Having read Roman Ilyushchenko’s article “In Search of Truth” 1, in which he “pushes” my student in Islamic studies, Sergei Ivaneev, I cannot pass over in silence the author’s position itself. My hand itches, wanting to convict the author of dishonest distortion of facts and theoretical ignorance. This is, firstly. Secondly, on behalf of the career officers of the Russian army, he convinces the readership of the goodness of the theologization of Russian society and army personnel, citing his experience of religious influence on military personnel in “hot” spots.
To say the least about the fact that nourishment by religion strengthens the combat effectiveness of troops. You, a falsifier of facts in the war that I sincerely disrespect, are simply casting a “shadow over the fence.” As a WWII participant, I testify differently. And may the truth of my article teach you something and force you to stop your God-loving insinuations.
War is monstrous in its essence. It not only destroys material wealth, but also dehumanizes a person and deforms his normal feelings. “Kill the enemy at all costs, otherwise he will kill you. Kill, kill!..” This leitmotif of the morality of war is ominous. The soldiers of both sides do not see the enemy as a person, for them he is the bringer of death. And therefore death must be stopped by death. At any cost. Everywhere. Until, at someone's command, the carnage stops.
Does the feeling of intercession by supernatural forces really help a soldier in war?
Psychology claims that belief is a powerful factor in the spiritual world of the individual. If a person convinces himself of something and conviction becomes the program of his life, this will undoubtedly contribute to success in achieving his goals. In particular, in war, every soldier faces a dual goal - to survive and destroy the enemy. Do those who place their hope in God's intercession survive more? No! The enemy's bullet does not miss a believer, just like an atheist. But if an unbeliever concentrates all his physical and moral-volitional efforts to defeat the enemy, relying only on himself and his comrades, then the believer tries to save himself with the ephemeral idea of supernatural intercession. The prayer “God, save and help” often simply distracts a soldier at the moment when he needs to take action in seconds. optimal solution. According to my observations at the fronts Patriotic War, believers, as a rule, were somewhat quiet, as if detached from the combat situation and withdrawn into themselves - at a time when a fierce impulse was deciding the fate of the battle. And the desperate, not very concerned about “sinful” vocabulary and the salvation of the soul, showed miracles of courage, destroying Hitler’s soldiers with the words “God is with us” (Gott mit uns) embossed on their belt plaques.
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Our Soviet resistance group is making its way to the Kalinin front line. Swamps, darkness and dankness. The food is only what is obtained from the Krauts who have fought off their own. Our clothes are soaked with swamp slurry. There is no place to dry out, no fires allowed. There is danger everywhere. We rest side by side under the spreading spruce trees, warming each other with our bodies. One of ours, about forty years old, often separates from the group and stands whispering prayers. The commander from the personnel units puts his finger to his mouth: be quiet, don’t disturb. The news spreads to everyone: believer, Baptist. After praying, he joins the group and quietly falls asleep. And just as quietly he gets up in the dawn darkness, silently submitting to general discipline. By noon, reconnaissance reported a group of Germans near the highway. There, turning around like a fan, silently, with tenfold fury, we attacked the lunching Krauts, who barely had time to take up the Schmeisers. “What losses?” - the commander asked loudly. “Ostapchuk was killed.” The same believer. And no one else, not counting minor injuries.
Here's another tragedy.
Southern front. Our 28th Army is driving the fascist across the sacred Don land of my ancestors. Rostov-on-Don and Cherkassy were taken, and on the approach to Donbass there was a strong wave of enemy resistance. The Germans brought huge forces here. Airplanes hover like bumblebees. The earth hums and stands on end from the rupture. We are pressed into the trenches, covering our heads with sapper shovels. And suddenly there was calm. A heart-rending voice: “Karim was killed!” My neighbor, a Turkmen, rushed towards the voice somewhere, wailing “Alla-Alla.” And several more Central Asian Muslims. The frantic screams of the commanders: “Get back!” But three or four people huddled together shout “Alla-Alla.” A German shell whistled past, and the second one exploded right in the group. And again a minute of ominous silence, like the apotheosis of departed fellow believers.
How can one judge here: did religion protect soldiers from death? Facts show that religion is not a shield against death.
And another question: is it true that “there are no atheists in trenches”?
