Three Levels of Perception of Socio-political Conflict, or Another Damage to Human Nature

Gusev Dmitrii Alekseevich Doctor of Philosophy Doctor of Philosophy, professor of the Philosophy Department at Moscow State Pedagogical University 115432, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. 2-Oi kozhukhovskii proezd, d. 12, str. 1, of. 317 gusev.d@bk.ru Other publications by this author

Potaturov Vasilii Aleksandrovich PhD in History Associate Professor, the department of Psychology, Pedagogy, and Socio-Humanitarian Disciplines, Moscow Witte University 115432, Russia, Moscow, 2-oy Kozhukhovsky Proezd 12, building #1, office #314 vpotaturov@mail.ru Other publications by this author

1. What do the facts "say"?The subject of the author's attention and the research being undertaken is the attitude of a person to the ongoing socio-political changes, crises, shocks and conflicts.

Moreover, this relationship can be represented as manifesting at various levels or stages, i.e. having a kind of hierarchical nature.

To begin with, in the light of recent political events, both in our country and in the world, we have all witnessed disagreements, mutual misunderstandings, conflicts, quarrels and even enmity – not only between strangers, but also between colleagues, friends and close relatives.

Pay attention, dear reader, to this first sentence of the text and answer yourself one question, which is most likely rhetorical – is not the statement that has just been uttered fully applicable to all events and at all times? There are some significant changes in the life of society (regardless of place and time), and immediately it splits into those who agree with them, support them and want to go on exactly the way that these events outline, and - to those who disagree, do not support and continue to live like this he doesn't want to.

Here it is possible to recall an illustrative episode from the famous story of A.P. Gaidar "School": during the civil war, two young people, independently of each other, flee to the south – to the areas of hostilities and everyone sincerely wants to serve the fatherland. They meet by chance, get acquainted and even begin to be friends, but then it turns out that they understand the good of the fatherland in different ways - one "for the reds", the other "for the whites", and now former friends become irreconcilable enemies: "Aren't you dead yet? "What is it?" he asked coldly. – Dog, I found a friend! I'm running to the Don, not to your dog Sievers, but to General Krasnov."

Regardless of the place and time, every time we see how former friends swear to the nines, refuse to know each other and even become enemies; and all this is accompanied by an unprecedented intensity of emotions, and – most importantly – some incomprehensible and firm confidence of everyone in their rightness. The latter circumstance is particularly surprising – people live in the same world, the same sources of information are available to them, they are witnesses of the same events or facts. So why, then, are their ideas about what is happening so different (to the point of complete, as a rule, opposites) and, consequently, their attitude to it? It is noteworthy that each of the parties to the confrontation and the conflict refers to exactly the same facts, mistakenly believing that something follows from them (facts), they point to something or say something. Here I want to ask immediately – isn't that right?

Most likely, unfortunately, it is not so: if the facts really spoke about something or testified, then there would probably be no disagreements between us.

Everyone is familiar with the situation when a mother says to a child: "What is that lying around here?" To which he calmly replies: "I don't have it lying around here, it's lying there." What naked fact is taking place here? A certain object is in a certain place. Mom interprets this fact as lying around, and the child – as lying. So I want to ask, – and in fact, – is this object lying around or is it lying down? It is precisely this question that it is not possible to answer in any particular way, because both interpretations are quite suitable for this fact.

What will be the name of an employee of the special services, whom they have introduced into the state bodies of another country in order for him to extract state secrets there? Here, probably, everyone will say that if they have introduced him to us, then he is a vile spy, and if we have him to them, then he is a heroic intelligence officer, but the very facts of his professional activity in the first and in the second case remain the same, or they are just naked.

And what is the love union of a man and a woman living together, but not registering their relationship? This one and the same fact has a number of opposing interpretations here, such as, for example, civil marriage, cohabitation, fornication; and, probably, all possible options will not be exhausted.

It is clear that to illustrate this kind of correlations of facts and their various interpretations, many equally obvious and vivid examples can be given, which all lead us to one fairly convincing conclusion: the facts themselves do not say anything, do not testify, do not indicate anything, and nothing from them follows by itself and does not it follows; they are naked, or silent – they are not talking about something, but we are talking for them and instead of them about something by constructing their various interpretations.

Proponents of the idea that science really knows the world and obtains the truth often say that it is based on firmly established facts. However, the methodologists of science themselves have long and unanimously recognized that a convenient "staircase" does not lead from the first "floor" of scientific knowledge – empirical – to the second "floor" – theoretical, i.e. there is no smooth and direct transition from accumulated facts to the theory explaining them – precisely because the facts are about nothing they don't say. Therefore, followers of scientism, or supporters of the statement about the limitless possibilities of the scientific method, perhaps without noticing it themselves, repeat, as a kind of "mantra", that science is based on firmly established facts and at the same time lose sight of the fact that all other forms of culture and social consciousness are based on these same facts, and not just science.

Isn't religion, for example, based on firmly established facts? The existence of the physical, material, sensory, bodily world surrounding us, or (for those who doubt it) – an empirical reality, or the sphere of our experience – is nothing but a firmly established fact. Does science recognize this fact, does it proceed from it, does it rely on it? Undoubtedly, yes. And does religion not recognize this fact, does not proceed from it and does not rely on it? Just like science, it recognizes, proceeds, and relies. But what follows from the very fact of the existence of the world? Only his own existence and nothing else!

Does it follow from the fact of the existence of the world that it is the result of self–generation, self-development and evolution, or, conversely, that it is the result of Divine creation? You shouldn't. Both the first and the second are interpretations or possible answers to the question – why the world exists, where it came from, what is the reason for its existence; however, it is from the very fact of the existence of the world that no definite, unambiguous, final and only correct answer to this question follows. Both the first and second answers follow not from the fact, but from our consciousness (evolutionary or creationist); moreover, both the first and second answers are quite successfully superimposed on the fact itself, or, in other words, the fact fits perfectly into both answers ^[1].

Therefore, it is not surprising that, starting from the same facts, people build different interpretations of them. What is surprising is that they pass off these interpretations as truth, which is supposedly based on facts, unequivocally testify to it and point to it. Here there is an unconscious, apparently (and possibly conscious) violation of one of the main laws of logic – the law of identity: imperceptibly (most likely) for ourselves, we identify non–identical objects - the facts themselves and our interpretations of them.

This identification is probably also the basis of our trust in the classical, or correspondent, or Aristotelian concept of truth, according to which truth is the correspondence of our knowledge to reality. The disadvantage of this simple and, it seems, true statement is that we have our knowledge, but we do not have reality as such, in itself, it, unlike our knowledge, is not given to us, i.e., how things really are for us it will always remain a secret behind seven seals. 

Since we do not have reality, we cannot compare our knowledge with it for their correspondence or inconsistency with it. If we assert, for example, that some of our knowledge corresponds to reality, then again we make a logical mistake – involuntarily passing off our knowledge as reality itself, or our interpretations of reality as reality, i.e. we identify the non–essential.

 What could be the possible reason for such an error? It is quite likely that it is based on our desire for something to be arranged exactly this way, and not otherwise, so that reality is what we, even unconsciously, want it to be. To do this, we create (voluntarily or involuntarily) various ways of our vision of it, and for this purpose we turn the available bare facts in the direction we need, set their semantic orientation.

