Is morality independent of religion possible? Old Testament: is morality possible without religion

Sevak Mirabyan

Reading the Old Testament is hard. In addition to the temporary, cultural and mental barrier modern man with his ideas of tolerance, freedom and rights, one may rightly be perplexed that the attitude of God towards His chosen people, at least on the pages of the Pentateuch, is not much different from the relationship of a tyrant to his trembling slaves. Attention is attracted not so much by the hopelessly stupid and ungrateful behavior of people (which has been unchanged at all times), but by the inexplicably jealous authoritarianism of God himself and this “passionate” desire to mess with people. It is formulated in the first four commandments, where God regulates the relationship of man with Himself. The remaining six commandments are, so to speak, the horizon human life, moral and ethical part, attitude towards one's neighbors.

The practical validity of the 5th - 10th commandments is obvious to everyone sane person. After all, no one, being in a sober mind and solid memory, would wish for himself and his loved ones to violate these unshakable laws. You don't even need to be a believer to do this. But, as regards the first part of the Decalogue (the Decalogue), here for many people of our time the need for its observance does not seem so obvious. In short, it all comes down to simple question: why believe and worship God or deities when you can be a good man? That is, to observe these same commandments (from 5 to 10) without any ceremonies and rituals?

The fact is that such a formulation of the question in those dilapidated times was simply impossible. We live in the New Testament time and it just so happened that Christianity has now lost social processes out of its hands, but the very ethical and moral standards of society have as their content the Christian understanding of man as an intrinsically valuable, unique (unlike all other creatures) being, as an image God in your freedom and creativity. From here follows the very possibility of speaking about a person's right to freedom in his religious, social and other spheres of life, but only with the difference that God is no longer needed in principle. This idea originates from the Enlightenment and was subsequently developed vividly and intensively by the French Enlightenment in modern times. This is a big separate story.

As for the Old Testament, in the public consciousness of that time, morality was identical to religion. Non-religious morality did not exist, because there was not a single society without religion. It was she who formed and regulated almost all aspects of the life of an ancient person. And in order to understand the radicalism and authoritarianism and, at the same time, the uniqueness of the Mosaic tablets, you just need to be aware that the mental attitude of that time said that what God (s) is, such is morality. All moral prohibitions concerning immoral behavior people, be it human sacrifices, sexual perversions, manifestations of inhuman cruelty and any injustice, are prohibited by the God of the Old Testament with reference to His Holiness And unacceptable in His eyes such behavior. Almost everywhere a ban on anything ends with the words " for I am the Lord" (Leviticus 19:3,10,12,14,18), and " be holy because I am holy» (Leviticus 11:45). For the peoples surrounding Israel, in their minds, the gods are those forces (almost always faceless) with which you need to make a deal for whatever your goals through various rituals. These rituals included absolutely wild things from the point of view of a modern person: human sacrifices, temple prostitution, including male prostitution (ritual deprivation of innocence of girls who have reached marriageable age), pedophilia, homosexuality and ritual copulation with animals. These seemingly terrible customs were accepted by the peoples of Canaan as the norm. Because they relied on the moral image of their own deities (Baal, Astarte, Moloch). And God frankly warns His people that if they behave like this, He will destroy them in the same way (Leviticus 20:23). In this context, the religion of Israel had two unique features:

The only transcendental God is the living God, the Creator, the Personality. His existence is not conditioned by anyone or anything. There are no gods and goddesses preceding and accompanying Him, eternal matters, etc. He is absolutely free and independent and has full power over the universe.

He is the God of all righteousness, justice, mercy and truth.

A very simple conclusion follows from these two points, which for its time was a real religious know-how: pleasing God, worship and worship of God is, first of all, a way of life in accordance with moral requirements. External rituals, which are also determined by God, are secondary in relation to the requirements of morality and morality. In other words, in the eyes of the God of Israel, beautiful and arbitrarily magnificent rituals and numerous sacrifices look almost blasphemy if there is no elementary justice, mercy and humanity (Isaiah, ch. 1). For the pagan consciousness, the question of morality was not in principle, moral and moral was what was acceptable to achieve goals, as individuals and any organized community. The whole question rested only on the availability of funds and opportunities for the implementation of their plans. All the functions of the gods and the meaning of their existence, one way or another, came down to providing such opportunities, through their ritual coaxing by a person.

Only taking into account these factors can one understand why the Old Testament God sanctioned all His requirements, their authority and significance, proceeding from Himself, His holiness. Only He is the absolute, imperishable, the only true criterion and measure of goodness. The presence and recognition of other gods is considered as an alternative, impossible for worshipers of a single true God. There is no one above Him who could determine the boundary between good and evil. Anyone who tries to do this will inevitably fail and be punished. Such is the harsh truth of those harsh times. And in our time, the issue of criteria and boundaries of what is permitted is no less relevant than 1300 years ago. It can be said that our civilization still consoles itself with thoughts of a self-sufficient and autonomous right to determine the boundaries of humanity, without correlation with the Highest principle of goodness. But how legitimate and, in the end, safe, this was well shown in the 20th century.