I will confidently answer this: no, that’s not true! And that's why.
Even many of my front-line comrades, who were influenced by religion in the family, were completely freed from belief in God. The reason is simple. Religion inspires that everything comes from God, and he is “all-merciful,” “merciful,” “loves us,” “our protector,” etc. and so on. Thrown into the heat of war, the Moloch easily constructs a simple logical reasoning: if God exists and he loves man, why does he allow a war to be unleashed with the death of huge masses of people? Why does he scorch the earth and destroy villages and cities? Why are beautiful young men turned into bloody piles and scraps of meat? For what sins do children, women and the elderly suffer?
When pulling mortally wounded people from the battlefield or saying goodbye to fallen comrades, I also asked myself the same questions. And he also answered: it means there is no God, and if he exists, then he is the most evil genius and an insatiable devourer of people. Then why should we honor him, God? What sins could my friend Genka, with whom we fled to the front as teenagers, have accumulated on his innocent soul, and why did you, God, allow his life to be cut short by a fascist mine? Let God be anything - a creature or an abstract idea. It is stupid, senseless and primitive to love something that does not exist, or something that is synonymous with suffering and premature death.
Therefore, I ask you not to believe the sermons that war accelerates the process of transition from unbelief to faith in God. Individual facts and coincidences cannot be elevated to a “perpendicular” law. I just have a fatherly pity for those who fall victim to such statements and disarm themselves before the idea of intercession with God.
The venerable hieromonk Savva (Molchanov), who previously published an article in the media “There are no atheists in trenches” 2, convinces that “war can bring spiritual renewal to a person. But who does it carry it to? To that person who is religiously enlightened." Monstrous morality! This is one step away from the propaganda of war as the best moral cleansing agent. And to this I want to shout at the top of my voice: “People, rid yourself of the unctuous saints who convince you of the cleansing spiritual power of war!”
In reality, there is a syndrome of war: those who have passed through its mouth experience unhealed mental wounds all their lives. Therefore, even now, after 60 years, we do not cry, remembering our fallen comrades, but at night we jump up in a cold sweat, shaking mortal battles with the enemy from our memory.
In military battles, thought and memory work at feverish speed. And your whole being is drawn to the peaceful, kind, and in general, to life. As always, I wanted to live! And I never thought about the afterlife. I wanted to see the silent garden, my mother’s kind face, sit at a desk in a bright classroom, read books... And no dreams about God, church, priests. Everything is only in thoughts of goodness and happiness. This means that the suggestion that war with God in the soul makes people purer and better, and without this, rude and sinful, is slander. “War is sent to us as a providential test, when the people cease to live with high feelings, when they need strong admonition. And so the Lord allows people to go through this terrible test in order for a person to be renewed,” we read the blasphemous maxims of the hieromonk in the same article. So, father, in your opinion, war is a cleansing good for “man to be renewed”? Sorry, this is war propaganda prohibited by law. This is, firstly. Secondly, even during the war, the predominant part of the Soviet people did not fall into the abyss of “sin” in the name of some abstract “purification”, but in the name of destroying the brown plague of Hitlerism. And without God, we were pure in our thoughts about goodness, people, Motherland and happiness.
A letter from a reader of our site, Tatyana: My husband, after losing his business, after a series of failures, lost faith in everything, doesn’t believe in anything, doesn’t want to believe anyone, says he doesn’t see a future. But it seems to me that the worst thing is that he stopped believing in himself. I really want to help him, but I don’t know how, the problem is too complex. And also, when there was business and everything was going well, he went to church, thanked God, but now when I tell him that he should at least pray to the Lord, he gets angry and doesn’t want to hear anything. Tell me what to do with such disbelief in nothing, how to get out of this, how to help him?
We will look at the problem of unbelief or lack of faith in general, with practical recommendations. Although such situations need to be considered individually, working with a coach or healer. This is possible, if necessary, our website also provides.
What is Unbelief (disbelief, lack of Faith)?
It must be said that disbelief can be different, just like faith. There is faith in success, faith in people, etc. Everyone also has their own disbelief. Some people don’t believe in God, but believe in themselves, while others do the opposite. But there is, of course, absolute disbelief when a person is overwhelmed by a problem.