To illustrate this statement, we will give an example-analogy. Let's imagine the number "9" or "6", but located not vertically, but horizontally, so that without turning it by 90 ° it is impossible to say whether this figure is a nine or a six. Also imagine that this figure is convex-relief, fixed on a demonstration board in the classroom and can freely rotate in any direction around its attachment. Next – in this office, two people are standing in front of the blackboard and one of them, answering the question – what is this figure – turns it in a certain direction by 90° and says that it is exactly "9". Another person turns the number 180° and claims that it is undoubtedly "6". The first, in turn, turns it back 180° and says that it is obviously a nine. The other also turns it 180°, and it becomes equally obvious that it is a six. Now let's ask ourselves – is it really a nine or a six? It is impossible to get any intelligible answer here.

In this analogy, a figure horizontally located on the board is a reality in itself, or, in fact, one about which nothing definite can be said, except perhaps that it exists or exists. Turning a number into a certain vertical position is our adjustment of neutral or no (for us) reality to our desires and preferences, and the resulting "nine" or "six" are our interpretations of reality that are opposed to each other, but at the same time are quite "convincing", almost "obvious" and, of course, "relevant" to reality.

2. Segregation and "party quasi-Nazism" as a manifestation of universal damage So, it is clear that as a result of any major socio-political changes in society, there is a global conflict and a split into those who are "for" these changes and those who are "against" them.

Moreover, the more significant the changes, the deeper and larger the conflict and split. In this case, as a rule, two opposing socio-humanitarian pictures of the world appear, which become the ideological basis of political, cultural, economic, and even military confrontation.

Attention should be paid to the fact that, regardless of belonging to a certain side of the conflict, its participant represents his opponent, of course, strongly "mistaken" and tries in every possible way to convince him; and when he sees that he only persists in his "delusion" even more, he begins to perceive him as in some way to the extent of an inferior subject ("it is still so simple and obvious, and if he does not understand this, it means that he is an impassable and complete fool, with whom it is not only impossible to be friends or have some kind of relationship, but in general – to enter into any communication"); hence the above–mentioned discord, quarrels, the rupture of long and once lasting camaraderie, friendships and even family ties.

Also pay attention to the fact that the one who sees the "inferiority" of the opponent does not doubt his own "fullness" at all. How often can we ask ourselves a sincere question: "And if he is right?" Such a question usually does not even appear in my mind, because I "know exactly" what is the truth and the truth, and on the basis of this "knowledge" I segregate people into "reasonable" and "unreasonable", "normal" and "abnormal", "right" and "wrong".

This segregation – explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious, more or less expressed on a large scale – is a kind of "party quasi-Nazism". Party – in the sense that a certain part (Latin partis – a part, a group) of people, for example, me and my like-minded people, in some strange way (although for us it is not strange, but quite "obvious") he believes that he knows the true causes of events and phenomena and on the basis of this "knowledge" can segregate (Latin segregation – separation, separation, removal, separation), or separate from himself those who disagree with us – as some, at best, unreasonable, but rather – it is the defective, defective, abnormal, "not understanding elementary things", which, therefore, we can format, force in various ways to consent, and in the limit – even destroy, because they are not at all sorry, because, unlike us, they seem not to be in the full sense of the word people (if they "stupidly" refuse to understand something "taken for granted").

This kind of mental attitude, as we see, has a lot in common with the main characteristics of the Nazi consciousness and worldview, but since a certain content of the concept of "Nazism" has long been established in public intellectual and speech practice, then, in this case, we can talk about quasi-Nazism (Latin quasi – allegedly, as if), where the Latin "quasi" means, however, not "imaginary" or "unreal", but – "close", "almost", "very similar".

What happens? The fact that we, most likely, imperceptibly for ourselves, through self-delusion that we know the true state of affairs and things, we are, in fact, taking a misanthropic point of view, thereby causing great harm to others and ourselves, because we are not moving along the path of self-improvement and social prosperity, but, on the contrary, we are going down a disastrous road – towards personal suffering and social disasters.

In this case, we clearly see another manifestation of an amazing human peculiarity, or an amazing property of a person – to commit self–harm, i.e., to adhere to statements, express thoughts, have intentions, have desires, have hopes, set goals and perform actions that are destructive for him. Why was it said - another manifestation? Because this extremely strange human trait manifests itself in many other areas and episodes of our life.

Let's ask ourselves a question – to get angry, swear, get annoyed, angry, envious, jealous, offended, condemn, conceited, discouraged, grumble, etc.  – is all this useful or harmful to humans? The undoubted answer is harmful, and not only from a religious point of view, but also, to no lesser extent, from a secular point of view. And yet this is exactly what a person does in his life – regardless of gender, age, nationality, epoch, social origin and education. He knows that this should not be done – in his own interests and for his own good – and at the same time he does it with amazing constancy and perseverance.

Let's take any average person and ask him if he has heard and knows that you should not chop down the branch on which you are sitting. Any of us will say that he has heard and knows. Next, we will ask him if he agrees with this statement. Without any doubt, each of us will answer that we agree. And what is it? A rare person in the whole wide world and at all times does not cut the branch on which he sits. Most people in their lives do just that, suffer cruelly from it, understand it, and do it anyway… Isn't it amazing, amazing and incomprehensible?!

Are you familiar with the statement and do you agree with it – "don't spit in the well, it will be useful to drink water"? I know and agree. Do you follow him (this statement and this recommendation)? No, to be honest, all I do is spit into the well, from which I will have to drink later. Why are you doing this? Don't know. How do you not know?! I do it that way. And yet – I can't help myself.

Do you know and do you agree with the fact that if you like to ride, love to carry a sled; you can't easily catch a fish out of the pond; if you call yourself a bunch, get into the back? I know and agree. Do you try to live according to these rules? No, I do everything exactly the opposite: I like to ride, but I don't like to carry sleds; I wouldn't really mind catching a fish out of the pond without any difficulty; I often call myself a grub, but I don't want to climb into the body. Why? I don't know..., I do it that way.

Let's give a very simple and extremely everyday example. I decided not to be late anymore and calculated the required time of my leaving the house to the minute and ... I was late anyway, because I left later than the planned moment. What were the force majeure circumstances? What kept you? What prevented you from getting out on time? Nothing delayed, and nothing hindered. How did it happen that you were determined not to be late and then you were late again? I do not know how it happened, somehow by itself…

I decided never to swear again, not to be angry, not to be angry, not to be envious, not to be offended and not to condemn, and immediately quarreled again, angry, angry, envious, offended and condemned. Are you an adult, adequate, subjective, capable, normal? I think so. Are you in your right mind and in solid memory? I seem to be staying. How is it that, acting in this way, you seem (or maybe not as if), on the contrary, you are not in your right mind, not in solid memory and are not normal and subjective? I don't know..., it turns out..., I can't help myself. So you're sick? It turns out that so…

It would be possible to cite many other examples and situations in the context of the same topic, and the frequency of their occurrence, ubiquity, inevitability and ineradicability quite definitely indicates that a person (any, in fact, person) is sick, or is damaged, because any disease is a kind of damage, a greater or lesser deviation from the normal state towards the abnormal. Only this is not a physical, but a metaphysical disease, not a bodily or even a mental one, but a spiritual one: quite often there is a situation when, with bodily and mental (mental) health and well-being, a person is spiritually unhealthy and not well. "Not the flesh, but the spirit has been corrupted in our days, and man is desperately longing" (F.I. Tyutchev).