Religion and Morality

From the book of Ivan Andreev"Orthodox Apologetics" published in the series"Spiritual heritage of the Russian diaspora" issued Sretensky Monastery in 2006

For a deeper understanding of the essence of religion, it is necessary to explain its relation to other aspects of the spiritual life of man. It is most important to understand the relation of religion to morality, to science and to art.

The first and most important relationship between religion and morality is that of their inalienable interaction.

Religion and morality are closely linked. Religion is impossible without morality, and morality is impossible without religion. Faith without works is dead. Only demons believe with such faith (they believe and tremble). True faith (living, not dead) cannot exist without good deeds. Just as a naturally fragrant flower cannot but be fragrant, so true faith cannot but bear witness to good morality. In turn, morality without a religious foundation and without religious light cannot exist and will certainly wither, like a plant deprived of roots, moisture and sun. Religion without morality is like a barren fig tree; morality without religion is like a cut down fig tree.

The close and inextricable relationship between religion and morality, however, does not mean that they are identical. In order to understand this, it is necessary, in addition to the mutual connection, to show their difference.

Many even eminent philosophers did not understand this distinction. So, for example, I. Kant argued: “Religion, in terms of matter or object, is no different from morality, because common subject both constitute moral obligations; the difference between religion and morality is only formal” (“The Dispute of the Faculties”, 1798).

This formal difference consists, according to Kant, in the fact that religion encourages us to look at our moral obligations not just as a requirement of moral duty, but as Divine commandments.

The views according to which the most essential thing in religion relates to morality, and everything else only to form, were expressed long ago. This is essentially the teaching of Buddha and Confucius. In ancient Greek philosophy, the Stoics considered morality superior to religion. Identified religion with morality and L. Tolstoy.

In order to understand the difference between religious and moral feeling, one should pay attention to the psychology of these experiences and to the difference in their objects. The moral feeling is characterized by a striving for the morally good; the religious feeling, on the other hand, is towards the infinite, perfect in all respects, towards the absolute. The goal of the first is to satisfy the demand of moral duty and strive for moral perfection, the goal of the second is to unite with God.

“Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

“Every plant that my Heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted” (Matthew 15:13).

“I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6).

Thus there is the same relationship between religion and morality as there is between life and action. No activity is possible without life. Religion gives life. And only under the condition of this life is moral activity possible.

Only in God can there be life. Without God, life becomes dying.

The article is devoted philosophical reflection concepts of morality and religion to explain their main goals. The relevance of these concepts in modern society. Identification of the area of intersection of these concepts. Found new approach to solve an old problem.

On the relationship between fundamental and applied research
Problems of the development of sexual culture and morality of society
Anthropological and legal aspects of understanding freedom

In the 21st century, discussions about the mutual influence of morality and religion are not as rare as they used to be, but now they are taking on a new, sharper form in connection with rapidly changing moral norms.

Is the mutual influence of religion on morality possible, or vice versa, and is it possible for these two concepts to exist separately from each other? To answer these questions, we first need to clarify the basic concepts. After all, "religion" and "morality" are not such unambiguous concepts as it might seem at first glance.

Consider the concept of "morality". Man, like other creatures, has instincts, but it is man who has morality, this distinguishes him from the "animal". There is much in common between morality and instinct, since they are programs designed to ensure the effectiveness of action in certain world. But, unlike instinct, which is innate, morality is formed directly in the process social interaction. Here, the requirement to measure and coordinate one's will and actions with the will and actions of others limits a person from the outside, creating a kind of closed territory of relative freedom, and the internalization of rules and principles of behavior structures and defines this territory from the inside. Therefore, just as instincts constitute an animal, internalized rules of behavior - morality - constitute a person. By this we want to say that the human "I" is outlined only to the extent that it is built into a certain social - and therefore moral - system. When we are interested in a person in the fullness of his being, we ask precisely about his moral character, and it is they who determine what it is in the first place. We can give a person the names of his social incarnations - "accountant", "father", "democrat", "Frenchman", "Protestant" - but none of them names him himself. A person deprived of moral coordinates is impersonal for us, it is simple function from the group, abstraction.

Why is it possible to formulate a moral judgment about a person? Because a person performs actions on his own behalf, and not on behalf of the 5th kind, and, as a result, his action is always directed at the Other. When accusing someone of murder, we do not accuse all of humanity along with him, considering someone a victim, we, at the same time, do not consider all people to be victims in general.