The main types of unbelief (disbelief):
Disbelief in God- denial of the existence and doubt of the Power, Omnipotence and Justice of God. Disbelief in God is most often determined by atheistic upbringing (about atheism -) and is replaced by.
Lack of faith in yourself– this is a lack of faith in one’s potential and one’s strengths, determined (“I’m bad, weak...”, etc.), ignorance of one’s nature (nature), inability to reveal one’s own potential, awaken sources of energy (one’s strength), overcome difficulties and obstacles along the way to the goal. Lack of self-confidence is replaced by.
Lack of belief in success– doubts about achieving results due to circumstances and difficulties that must be overcome on the way to the cherished Goal. Replaced by Vera, and worthy of p.
Disbelief in People– distrust of people because of their evil, unreliability, weakness, etc. Distrust in people is often based on one’s own negative experience, when a person was let down, betrayed, abandoned, etc. The mistake was in not distinguishing between people, when a person trusted the wrong people, did not know how to determine who could be trusted and who could not. After all, people are all different - some are worthy and honest, and there are scoundrels and traitors. Distrust in people is replaced by Discrimination (selectivity and wisdom) and.
Also, Unbelief can be defined as belief in, belief in bad things, that is, a person believes that all bad things will happen to him, but good things will not happen.
In each of the points, relevant links are given, by following which you can begin to form adequate ideas that will help you free yourself from disbelief.
About Faith and Unbelief. Catechism of the Knights (excerpt)
“Faith is a sacred word. Therefore, it should not be used in vain. It should be as natural to you as the clean air you breathe. Faith creates a person, unbelief destroys him.
Unbelief destroys the bonds that bind us, destroys camaraderie, discipline, and everything that exists around us.
Faith requires you to unswervingly follow your Ruler in the days of victories and defeats. You must follow him even in times of trouble and not allow yourself to doubt.
You must always help others in need and danger. Your friend must be sure that he can always turn to you, that he can rely on you like a brother.
Our Faith must be stronger than any lack of faith and vice. What do you believe in? You must never turn aside from the path and abandon the ideals to which you have sworn. This is your first and main Faith!”
1. Adequate Knowledge Required, which form complete and consistent ideas about this world and its Laws, about God and about Ourselves beloved. Read:
2. Unbelief is not a simple problem and there is no way to solve it. you need to use the entire arsenal of techniques, which is available to you - psychological, esoteric and spiritual techniques. One of these universal techniques is.
3. Required read inspiring books and watch movies, which awaken and revive the Faith.
4. Individual work! It often happens that without outside help, you cannot overcome unbelief only through your own efforts. This happens because a person has not realized and has not removed the deep cause of his Unbelief, which may lie in the distant past, which he has long forgotten (including in his past life). Working with can help you realize this reason and quickly remove disbelief.
If you decide what you need individual assistance Healer or Coach - . I can recommend you a good specialist.
Best regards, Vasily Vasilenko
Our faith is subject to certain changes over time. Like any river that has its source, our faith also begins somewhere. It happens that a person lives and does not believe in anything (although a person still necessarily believes in something), his life flows at a completely measured pace and sometimes it seems that nothing happens in life. But some sudden bright event in life can produce a real revolution, and a person’s life changes literally 180 degrees, as was the case, for example, in the life of Emperor Constantine, who was persecuting the early Christians, when the sign of the cross appeared to him in the sky.
Faith in God can awaken in a person gradually, as a result of a series of realizations and observations. Our faith, replacing unbelief, arises and strengthens when it finds confirmation in real life. In this case, a person, leading a life according to his faith, can come to real rebirth, and then his faith will become an integral part of his life. It will become true faith.
What and how should people believe? How to avoid “blind faith”? How can you avoid falling into the trap of a belief that turns out to be false? How not to be disappointed if you eventually have to come to the inevitable realization of the fact that what you believed in (or who you believed in...), to which you devoted your whole life, was nothing more than a worthless “dummy”? Serious questions...