3. The mystery of human natureThe examples discussed above are humanitarian empirical material, or the very facts, the collection, accumulation, observation, enumeration and statement of which constitute the content of the first "floor" of knowledge.

The transition from it to the second – theoretical – "floor" is an attempt to explain the existing facts. The most important task, in this case, is to try to answer the question about the causes of the above–mentioned human disease, or damage, because only knowledge of genuine, not imaginary causes allows us to talk about reliable ways of treating the disease, healing a person.

If we take into account the basic concepts of human nature, including biologism (man is an "upgrade of the monkey" (the term of A.P. Nikonov)) ^[2], sociologism (man is a "set of social relations" (K. Marx)), ontological rationalism, or anthropocentric panlogism (man is a particle of the impersonal world reasonableness and expediency (the pantheistic tradition from antiquity to G. Hegel)), then it should be noted that in none of them will we be able to find at least some satisfactory explanation of the human damage in question.

If we proceed from the fact that man is a "child of nature", then his damage is not deduced from it in any way and is not reduced to it – all objects and beings of living nature, from the most primitive to the highly developed, are completely not characterized by the self–mutilation that is characteristic of man. It is possible that some, and perhaps many, manifestations, properties, qualities, and features of a person are explained by his kinship with wildlife, but not his pathological tendency to constantly harm himself, and not only unconsciously, but also consciously.

If a person is a "set of social relations" or is at least significantly connected with them, then we would not observe what we observe – in the history of mankind, a great many different types, types, forms of social relations have replaced each other (socio–economic formations, social structures, political regimes, cultural paradigms have changed), and the nature of man in the aspect we are considering has always remained the same – "he rushes to the light from the night shadow and, having found the light, murmurs and rebels" (F.I. Tyutchev).

In addition, sociologizing concepts are fraught with a vicious circle: if a person's damage is caused by the damage of social relations, then what, in turn, is the reason for their damage? If these relationships are the result of people's activities, then it turns out that their damage has its source in the original damage of a person. And even if this is not the case, is it possible to assume that all types and forms of social relations – over several millennia of human history – have been damaged and invariably entailed the damage of each, with extremely rare exceptions, of a particular person?

If a person is the highest manifestation of the world logos, or reasonableness, then his self–destructive manifestations cannot take place at all, precisely because of their – not even unreasonableness, or unreasonableness – but real insanity. It is hardly possible to see here the Hegelian cunning of reason or an imperceptible element of world harmony, because otherwise we will have to assume that universal rationality is somehow born out of universal madness, or, even more strangely, universal madness is a manifestation of universal rationality, after all, the birth of order out of chaos, which at least somehow it can be assumed that it is not identical with the appearance of the reasonable from the insane.

In the context of the philosophy of life opposing Hegelianism, where both the world and man are a manifestation not of reason, but of will, which, being unreasonable, is still not insane and is directed to its development, multiplication, strengthening, but not self–destruction. Thus, in the semantic coordinates of irrationalist concepts of the structure of human nature, as well as in rationalistic ones, we will not find explanations for the amazing humanitarian phenomenon that we are talking about.

What remains? Only one, the last (not in importance, but in order of mention) explanation of human nature – religious, theistic, Christian. Further, speaking of theistic religion, we will keep in mind Christianity as the understanding of the world and man that most corresponds to the very nature of religious consciousness, if we proceed from the fact that religion (Latin re-ligare) is the restoration of a lost connection, or the return of the prodigal son - man – to his Father, the Lord God, to his The father's home, to the heavenly homeland – the Kingdom of God. Speaking of Christianity, let us understand Orthodoxy as its historically first and authentic form, as the fullness of the Christian teaching about the world and man, his life, death and immortality. We are talking about this explanation after other explanations available in the arsenal of the centuries-old culture of mankind, firstly, because it fundamentally opposes them in a meaningful way, and, secondly, because it is in its semantic field that a completely satisfactory answer can be given to the fundamental question about the cause of universal damage, which means that it is indicated a valid way and an effective way to overcome it; which we will try to justify further – in compliance with all the generally recognized requirements of logic and scientific discourse, interpreted in the key of the coherent understanding of truth prevailing in modern epistemology, and not the correspondent one, about a certain weakness of which was mentioned above.

However, first of all, one fundamental remark and explanation should be made, because the reader who adheres to materialistic, atheistic, evolutionary and scientist ideas may be puzzled and even indignant – why a theological discourse appears in the article. This reaction is explained precisely by the materialistic and atheistic ideological orientation of its bearer. Science, in itself, as a kind of cultural activity and a form of social consciousness, is ideologically neutral, due to its instrumental nature. This is what is discussed in the famous and strange, at first glance, statement by M. Heidegger that "science does not think", i.e. it does not pose metaphysical and ideological questions, as going beyond its competence and heuristic field.

It is possible to argue that the phrase "scientific worldview" is an oxymoron, because science cannot be a worldview, or the latter cannot be scientific; it may well be scientist or anti-scientist, for example, but it cannot be scientific or unscientific. And all epistemologists and methodologists of science will agree with this, unless they violate the law of identity and identify science as a form of social intellectual activity, on the one hand, and scientism as a certain worldview, on the other hand ^[3].

If the reader adheres to the ideological orientation opposite to materialism, atheism and scientism, then when a theological discourse appears in a scientific study, he is not at all surprised and does not object, despite the fact – to the surprise of his opponent – that he is a representative of the scientific community. So, for example, would not be surprised by this discourse, – not just scientists, – but the founding fathers of the science of the New, and therefore of Modern times (modern science), outstanding representatives of strict mathematical and natural science knowledge N. Copernicus and G. Galileo, I. Newton and I. Kepler, B. Pascal and L. Euler, A. Ampere and M. Faraday, W. Herschel and T. Edison, R. Brown and L. Pasteur, M. Born and A. Becquerel and many others.

In addition, we note that theology has recently become a scientific discipline, and only – again – this causes a vivid and furious disagreement among the representatives of scientism (for the reason that their scientism is primarily due to atheism, and not vice versa) their opponents have no violations of the intellectual-scientific genre they don't see it here.

It is clear that theology cannot be considered a science in an era that is ideologically and politically oriented in a secular or secular way; but in a post-secular era, nothing prevents theology from being a humanitarian scientific discipline, and one of their fundamental mental characteristics of modernity is, admittedly, post-secularism, in the semantic coordinates of which there are heuristic possibilities of theological and extra-theological discourse they are at least in the ratio of 1:1; that is, the religious explanation of the world and man is no less reasonable, coherent, satisfactory and convincing than the opposite one ^{[4, 5]}.

Or, dear reader, do you have irrefutable evidence in favor of the fact that the supernatural world in its personal understanding does not exist, that the human soul is mortal as well as the body, and the gospel events have only a cultural and historical dimension and not an ontological one? Whether we want it or not, we all have to admit that materialistic-atheistic statements, as well as the opposite of them, cannot be confirmed or refuted.

4. Two worlds, or the concept of alterismEvolutionism is one of the ideological satellites of materialism and atheism, and creationism is a satellite of theism.

Evolutionism is an important element of natural history, while one of the foundations of Sacred history is creationism. Natural history extends from the Big Bang to the present state of the universe, Sacred history – from the Creation of the world to the completion of earthly history and the eternal Kingdom of God. How do these two stories relate?

