensity, the functioning of religious vocabulary and other special signs.

Religious consciousness, like social consciousness as a whole, includes two components: religious ideology and religious psychology, the relationship and interaction of which determine the diversity of specific types of religion. The specificity of the very content of religious consciousness (and the ideology and psychology functioning within it) is given by the unity of its two sides - the content and the functional.

The substantive side of religious consciousness forms the specific values and needs of believers, their views on the world around them and otherworldly reality, contributing to the targeted introduction of certain ideas, images, perceptions, feelings and moods into their psyche. It reveals not only and not so much ideology, as it may seem at first glance and as some scientists believe, but also the features of the psychology of believers themselves, expressing the qualitative characteristics of their motivational, intellectual and behavioral processes.

The functional side of religious consciousness

The functional side of religious consciousness in a unique form satisfies the needs of believers, giving the necessary direction to the manifestations of their ideology and psychology, shaping their specific moral and psychological state, moods and experiences, contributing to an effective impact on their psyche. The functional side of religious consciousness includes the specifics of cult actions and rituals, religious consolation, catharsis of religious feelings and moods, etc.

Features of religious consciousness are:

· Close control of religious institutions over the psyche and consciousness of believers, their behavior and actions;

· Clear thought out ideology and psychological mechanisms for its implementation in the consciousness of believers.

The presence and dialectical manifestation of the content and functional aspects of religious consciousness determine not only the inextricable connection of ideology in its structure, but also their closer interpenetration into each other:

· Religion not only develops certain values and needs of believers, but also complements them with the formation of faith based on certain norms of behavior (confession), cult and ritual actions;

· Not only forms faith in the supernatural, but also complements it with consolation, which orients towards a false, illusory solution to problems (contradictions) of real life and which finds manifestation in the sacraments;

· Forms religious ideas and beliefs through religious catharsis of feelings, during which negative experiences are replaced by positive ones;

· Cementes and transforms ideology and psychology into a single whole through religious experience, which is, on the one hand, the result of an individual’s assimilation of religious beliefs and ideas drawn from his surrounding social environment, and on the other hand, is a consequence of direct psychological contacts and forms of communication believers.

Religious faith unites the content and functional aspects of religious consciousness. It cannot be identified with any faith. Psychological science believes that faith is a special psychological state of people’s confidence in achieving a goal, in the occurrence of an event, in their expected behavior, in the truth of ideas, subject to a lack of accurate information about the achievability of the goal, about the result of testing ideas in practice. It is a fusion of intellectual, volitional and emotional elements.

Faith should be distinguished from conviction, i.e. way of accepting certain principles, views, ideas. It includes rationally reasoned and substantiated knowledge, the truth of which has been proven and tested in practice.

A socio-historical analysis of non-religious faith shows that its impact on society was determined, first of all, by the content, the subject of faith. If the subject of faith was imposed by the ideology of the reactionary classes, if it was based on the darkness and ignorance of the people, if wishful thinking was presented as reality, then such faith interfered with social progress. If the object of faith was determined by the interests, goals and ideals of the advanced classes, if it corresponded to the objective course of social development, then faith contributed to the progressive solution of pressing social problems.

Religious faith this is faith: a) in the truth of religious dogmas, texts, ideas, etc.; b) into the objective existence of beings, properties, connections, transformations (which are the product of the process of hypostatization, i.e. attributing independent existence to abstract concepts, considering general properties, relationships and qualities as independently existing objects), which constitute the objective content of religious images; c) the ability to communicate with seemingly objective beings, influence them and receive help from them; d) in the actual occurrence of some mythological events, in their repetition, in the occurrence of an expected mythological event, in participation in such events; e) to religious authorities - “fathers”, “teachers”, “saints”, “prophets”, “charismatics”, church hierarchs, clergy, etc.

When we talk about faith (both religious and non-religious), we should keep in mind some of its features.

Firstly, the object of faith evokes an interested attitude in a person, and it is realized in his emotional sphere, causing feelings and experiences of varying degrees of intensity. Without an emotional attitude, faith is impossible.

Secondly, and most importantly, faith is impossible without a personal assessment of its subject.