A simple example: why from time immemorial have gold and diamonds always been valued among jewelry? For their unchanging properties, timeless. Truth cannot be replaced by counterfeit. That is why at the very basis and the very essence of faith there must lie something absolute, eternal, unchangeable and unique. The basis of faith in God must be rooted in eternity, it must be based on something unshakable, not subject to any change. Like the stone that the builders rejected became the head of the corner... A person’s faith cannot be determined by fashion or mood. Faith should not be “blind”, but should be based on the immutable and fundamental laws of the universe - the laws of matter and spirit. The law of faith itself is also subject to the “Universal Principle of the Universe.” Discovering this universal law for yourself and making it an integral part of your life is the destiny of every believer.
Despite the mistake of the first people, throughout the long history of saving sinful humanity, God never lost His faith in the people He created. God the Subject said: “I have destined it, and I will bring it to pass. If I say this, it means that one day I will have an object of love.” This kind of faith in God is absolute. Faith contains elements of “dictatorship” and issues that are not discussed. The ideal of love, to which the path of faith leads, is an inevitable reality. Otherwise, there would be nothing absolute in our world, and the very concepts of faith and disbelief in God would be forever relative.
Just as darkness can never embrace light, and light will always find a way through the deepest darkness, faith is always stronger than unbelief. Disbelief in God, the belief that “” turns out to be untenable. Lack of faith or unbelief, lack of faith are transitory things. The life of , who two thousand years ago maintained faith in the face of death and changed the world forever, is clear evidence of this.
In 2009, 800 city buses in London carried posters reading: “In all likelihood there is no God. So don't worry and enjoy life." In response to this, Orthodox Christians in London placed the inscription on other buses: “God exists, believe me! Don't worry and enjoy life! " Whose side is the truth on? And why do some people turn to God, while others run away from Him? Why is the Lord God as obvious to some as our life itself, but not to others?
It would seem that in suffering people should turn to God, but many, when suffering, turn to alcohol and do not remember God at all. Already in the Holy Scriptures we see two opposing reactions to the calling of the Lord. Thus, the apostles John and James, simple fishermen, having heard the word of Christ, immediately left the boat, left their father and followed the Lord (see: Matt. 4: 21-22), and the rich young man to whom the Savior said: “Follow Me” , - as it is said in the Gospel, embarrassed, he departed from Him with sadness (see: Matt. 19: 16-22; Mark 10: 17-22).
Indeed, a person’s appeal to God is always a mystery. People seem to live in the same social and cultural conditions, but sometimes have completely different attitudes towards faith.
To understand the essence of this problem, let us first try to find out what unbelief and atheism are.
In general, in my personal opinion, there are two types of atheism. The first is forced disbelief, so to speak, atheism due to a misunderstanding, when a child was simply raised that way and therefore he has no idea about the spiritual world. Such people are capable of acting in a Christian manner, although no one seems to have taught them this. At a certain moment, such a person can easily (in a sense, easily) find faith: it will be revealed in him as a treasure that was in oblivion, but was not completely lost. In this case, faith in a person has not died, but is sleeping, and it can awaken - when reflecting on the meaning of life, when contemplating nature, when paying attention to the example of the life of sincerely believing people, and in many other cases.
The second type of unbelief is ideological atheism: this is some kind of internal aggression, hostility towards the spiritual, so that a person turns away from God, like someone who has sore eyes turns away from the sun. Moreover, the atheist himself sometimes does not understand the essence of his atheism.
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, in a dialogue about atheism and the last trial, talks about a former atheist who later became a clergyman. I find this story particularly revealing. Main character In the story, Alexander was a smart, intelligent and educated man who lived first in Russia and then in Paris. Like many others of his time, he was an atheist and considered himself too cultured and advanced to even think about faith. Once he got into a conversation with a village priest who had no higher education. This priest listened to him for a long time, and then told him two truths: “First, Sasha, it’s not so important that you don’t believe in God. The wonderful thing is that God believes in you (that is, you are not yet completely lost to eternal life). And second: and you, Sasha, go home and think about at what moment and why you lost faith, at what moment it turned out that it was necessary for you that God should not exist.”
Alexander returned home puzzled. He was surprised at the very formulation of the question, at the very approach of the priest to this topic. Because at this chance meeting with the priest, he expected to hear a missionary speech or instructions to read some treatises, but instead he heard: go and try to figure it out yourself. For some reason he suddenly wanted to do this, he thought: “Maybe I should try? Well, let’s see what I had in my life before...”