From the point of view of materialism and atheism, they do not correlate in any way, because natural history is a reality, or reality, and Sacred history is a human fiction, myth, fantasy, at best – a "beautiful fairy tale". It is clear that it is impossible to confirm or refute such a representation, because for this it is necessary to know the answer to the most fundamental question – what is reality, which (the answer) no one knows. From the theistic standpoint, both natural history and Sacred history are a reality, and Sacred History is a reality of the first order, and natural history of the second, because it is derived from it. Let us again turn to the picky and, possibly, disagreeing reader with this view with the question – does he have any possibilities and options for refuting this statement?

Let us also pay attention here to the fact that if Sacred history and natural history have an ontological status, then they relate as a straight line and a segment lying on it. Such an analogy seems quite illustrative, accurate, vivid and clear – as the length of any segment lying on a straight line is zero compared to the "length" of this straight line, so the time intervals of natural history are zero compared to the "time intervals" of Sacred History. In other words, the events of natural history and Sacred history are incomparable and incomparable in terms of temporal, spatial and other characteristics, because they relate to different "worlds", "dimensions", "initial conditions", "basic principles", "initial parameters", etc., which is why any statements are completely groundless about inconsistencies, discrepancies, contradictions, and even antagonism of religious ideas and scientific theories.

Arguments about the incompatibility and inconsistency of religious and scientific ideas, for example, about the origin of the world and man, have been reproduced with enviable constancy for centuries. This incompatibility and inconsistency is imaginary, but – either involuntarily or intentionally – is emphasized and cultivated ... by representatives of materialism, atheism, scientism, evolutionism and anthropovolutarianism; while their opponents emphasize this very imaginary and proceed from it. How?

The beginning of Sacred history is God's creation of the invisible, angelic and visible world – material, corporeal, physical. Was the material world created by God what it is now, how we perceive and study it now with the help of the scientific method? No, it wasn't, because it was completely different – perfect: the properties of the matter of the created world are incomparable with the material content and the state of reality surrounding us today. The matter of the created world was imperishable, immortal, unchangeable, was beyond degradation, self–organization, evolution and, possibly, beyond space and time in our current understanding of them; hostility, aggression, fear, mutual eating (trophic chains), competition, struggle for existence, natural selection, etc. were alien to that nature. And just as perfect – immortal, painless, dispassionate – was the man created by God. A perfect man in a perfect world is the result of Divine creation.

It is clear that with no cognitive natural efforts and scientific capabilities we will not even be able to look into the state of the material world and the person in it, which is inaccessible to us now and incomprehensible to us now. Today we are dealing with a completely different world and with another person, and this other world and another person are just the object of studying the sciences – natural and socio-humanitarian. Where has that first perfect world and man gone from creation, that amazing state of material or bodily physical objects, the smallest part of which is an unattainable ideal of the possibilities of modern science, technology, technology and completely amazes our natural imagination?

This world and this man were lost as a result of the event of Sacred history following the creation of man – the fall of man, which is a grand catastrophe that became the watershed between the created world and the present world and marked the beginning of natural history ^[6]. The fall was not only the cause of infinite damage to human nature and man's falling away from God, but also the cause of global damage and change of the entire material world entrusted by the Lord to man in care. Through the fall, man became morbid, passionate, unhappy, infirm, mortal, and death, degradation, destruction, enmity, aggression, mutual eating and "the origin of species by natural selection" also entered the state of the once flawless material world.

Traditionally, in literature, the Creation of the world as an event of Sacred history is compared with the Big Bang – an event of natural history. "The idea of the birth of the world "from a point" in the fiery inferno of Big Bang," says the famous Russian nuclear physicist V.S. Barashenkov, "found recognition among scientists far from immediately. She was greeted with enthusiasm only by the Catholic Church, which announced the new theory as a scientific confirmation of the biblical myth of the creation of the world. I once had to see an article in a popular American magazine that said literally the following: "When, with great difficulty, scientists rose to the top of knowledge about the universe, they were surprised to meet the theologians who had been waiting for them there for a long time." A rare article or book devoted to the religious interpretation of modern science (and there are many such publications abroad) did without references to the Big Bang theory at that time" ^{[7, p. 106]}.

However, if the Creation of the world is compared with the Big Bang, it turns out that Sacred history and natural history begin "simultaneously", and we said above that natural history is most likely a small part of Sacred history, correlates with it as a segment lying on a straight line, begins in it and – through it – in a certain moment, and this moment is the fall of man. In other words, the Big Bang as the beginning of natural history can and should be compared not with the Creation of the world, but with the fall of man.

In this case, a decisive objection immediately arises and a "natural" question arises – billions of years pass from the Big Bang to the appearance of man in natural history, and from the person who has not fallen to the fallen in Sacred history – an instant, i.e. do we not identify billions of years with an instant with such a view? We identify – and in a completely justified way – if natural history is a segment lying on a straight line, which is Sacred History, and the length of any segment in comparison with the straight line is zero, then billions of years from the birth of the universe to the appearance of man may well be equal to a moment from the fallen to the fallen man.

Let us emphasize once again that with such a view, firstly, all the statements of supporters of materialism, atheism and scientism about the discrepancy between religious and scientific worldviews lose their foundations, and, secondly, the need for reconciliation, synthesis, harmonization, mutual foundation of religious ideas and scientific ideas disappears, as proponents of the harmonization of evolutionism and scientific ideas say. creationism ^[8].  

So, the beginning of Sacred history, which is the object of understanding religion, but not science, is the creation by God of a perfect world and in it – a perfect man. This perfection of the world and man was destroyed and lost by the fall of man, from which natural history begins, which is the object of study of science, but not religion. Just as science does not raise questions about the specifics of the material state of the world and man before the fall, since they are under the jurisdiction of religious thinking, so religion does not deal with the material structure of nature after the fall, because they constitute the content of scientific search and research. The famous words of G. Galileo that "The Bible teaches us not how the sky is arranged, but how to ascend to heaven" intersect quite closely with these statements.

The concept of two incompatible and incomparable material worlds – pre–cataclysmic and post-cataclysmic (before and after the fall) finds its definite justification in the simultaneous appeal to the beginning of Sacred history and to the end of natural history: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth," says the book of Genesis (Gen. 1:1); "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth...," says the Revelation of John the Theologian. (Rev. 21:1). Is the Heaven and Earth, from which the Sacred History begins, the same heaven and earth that now surround us, i.e., the physical world to which we are too accustomed and consider it the only one that exists? Apparently, they are not. And what can represent those new Heaven and Earth, the appearance of which ends natural history? It is possible that there is a new material world, which in its properties is not comparable with our current world, but is similar to the perfect world that existed from creation to the fall.

Here one can see the Hegelian triad and the negation of negation: the world after the fall is the negation of the world from creation, and the new world coming at the end of time to replace the present one is its negation. Only, perhaps, it would be more correct to speak not about the Hegelian negation of negation, but about the triad of Sacred history, which, apparently, inspired the German thinker to the triadic construction of a universal philosophical system.

The considered concept of two worlds – before and after the fall – is also known as alterism (Latin alter – other, other) – the material world and the person in it were originally different, not what they are now, and the current state of both man and the world is the result of the fall. According to the famous Russian paleontologist A.V. Gomankov, "the term 'alterism'...allows us to combine many views based on the book by Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko) "The Theory of the Disintegration of the Universe and the Faith of the Fathers", which is based on a course of lectures delivered by His Eminence at the Moscow Theological Academy in 1994" ^{[9, 10]}.