Thirdly, it presupposes an active personal attitude towards its subject, which is manifested to one degree or another in the behavior of the individual.

Any faith is a socio-psychological phenomenon, characterized both by the interaction of the people participating in it, accompanied by various psychological processes, and by the special attitude of the subject of faith to its subject, an attitude that is realized not only in consciousness, but also in behavior.

The religious faith of a true believer is very strong. It serves as the main motive for their cult and non-cult behavior. It determines the emergence and existence of religious needs, interests, aspirations, expectations, the corresponding orientation of the believer’s personality, and his activity. In religious faith, a dominant role is played by various mental processes, and, above all, imagination. Deep religious faith presupposes the existence in the human mind of ideas about supernatural beings (in Christianity, for example, Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, saints, angels, etc.) and their vivid images that can evoke an emotional and interested attitude. These images and ideas are illusory and do not correspond to real objects.

But they do not arise out of nowhere. The basis for their formation in the individual consciousness is, firstly, religious myths, which tell about the “actions” of gods or other supernatural beings, and secondly, cult artistic images (icons, frescoes), in which supernatural images are embodied in sensually visual form. On the basis of this religious and artistic material, the religious ideas of believers are formed. Thus, the individual imagination of an individual believer is based on those images and ideas that are propagated by one or another religious organization. That is why the religious ideas of a Christian differ from the corresponding ideas of a Muslim and a Buddhist.

For the church, the uncontrolled activity of the imagination is dangerous, because it can lead the believer away from orthodox dogma. This explains the fact that, for example, the Catholic Church in Western Europe has always treated representatives of Christian mysticism with a certain distrust and wariness, seeing them, not without reason, as potential heretics.

If we are talking about the degree of participation of certain mental processes in religious faith, then in it a lesser role than in non-religious faith is played by logical, rational thinking with all its features and attributes (logical consistency, evidence, etc.). As for other mental processes, the specificity of religious faith lies in the direction of these processes, their subject. Since their subject is the supernatural, they concentrate the imagination, feelings and will of people around illusory objects.

The specificity of the object of religious faith as something supernatural, located “on the other side” of the sensually comprehended world, also determines the place of religious faith in the system of individual and social consciousness, its relationship with human cognition and practice. Since the subject of religious faith is something not included, according to the beliefs of religious people, in the general chain of causal connections and natural laws, something “transcendental”, since, according to the teachings of the church, it is not subject to empirical verification, is not included in the general system of human knowledge and practice.

A religious person believes in the exceptional appearance of supernatural forces and beings, unlike everything else that exists. This faith of his is nourished by the official dogmas of the church. Thus, from the point of view of the Orthodox Church, “God is an unknown, inaccessible, incomprehensible, ineffable mystery. Any attempt to express this mystery in ordinary human concepts, to measure the immeasurable abyss of the deity is hopeless.”

A religious person does not apply the usual criteria of empirical validity to the supernatural. Gods, spirits and other supernatural beings, in his opinion, in principle cannot be perceived by human senses unless they take on a “bodily” material shell and appear before people in a “visible” form accessible to sensory contemplation. According to Christian doctrine, Christ was just such a God who appeared to people in human form. If God or another supernatural force resides in its permanent, transcendental world, then, as theologians assure, the usual criteria for testing human ideas and hypnosis are not applicable to them.

Deep faith presupposes the concentration of the entire mental life of an individual on religious images, ideas, feelings and experiences, which can only be achieved with the help of significant volitional efforts. The will of the believer is aimed at strictly observing all the instructions of the church or other religious organization, and thereby ensuring his “salvation.” It is no coincidence that exercises that trained the will were mandatory for many newly converted monks and nuns. Only constant training of the will, its concentration on religious ideas and norms, is capable of suppressing natural human needs and desires that hindered monastic asceticism. Only volitional efforts can turn a convert away from non-religious interests, accustom him to control his thoughts and actions, preventing any “temptation,” especially the “temptation” of unbelief.

With the help of volitional efforts the behavior of a religious person is regulated. The deeper and more intense the religious faith, the greater the impact the religious orientation of the will has on the entire behavior of a given subject, and in particular on his cult behavior, on his compliance with norms and regulations.