At first he thought that the reasons for his unbelief were in his university education, then he began to look for them in earlier periods of his life. So he got to his childhood, to the time when he was 6 years old. What happened then? He lived in one of the cities of Russia, was a nice boy, went to church every Sunday, and stood in the middle of the temple in front of others and prayed to God. Every Sunday, his parents gave him 1 kopeck, which he had to put in the hat of a blind beggar, and he put it and went to church with the feeling that he had done a good deed, showed love, attention, and could now go to God with a clear conscience. One day before Christmas, he was walking around the city with his mother, and they went into a store where they were selling a wonderful wooden horse that cost 6 kopecks. Sasha asked his mother to buy it, but she refused, and he returned home very upset. And the next Sunday, when, on his way to church, he passed a beggar, he thought that if he didn’t give him a penny six times, he could buy himself a horse. And he didn’t give me a penny that time.
He did this four times, and on the fifth he thought: “What if I take one penny from a beggar, then I can buy this horse even earlier.” And this time he quietly stole a penny from a blind beggar. After that, he entered the temple and suddenly felt that he could no longer stand in front: suddenly God would notice him, and he went into some corner. Now Sasha felt that he felt somehow bad, that he needed to somehow hide from God. And then his older brother just returned from university, who had picked up godless teachings there and began to prove that there is no God. And little Sasha grabbed this thought like a straw on which he thought to save himself: “If there is no God, then it doesn’t matter at all that I stole this penny and didn’t put in five.” From that time on, godlessness began in him. He perceived the teaching that there is no God as the only salvation from reproaches of conscience.
The above story is very revealing. He clearly represents that unbelief, atheism is, first of all, an attempt to hide from God, to hide, as if to close your eyes with your hands and say: “There is no God,” just as we sometimes try to hide from our own conscience, and conscience is the voice God in man. From Holy Scripture it is known that for the first time such a thing happened in paradise, when people, having sinned, violating the commandment of God, tried to hide from the face of God - as if they did not see God, as if there was no God at all. The Lord, turning to Adam, says: “Adam, where are you?” And he answers: “I heard Your voice in paradise, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Genesis 3: 9–10). It is this sinful nakedness, exposure from the grace of God that makes a person hide from God.
But this is not the only reason. Throughout history, atheism is also an attempt to convince oneself that there is no God, in order to justify one’s sinful addictions. This denial does not necessarily begin in the mind or intellect, but most often occurs somewhere in the depths of the fallen soul, in our heart. The atheist seems to reason: “If there is no God, then nothing will happen to me for my sins, because I live once, and it’s better to live for my own pleasure, and I’m not interested in what happens to the soul after bodily death. If there is no God, then what good does virtue benefit me? Material wealth can be touched, but virtue – what kind of treasure is this?” And, again, all this arises spontaneously in the depths of the fallen spirit, and only then can take shape in the form of a logically coherent materialistic worldview.
So, if unbelief is an attempt to hide from God to justify one’s sins, then faith is the opposite way, a return to God with the desire to be cleansed of sins. But to return, you need to know the way, and for this you need a search. And very often a person comes to faith because his soul suddenly feels a certain call, the need to search. Man does not yet understand that he lacks God, but he already feels that everyday life does not satisfy him. A kind of search for the meaning of life begins, since the meaninglessness of our earthly vanity is suddenly revealed. I would like to add to this that usually people search for the meaning of life not with the help of rational, logical reasoning, but intuitively, as some kind of internal need.
At the end of the 20th century, an article was published in the press about the sad fate of the son of an American millionaire. This article said that one successful young man in life, the son of a millionaire, in the prime of his strength and prosperity, committed suicide. A note with the following content was found on him: “I took everything from life, found nothing interesting in it, I am leaving this life voluntarily.” Of course this one young man there were the best cars, expensive villas; he was surrounded by the most beautiful women. In short, he had everything a modern person could dream of. And suddenly such a sad result. This means that, with all the abundance, his soul was missing something, something most important. He simply got what most people strive for a little earlier, and saw that there was absolutely nothing special about these achievements. As the hero Eugene Onegin admits:
I am young, life is strong in me,
What should I expect? Longing, longing...