5. The fallen Man: who is to blame, and what to do?Returning to the main subject of our research – universal generic damage, which has no intelligible explanation in the semantic coordinates of secular or secular consciousness, we note that its (damage) cause is clearly visible from the standpoint of the Christian understanding of human nature, which, being originally – from creation – flawless and perfect, has changed a lot, deteriorated, it was damaged by the fall of man, which was the result of a destructive and self-destructive choice of free human will.

In the context of such an anthropological view, the persistent self-mutilation characteristic of all of us becomes understandable without causing surprise, bewilderment and indignation. The once perfect man ceased to be such, becoming, on the contrary, amenable to sin, i.e., to harm and damage himself, because sin is nothing but spiritual self–mutilation. When a person inflicts physical wounds on himself, we consider him abnormal, sending him to compulsory treatment, but when he inflicts spiritual wounds on himself with various sins, this is quite normal for us, because this kind of self-mutilation, most often without even noticing it, is engaged in, to one degree or another, each of us; from which means that we are all sick and need a Doctor and treatment.

It is noteworthy that the supporters of the secular worldview will find the last statement at least "far-fetched", and for the most part they will consider it "obscurantism", while continuing to inflict spiritual wounds on themselves, remain unhappy and live a meaningless life ending in absolute zero non-existence.

The totality of materialistic and atheistic, as well as secular, ideas about the world and human life is an inverted system of Christian views; and also – and vice versa. For the secular consciousness, the world around us and man as he is now is something completely natural, and for the religious consciousness it is unnatural, because the natural state of the world and man is the one that was before the catastrophe of the fall.

To be mortal is natural and necessary, and to be immortal is unnatural and impossible, – the materialist and atheist asserts; his opponent proceeds from the opposite, – to be mortal is unnatural, and immortal is natural. Surprisingly, the second position is more logical than the first: agreeing with Parmenides that there is existence, there is no non–existence, it is impossible not to admit that when we assert that our current existence will turn into non–existence, then, in accordance with logical laws, we must assume that what is happening to us now is this is already non–existence, or, on the contrary, that in the end we are not waiting for non-existence, namely being. Otherwise, we violate both the law of identity and the law of contradiction.

Let us note that when an atheistic person says that he, for example, loves children, it would be absolutely consistent and logical for him, because of this love, to decide never to give birth to children, because, according to his worldview, a child is born not for eternal life, but for eternal death (a moment of life – no matter how long it is – and then endless death). From the point of view of a Christian, on the contrary, love of children and childbearing are not just possible, but also encouraged, because, according to the Christian worldview, a child is born not for eternal death, but for eternal life, the seed of which is sown in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, which is not a custom, tradition, cultural and historical practice, and, – without exaggeration, – the divine service of maternal happiness ^[11].

As we can see, Occam's razor, which works well in the immanent field of scientific research, becomes not just useless, but dangerous and even suicidal in the transcendent sphere of searching for answers to life-meaning questions: by cutting off the supernatural world in his personal understanding, a person loses the opportunity to answer questions,

           "... what should we do with the rosy dawn

Above the cooling skies,

Where is the silence and unearthly peace,

What should we do with immortal poems?

Neither to eat, nor to drink, nor to kiss..." (N. Gumilev)

Continuing the poet, we can continue – what should we do with our weaknesses, passions, vices, sins, longing, despondency, sorrows, sorrows, unrealizable desires, unfulfilled dreams, unattainable expectations – with our very life, and, most importantly, with our death? To answer these questions, it is necessary to apply Occam's razor... Occam's razor, i.e. to cut off the cutting and multiply the entities, but not beyond necessity, but according to the most acute metaphysical necessity. And one of the manifestations of this necessity is the requirement of a clear understanding of the cause of the fundamental, or "systemic" damage to our nature.

So, secular consciousness, "processed" by Occam's razor, cannot satisfactorily explain the above phenomenon, while within the framework of the Christian worldview position, a well-defined answer to the question is given, followed by an equally clear indication of what to do with the current state of things. The cause of the current imperfect, corrupted, darkened, feeble, vicious, passionate, painful and mortal state of human nature is the universal damage caused by the fall, which is its consequence and has weighed on man and humanity throughout natural history.

In the light of the numerous examples and situations given at the beginning of the article, as well as as a result of close observation of oneself and one's own life, probably any reader, including those who are completely secular-minded or not religiously oriented, will not deny the fact of universal human damage, which, among other things, is also manifested in the fact that each of us can catch ourselves on the following thought – what I need to do and what I would like to do – useful, necessary, important, good for me – for some reason I don't do, but what I don't need to do, what I don't I want to do – in some incomprehensible way -I do, which means that there is clearly something wrong with me. Tell me honestly, dear reader, do you recognize yourself in these words? And do you know who this idea belongs to, expressed two millennia ago, but extremely modern and relevant, because it characterizes any of us with amazing accuracy? It belongs to the Apostle Paul: "I don't do the good I want, but I do the evil I don't want. If I do what I don't want to do, it's no longer me who does it, but the sin that lives in me...I am a poor man!" (Rom. 7:19-24).

What should we do with ourselves and our lives? The secular and secular answer to this question is to do nothing, to live your life without understanding anything about yourself and without changing anything about yourself, and to disappear forever into oblivion. In this case, the secular consciousness can be offered a completely natural and equally secular question – if each of us disappears irrevocably, and then the whole of humanity, according to evolutionary laws, will cease to exist as one of the biological species, and our planet and the Solar System will die someday, and even the universe, according to some according to physical and cosmological forecasts, it will collapse in a gravitational collapse, then what is the meaning of everything that happens to humanity and every person? Is not everything that exists being nullified and meaningless in connection with the inevitable impending non-existence for everything and for everyone? In the face of such questioning, the secular consciousness becomes completely confused and gets into an obvious dead end, being unable to invent anything other than a positivist refusal to search for answers to metaphysical questions as "meaningless".

The Christian teaching answers the question of what to do in a completely different way. Religion (Latin re-ligare) is therefore the restoration of a lost connection, or the return of the prodigal son, because a person has a gracious chance, given to him by the Lord God, of correcting, healing, transforming his fallen nature, restoring it to its original, perfect - from creation – state. Not only the original, flawless, painless, immortal, happy man, but also – the primordial perfect bodily or material world has not been lost by us hopelessly and irrevocably – through the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, His earthly life, His death on the Cross and His Holy Resurrection three days ago, through our repentance, correction of our life and sticking to Him, communing with Him, we can at the end of time find our renewed and incorruptible bodies and then inherit that very new Heaven and new Earth, good immortality, the eternal Kingdom of God.

6. "Don't cut the branch you're sitting on"In the semantic field of the Christian worldview, every person has all the possibilities, means and tools of salvation – good immortality, eternal life and endless happiness.

These opportunities are sincere Orthodox faith and its confession, the desire to follow the will of God and the fulfillment of His commandments, participation in the sacraments of the Holy Church.

The problem of secular consciousness is that it, as a rule, takes the call to follow religious commandments extremely negatively, because it deeply mistakenly evaluates them as a system of gloomy prohibitions, while the commandments are nothing but a system of good warnings. This kind of delusion is the result, strange as it may sound at first glance, of religious ignorance and, consequently, religious illiteracy. The latter concept may seem particularly strange, but, again, only from the standpoint of atheism and scientism, whose representatives, following the secular tradition of Modern times, do not recognize any other enlightenment than scientific enlightenment, while it (enlightenment) can, to no lesser extent, be, for example, artistic philosophical, religious; moreover, all possible types of enlightenment are not limited to this list.

Just as there is, for example, legal illiteracy, economic, technical and some other, it is possible, with no less grounds, to talk about religious illiteracy, which is expressed and exists in the form of a complete ignorance of the basic principles, provisions, foundations of religious teaching and consciousness, as already mentioned, – Christian, – as a result of which he does not understand by religion the ideas that it really asserts, but their distorted and caricatured representations and interpretations, which he drew from materialistic, atheistic and scientist sources that have nothing to do with religiosity as such.

One of the reasons for such illiteracy is, apparently, the legacy of the secular era, understood not only as several decades of Soviet scientific atheism, but also more broadly as several centuries of increasing godlessness of Modern times; and one of the manifestations of this illiteracy is the perception of religious commandments as a system of gloomy prohibitions that do not give a person "to live by your own stupid will" (F.M. Dostoevsky).

For a secular person, or far from religion, you can imagine the main content of the commandments (instructions, advice, recommendations on what to do to a person and what not to do) in the form of an analogy – do not jump from the fifth floor, you will break everything for yourself; do not put your fingers in the socket, because you will be electrocuted; do not go barefoot on broken glass, because you will cut your feet in the blood; do not put your hand in the flames of the fire, because you will be badly burned, etc. If we summarize the above, then the recommendation to follow religious commandments actually means for a person reasonable and kind advice not to commit spiritual self-mutilation (just as one should not commit physical self-mutilation), not cripple and not ruin yourself. It is not forbidden for a person, or you can do whatever he wants – and jump from the fifth floor, and stick your fingers in the socket, and walk barefoot on broken glass, and put your hand in the flames of the fire, but he should not do it, because all actions of this kind are disastrous for him. This is discussed in the words of the Apostle Paul: "Everything is permissible to me, but not everything is useful" (1 Cor. 6:12).

Let's pay attention, any legal code, for example, does not prohibit anything to a person, but only warns him, because by virtue of such a fundamental human property as freedom of will, nothing can be prohibited to a person, but you can only warn him, advise, recommend, suggest. Similarly, religion does not forbid a person anything, but only warns him – do not cut the branch on which you are sitting; do not cut the safety rope on which you are hanging over the abyss; do not make holes in the boat on which you are sailing across the ocean.

7. Self-knowledge, repentance, humilityThe Christian worldview presupposes following both the Old Testament Ten Commandments of Moses, given to him by the Lord God (Exodus 20:2-17; Deut. 5:6-21), and the commandments of the New Testament, or Beatitudes, given to people by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:2-12; Luke 6:20-23).

The Old Testament commandments tell a person what he should do and what he should not do, and the Beatitudes tell him what a person should be for his good or happiness, and not only the future, transcendent, but also the local, earthly, immanent, the Christian understanding of which, as already mentioned, is the opposite of the secular, or secular view of him.

Let us pay attention to the fact that secular happiness is not independent, i.e. it depends on a multitude of incoming or external factors and circumstances of human life, and, consequently, it is impermanent: it exists in a kind of "flickering mode" – that is, it is not – by virtue of which it is not genuine. The happiness granted to a person by the fulfillment of the Beatitudes is autonomous – it does not depend on any external life circumstances, and therefore it is permanent, which means it is genuine, real, valid.

The Ten Commandments relate mainly to the external side of human life, and here it is important that, even observing them, fulfilling all the prescriptions given by them, I can remain in my inner, spiritual state the same as I was before I became guided by them. Perhaps that is why the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament are supplemented by the Beatitudes of the New Testament, the observance of which implies a complete restructuring of the human personality, the change and transformation of a person, his rebirth. And if it is not easy for us to fulfill even the Old Testament commandments, then, all the more, it seems impossible to follow the commandments of the Gospel, because in the first case, a certain action is required of a person, and in the second – a spiritual and moral state: to do or not to do something, I may be somehow with grief in half and I can, but to be or not to be this, and not another, I can't. How can I be poor in spirit (humble), weeping (for my iniquities), meek, hungry and thirsty for the truth, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaker, banished for the sake of the truth, reviled and persecuted for the Lord Jesus Christ, if my actual spiritual disposition is the complete opposite of the state that is assumed by the gospel commandments?

Nevertheless, Christian humanism, infinitely surpassing all possible types of secular humanism, gives a person confidence that the path indicated by the Beatitudes, being narrow, thorny, difficult and complex, is not yet impossible, inaccessible and forever closed for him. Jesus Christ the Son of God Himself offers us to go this way: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way leading to destruction is wide, and many go by it; Because the gate is narrow and the way leading to life is narrow, and few find it" (Matthew 7:13-14). It is clear that in order to follow the path of Christ's commandments, a lot of effort is required from a person: "The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use effort delight it" (Matthew 11:12). But where or from where can an unhappy and weak person get these much-needed and necessary powers?

He cannot draw such powers from himself, because he does not have them, but they can be given to him by the Lord at his request and prayer; however, a sincere prayer request is already a definite and considerable effort for a person. Secular consciousness will point out a vicious circle here: in order to gain strength to follow the path of the Lord's Commandments, one must pray, but in order to sincerely pray, efforts are already required.

Here it can be argued that it is one thing to have the strength to follow the Commandments, another thing is the effort to pray for the gift of such powers. However, a fallen, lost and infirm person, as a rule, has no strength, so the reference of non-religious consciousness to a vicious circle is not groundless.

An expanded version of this circle is assumed in the question of how a person can find faith if he does not have it, but he would like it to be. By itself, he cannot take and believe, real faith is given to a person by the Lord, which means that in order to believe, he can and should ask the Lord God for such a gift, but in order to diligently ask for this in prayer, he already needs to be a believer.

Despite all the above considerations, which, as it may seem to the secular consciousness, indicate the contradictions of the religious worldview, this vicious circle is broken and overcome in its "weak link", which is one of the foundations of the Christian teaching about the world and human life. This link or starting point is repentance, in Greek – metanoia (Greek metanoia). One of the possible translations of this Greek word into Russian is regret for what happened through my fault, or – a change in the way of thinking (Greek meta – change, change and nus – thought, mind, mind). Thus, repentance is the transformation, or transformation of a person, his rebirth, or rebirth of personality, spiritual resurrection, as a result of which he can begin to live a different life, filled with other (usually directly opposite to the former) values and meanings, hopes and expectations, intentions and aspirations, desires and feelings ^[12].

However, how can I feel regret about what happened, otherwise look at what happened, repent and change my way of thinking, if I do not feel any guilt for myself and even, moreover, am quite satisfied with myself? Here we should turn to one inter–worldview, or transdiscursive concept, i.e. – equally familiar and important for both religious and secular, or atheistic consciousness - the concept of conscience. Probably, there is not a single person in the world, regardless of his worldview, to whom remorse and a sense of shame would be completely alien and unknown. Conscience is the very bridge on which it is quite possible to cross from the atheistic ideological shore to the opposite one.