This often happens in our lives: it seems to us that having done successful purchase Having achieved a profitable job, a high salary, a good position in society, etc., we will finally calm down and gain something important. But as soon as we achieve all this, it turns out that there is nothing special about it, and again we are missing something, we feel some kind of emptiness. We strive for an elusive good, for the fullness of life, as if for an alluring horizon that cannot be reached. Because the human soul is such that only God can satisfy it. Only the infinite God can satiate the infinite depths of our heart.
The Holy Fathers say that the human soul is like a sunflower, which always turns its flower to the sun - and the heart also strives for God, yearns and withers without spiritual light. In fact, there are no people who have never experienced an inner craving for the spiritual, whose soul has never hurt, so that they do not need God. We simply see many people only at a certain stage of their life path and, due to our limitations, we believe that they will never feel a thirst for the spiritual and will not change for the better.
Often what helps us turn to faith is a crisis situation in life, severe grief, contact with death, when it suddenly opens that not everything is as we imagined before, and a person wants there to be something that exceeds our limits. material world.
Spiritual writer of the 20th century N.E. Pestov, whose son died at the end of World War II, cites the testimony of one of the signalmen who received combat reports from Russian military pilots by radio. This signalman said that many pilots who did not show their faith in any way, when they were shot down by the enemy and their plane, engulfed in flames, fell, suddenly began to pray: “Lord, accept my soul,” this was heard over the radio.
The fact is that a critical situation is an event in life when all the husks fall away and a person is left alone with himself. Everything superficial disappears, the mask that we put on ourselves, playing a certain role in life, is removed. The soul, having finally become itself, begins to see clearly. What is she seeing? What exists spiritual world and that man is not the center of the universe, that we have a Heavenly Father, without whom our life will not be happy.
Of course, as many people there are, there are as many ways to God. Some people turn to faith through the study of nature. The Creator attracts some to Himself through obvious miracles: a person was threatened with death, imminent misfortune, an incurable disease, and suddenly everything was resolved successfully without apparent earthly reasons. In this case, it is precisely known that it was the Almighty who provided help.
But, be that as it may, if an internal revolution does not occur in a person, a revaluation of values, or rather, if there is no awakening of his soul, its rebirth, he will not become a believer under any arguments.
Why does not all people experience such spiritual insight?
Often a person’s faith is hidden somewhere in the depths of his soul, and since he is accustomed to living only on the external, he is always in a hurry, fussing, in a hurry and he has no time to be alone with himself, he does not notice faith. Modern man is accustomed to “functioning” somewhere; he wants to be drawn into “grand” earthly plans for arranging his destiny - there is no opportunity to think and stop for a single moment. And only when the debris of the earthly happiness that he tried to create falls in front of him, when he is finally left alone with himself, can faith in God awaken in him.
I really like this comparison. Imagine that on one side of you there is a musician playing the violin, and on the other there is a worker with a jackhammer. Can you understand the melody of the violin? Or will you only see the movement of the bow along the strings? So in a person’s life, all the external vanity, haste, impressions, worldly pleasures do not allow one to hear the sounds of spiritual life and the voice of one’s own faith hidden in the soul. Such people see temples, see the manifestation of faith in the lives of other people, but do not hear the voice of faith in their own hearts.
Anyone who stays in a closed, gloomy room for a long time loses the habit of light, his vision becomes dull, and he becomes unable to look into the distance. So, isolation on earthly interests alone kills the desire for God in the soul; For such a person, faith is something too distant.
However, even in the midst of the most external noise, a person can feel the calling of God. He himself does not even understand what he is missing, but he feels some kind of dissatisfaction, inner restlessness, the need for higher meaning and truth. And only after many years does such a person suddenly begin to understand that all this time he has been missing God.
In any case, faith in God is a special awakening of the soul when it becomes sensitive to a more sublime world. This is similar to how a child’s musical talent awakens and he suddenly discovers that there are amazing sequences of sounds, or an artistic gift when the child begins to understand the harmony of colors. But if the gift of a musician or artist is not given to everyone, then faith in God is the need of the soul of every person.
Blessed Augustine once said: “You, God, created us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You” (Confessions 1: 1). And in general, a person’s search for happiness, joy and fullness of life is actually a thirst for God. No matter what a person achieves, if he is without God, everything will not be enough for him and he will not be calm. And if he is with God, then he is content with little. It is faith in God that gives the soul that long-awaited peace that the human heart seeks.