Repentance begins with the voice of conscience and is closely related to such an important human ability as self-knowledge, which everyone who is subject and sane is capable of. It is no coincidence that the famous ancient imperative "know yourself" is relevant for us today no less than two and a half thousand years ago. In this case, self-knowledge means awareness, understanding, vision, discernment by a person of his real, genuine spiritual state. Of course, it is much easier for us to deceive ourselves about the fact that I have not done anything so bad and am quite satisfied with myself; but we also understand well that any of us has the opportunity to carefully and intently look at the location of our heart to see that it is not at all as satisfactory as we usually are, at first or superficial glance, it seems, and – quite unsatisfactorily – much worse, sadder, more miserable than it may seem ^[13].

Probably, everyone once caught himself with surprise, shame and self-loathing on the following: instead of, for example, sincerely rejoicing in the joy of his neighbor, on the contrary, he was upset because of her; and, instead of sincerely being upset by the sadness of his neighbor, on the contrary, he rejoiced at her. Is it possible that someone would not be familiar with such self-discovery, as, for example, it turns out that I am envious, jealous, touchy, proud, vain, angry, merciless, lazy, irritable, ungrateful and malicious? "I was a terrible pig and imagined that I was an angel," says Vasily Pozdnyshev, the main character of L.N. Tolstoy's story "Kreutzer Sonata" in his spontaneous confession ^{[14, p. 200]}. After such discoveries, revelations and insights, the first thing we can do is to be horrified and shudder at our actual spiritual dispensation, and then – to want its correction and transformation.

This kind of experience can be illustrated by the following analogy. Look at the desk you're sitting at and tell me if it's clean. It seems that – clean, – nothing is doused, not stained, not strewn, etc. And now take a white piece of paper or a napkin and rub its surface with force, – to your amazement, there will be, without exaggeration, black spots and stripes on a white piece of paper. Most likely, after that you will be surprised a lot and unpleasantly, and then grab a damp cloth and start washing the desk. The same thing happens in the process of real Christian self–knowledge: at first it seems to me that I am good, but it is worth looking carefully at the state of my soul, as you realize that not only am I not good, but, in fact, I am a scoundrel, the first among sinners. At first, I'm almost the best of everyone, and to look at myself, I'm almost the worst of everyone. At first, when I accuse someone, I say to myself, as a rule, proudly, - I would never do such a thing; but if I honestly think about myself, then with a shudder of the heart you realize that I would have done not only the same as him, but also – much worse.

The result of such self-knowledge and repentance is a special state of grace of the soul, which is called spiritual poverty and is the first among the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20). Spiritual poverty can also be called humility, which is a consequence of a person's understanding of his present deplorable spiritual state – an unclean heart and a clouded mind – as well as the realization that he cannot fix it only by his own efforts, but can – with the gracious help of God.

Humility is the opposite of such secular values as healthy ambitions, a certain pride, moderate vanity, self-respect, self-esteem, etc., which, as we know, are necessary for personal growth. If you think about it, then, even from a secular point of view, following these values willy-nilly leads a person to self-conceit and exaltation of his neighbor, and as a result makes him unhappy. Why unhappy? Because if they praise me, I rejoice, if they criticize me, I get upset, I carefully monitor what they say about me, think about how they evaluate me; it's easy to catch me on flattery, provoke aggression, deceive and confuse me; I strive to be more successful, more successful, higher, – to overtake someone, surpass, what–that is, I am constantly straining and worrying, as well as being offended, judging, envious, jealous, etc. What kind of happiness is there?

If we follow the opposite value orientation – humility, everything turns out the other way around – whether I am praised, criticized, scolded even undeservedly, I do not rejoice and do not get upset; I do not follow what they say about me, think how they evaluate me; I will not be caught flattering, not lead to aggression; I I do not need to be more successful and more successful, I do not strive to overtake someone, surpass and achieve something with the last of my strength, I am alien to self-conceit and exaltation; and this means that I am at least calm and serene. In addition to this, I do not take offense, I do not condemn, I do not envy, I am not jealous, etc. Is not such a human condition happiness, namely, autonomous and permanent?

Now let's go back to what was discussed at the beginning of the article – "party quasi-Nazism" and the segregation of people into "full-fledged" and "incomplete", "right" and "wrong", "understanding everything" and "understanding nothing", which, undoubtedly, is another powerful obstacle on the way a person to happiness, and society to prosperity. 

As already mentioned, each side of any major socio-political conflict suffers from "party quasi-Nazism" and the associated craving for segregation, which can well be recognized as one of the many manifestations of damaged human nature, one of the many universal generic metaphysical, or spiritual diseases.

In the light of the above, it is clear that such a disease fully possesses a secular consciousness, which is alien to the religious value of humility; and it also becomes obvious that the true and effective means of curing and curing this disease, healing a person is precisely Christian self–knowledge, repentance and humility.

How can I consider another person "defective" and "abnormal" if, first of all, I understand very well that I myself am defective and abnormal? How can I think that my opponent is "mistaken" and "does not understand anything" when I am clearly aware that I am mistaken and do not understand anything, and more than anyone else? How can I condemn my neighbor, being myself the first defendant? Will one patient in the hospital criticize and scold another patient in the same hospital for being sick? On the contrary, he will sympathize with him – as a fellow sufferer – and try to support and help. 

And even if I want to somehow correct or correct my neighbor, I know for sure that for this I need, first of all, to correct myself: "And why do you look at the bitches in your brother's eye, but you don't feel the logs in your eye? Or, how will you say to your brother, "Let me take the bitches out of your eye"; and here is a log in your eye? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see how to take the bitches out of your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:3-5). Thus, the fruits of humility are patience, forgiveness, meekness, mercy and generosity.

8. Three stages of the inner state of a personWhat conclusion can be drawn from all this?

A person's attitude to political and social changes and upheavals occurring in crisis epochs can be represented as hierarchically three-part, or three-part. The first level of such an attitude, the simplest or the lowest, can be called emotional, it is precisely on it that a person creates his own or chooses a certain existing picture of socio–humanitarian reality – not on the basis of knowledge about how things really are, but on the basis, as already mentioned, of his the desire (more or less conscious) that everything should be exactly as he wants. At this level, everyone "knows exactly" what the "reality" and "true causes" of events are, and therefore is confident in his "rightness" and in the "impassable stupidity" of the opponent. Here there is a division of people into those who are "for" and those who are "against", who – on both sides – are ready, at least, to argue fiercely, then – to break all ties and part, and, finally, to enmity and destroy each other, i.e. – ideological segregation and "party quasi-Nazism" are fully manifested.

The next level – higher, or "advanced" – can be called theoretical and methodological, there is an understanding that reality is not given to us, and each of its opposing socio-humanitarian pictures has, in fact, nothing to do with it, because it is just an interpretation of the naked and silent facts that successfully fit into each of the possible ways of seeing reality. At this level, there is no longer "party quasi-Nazism", and in its place skepticism appears, understood not as disagreement, denial, overthrow, but as doubt (Greek. sceptikos – doubter) in the truth of all the opposite statements and the following necessity from it, equally, not to assert and not to deny anything. At this level, there is no longer separation and separation, quarrels, conflicts, and enmity, but there is still no unification; if consciousness stays in a secular or secular paradigm, it is still very far from establishing real fraternal relations between people.

Finally, the third and last level, the highest, can be called metaphysical, or religious, or more correctly, Christian. On it, a person becomes aware of his actual spiritual and moral state - spoiled, darkened and damaged – a change and transformation of the personality in repentance and the achievement (or at least an attempt to achieve) humility, which alone can become the basis of an attitude to another, as to himself, but non–secular-philosophical, declarative-hypocritical, and – sincere, genuine, evangelical, which is not acquired by purely human efforts, but is a gift from God, acquired not by everyone, but by those who truly seek it; in which Christian providentialism manifests itself, opposing both materialistic anthropovolutarianism and pantheistic fatalism. At this level, there is a metaphysical, or transcendent, and, as a consequence, a "physical", or immanent real unification of people into a blessed brotherhood, a person becomes really happy, and society becomes prosperous; where one for all, and all for one ... what are they doing? – they are praying!

Let us pay attention to the fact that the Holy Scripture, being theocentric and anthropocentric, seems to be completely out of social, i.e. we will not find in the books of the Old and especially the New Testament ideas, arguments, projects related to social structure and reconstruction. However, this view is again completely secular-positivist, where metaphysical reality is deprived of its ontological status; and this is an arbitrary choice of materialistic and atheistic consciousness, whose basic attitudes cannot, by definition, be confirmed or refuted.

A view from the position opposite to materialistic positivism leads to completely different conclusions: the social content of Christian teaching can be seen if one abandons the cultural-historical, and not the ontological perception of the ideas and events of Holy Scripture.  The change and transformation of a person on the basis of repentant self–knowledge and the acquisition of humility is not only a providential, anthropological and existential event, but also, to no lesser extent, a social one, since a new person presupposes a new society, personal change is the basis of social transformation. This is discussed in the famous words of St. Seraphim of Sarov: "Acquire the spirit of peace, and then thousands of souls will be saved around you"; and Saint Maxim the Confessor says about this, that "a person can turn the whole earth into paradise only when he carries paradise in himself."

Here we note that the idea of personal change as the basis of social transformations, being religious, is also partly non-religious, at least it is understandable to the secular consciousness and is fully perceived and shared by it. However, this idea also has a purely religious, providential-mystical dimension and content. Let us recall the repentance of all, led by the ruler, the inhabitants of the Old Testament city of Nineveh, filled with their sins and iniquities. The prophet Jonah, by the command of God, preached in this city, saying, "Forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed!" (John 3:3-4). Jonah thought that his sermon would cause only evil ridicule and bitter insults to the sinful inhabitants, but, to his surprise, the Ninevites believed the prophet and were horrified at their future fate. They declared a fast, began to repent, and even the king, along with everyone, "dressed in sackcloth and sat down on the ashes," proclaiming, "that neither people, nor cattle, nor oxen, nor sheep should eat anything, go to pasture, and drink water, and that people and cattle should be covered with sackcloth and they cried out loudly to God, and that everyone should turn from his evil way and from the violence of his hands. Who knows, maybe God will have mercy again and turn away His burning anger from us, and we will not perish" (John 3:5-9). The whole city was plunged into penitent weeping before the Lord, begging Him for mercy for sinners who turn away from their iniquities. Nineveh was pardoned – universal repentance saved the inhabitants from an imminent, it seemed, humanitarian catastrophe; what is this but a clearly, clearly and vividly expressed immanent social result of transcendent providential events? ^[15]

Is the story of repentance and salvation of the inhabitants of Nineveh a myth, a cultural and historical phenomenon? Has anything like this ever happened in the history of the Ancient World? Is it someone, sometime, somehow reliably established (which did not happen)? Is there any definite evidence about this (what has been established)? These questions are addressed to a representative of, of course, secular consciousness – a "modern", "sane", "rationally oriented" person, accustomed to relying on "firmly established facts", on which science also "firmly relies", and relying on "heuristic possibilities of the scientific method". To all these questions, he may, to his great regret, be forced to answer in the negative.

In this case, our opponent will most likely object that it is necessary to prove the existence of events, not their absence; and this thesis will be a special case of the well-known statement that the burden of proof lies on the supporters of the idea of the existence of something, and not on those who claim the opposite – the non-existence of the same. This position proceeds from the extreme asymmetry of verification and falsification of the existence and non–existence of objects, phenomena, events, etc. For example, in order to verify the idea of the existence of black swans, only one object is sufficient (i.e., the presentation of one black swan); in order to falsify this idea, an infinite number of objects should be covered, or - exhaust all possible worlds, which is impossible. Similarly, in order to verify the idea of the non-existence of black swans, it is necessary to exhaust the inexhaustible, and to falsify it, it is enough to present a single object. However, with all the justice of such statements, as a rule, it is overlooked that they relate entirely to the natural world and are completely inapplicable to the supernatural or transcendent, which, by the way, also applies to the famous Russell teapot as a "convincing" atheistic argument. It turns out that if we are talking about objects of the supernatural world, then this asymmetry gives way to complete symmetry, and the parties to the discussion, according to their ideas, should equally prove both the existence and non–existence of these objects, or they should not prove either one or the other.

Thus, it is from an extra–religious, secular point of view that the reliability of the two opposite interpretations of Nineveh's repentance – as historical fiction and as historical reality - correlate as 1:1. And if there is such a large – fifty percent – probability that everything can be not only as it appears in the materialistic-atheistic paradigm, but also, equally, in the theistic-providential one, then one quite fair question arises. Why shouldn't we try, in order to change our own life and public well–being for the better, to go the second way, because all the possibilities of the first have been realized, tried and completely exhausted a long time ago? For several tens of centuries of hard work of socio-philosophical thought, countless attempts at social constructions and reconstructions, reforms, revolutions, wars and uprisings, nothing has really changed – today, as many times before, a person is desperately suffering, and society is in poverty, and no one knows what to do with all this to do ^[16].

Is it not possible to go the second way –personal and collective repentance–to follow the example of the pardoned Ninevites? Universal repentance would undoubtedly save us from those conflicts, shocks and horrors that now fill (and filled earlier) the life of mankind, the famous Russian thinker, Professor of theology A.I. Osipov is convinced ^[17]. A materialist and an idealist may sneer about the effectiveness of such a proposal, but the important thing is that no one has ever tried to do this. In the history of society, for the harmonization of social life, they have tried anything, but they have never tried to bring collective repentance, therefore, it is impossible to talk about the possible effectiveness or futility of such a path without empirical confirmation or refutation of both; and it is for the experimental confirmation or refutation of ideas that the secular and scientist-minded consciousness. Why, then, does it so resolutely reject the possibility of checking this advice – in conditions when all other methods and recommendations have long since failed?

So a person's three–part attitude to large-scale social crisis phenomena presupposes the first, emotional level, at which "party quasi-Nazism" and personal segregation inevitably appear - "I know and understand exactly what is really happening, but my opponent does not know and does not understand or refuses to understand, and therefore he is either an idiot or the scoundrel"; the second, theoretical and methodological level - "no one knows anything and cannot know, and therefore one should refrain from any statements and denials – as equivalent in their plausibility"; and the third, last, metaphysical, Christian level – "Lord, forgive us the darkened, unworthy, cursed Have mercy on us sinners!"

Due to the presence of such a fundamental, obligatory, integral, human–forming attribute or property as freedom of will, all subject representatives of humanity have the opportunity to rise or grow – for their own good and in their own interests - from the first level to the third; and this opportunity for each of us always remains open.