Based on the foregoing, a conclusion can be drawn. They defined morality as a set of principles and behavioral skills internalized in the process of socialization in society. At the same time, a moral act, as an act in relation to another, is possible only under the condition of the freedom of the subject - his ability to become the Other in relation to himself. This means that automatic observance of the moral law is not enough for the formation of a moral subject; it is necessary to freely affirm the latter as a subjective truth.

Now it is worth considering the following concept. Religion is perceived as one of the worldview systems. “But what is faith? And why do people believe what they believe? Among the majority of people of the modern cultural crowd, it is considered a decisive issue that the essence of any religion consists in the personification that has come from a superstitious fear of incomprehensible phenomena of nature, the deification of these forces of nature and worship them. When a person belongs to a religion, one can call him religious. But what exactly does it mean for a person to “be religious?”

The most important element of absolutely any religion is belief in some supersensitive reality. When these ideas are superimposed on the reality that surrounds a person, a completely new picture of the world is produced, which in turn is able to completely determine the life of a believer. Why completely?, because in this case religion means a holistic and complete worldview that does not leave existential "holes" in a person's being. The world in this case is affirmed through faith and is different from the world of “things”, where a person, in principle, does not find himself, because he is not a thing. The religious world is the world of people, which is arranged differently from the world that is being studied natural sciences. In this world, the laws concern what is connected with the specifically human in our being. This world has to do with things that are associated with "soul", "spirit" and others. They are called upon to review a certain redundancy of man in comparison with other living beings.

Religious faith presupposes a certain ontology, that is, the world in which a Muslim lives is different from the world in which a Christian lives. In order to act in each of the “worlds”, special knowledge is needed, which is not given to everyone, but must be acquired. The books that are present in each of these religions are called sacred and represent a kind of encyclopedia of knowledge. Take, for example, the Bible, which teaches us to act in a world created by God, with established rules. From the biblical ontology, actions follow, the non-observance of which makes a righteous life impossible. In this case, a person himself involuntarily states his own ontology, from which follows the very wrong deed or otherwise a sin.

Three interrelated elements: knowledge of the rules of the world, faith, as the acceptance of a certain ontology, action consistent with the rules. These three components will help us determine a person's religiosity.

Religion, as we found out, is directly related to the life of a person who believes in it, religion is inscribed in everyday practice and shows the content of a person's experiences. "The religious world is always unconditionally reliable, valid for a person" This world presupposes activity and self-improvement.

But here we are faced with such a question: “what does it mean for a person to be happy”? happiness is subjective, deeply personal. It is directly related to our emotions. Happiness presupposes the consonance of certain aspects of human existence. As we know, a person exists in three planes: he is a thing - a part objective world, is a member of a certain social group, and is also in some relation to himself, he is capable of self-reflection. “I am the World”, “I am Others”, “I am Me” is a condition for the fullness of being and happiness.

Thus, the path of the believer is the path of finding harmony, and world religions are unique projects to achieve it.

Exactly at modern world disputes about the influence of morality and religion take on a sharp form, because with the spread of the principle of freedom of conscience, ideas of tolerance and new conditions, a person rethinks and reassesses his role in the world and the norms that regulate the activity of this person.

Religion stops playing leading role in post-industrial society, in which the emphasis is on individual freedom, and religious norms collide with a reality that is changing very quickly.

In religious morality, for example, such a question as, "Is it moral to recognize a person's right to non-traditional sexuality?" finds a negative answer, but in practice it is quite different.

The great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said: “morality is impossible without religion, since the latter is “an established relationship of a person to the world that determines the meaning of his life,” and morality directly follows from this relationship. If you think carefully, then morality forms the very picture of the world of religion.

This also proves historical experience. In ancient China, Confucius, in a conversation with his students, stated: “Do not do to others what you do not want for yourself”, in the ancient Indian epic “Mahabharata” we meet the phrase “Do not do to others what is unpleasant to yourself”, and in the Talmud - “Do not do to another what is hateful to you." With minor changes that do not distort common sense, fundamental principle morality does not belong to one religion, but is the semantic center of each. Outside religion - Golden Rule morality becomes the core of the ethical system.

Any religious system is based on norms, which in turn are a kind of base. To them are added elements of worship and, of course, one's own view of a person's place in the system. Religion is a way of human perception of the world around. If we notice, then the image of God is an ideal representation that combines all the qualities that a person wants to see and acquire.

By the way, every person can call himself a religious person, but does every person observe or at least adhere to all the rules that this or that religion provides? No. In today's world there is a big gap between the theoretical and the acceptance of the need to live according to God's prescription, and the practical.

The reason for this separation is the mismatch of conditions real life and that utopia in which all these norms are observed. Belonging to a religion in modern society is increasingly becoming a kind of screen, but not an internal characteristic. Form, but not content.

Someone is trying to raise the level of morality with the help of religious education. It's certainly good, in a way. But we should remember that the informal identification of oneself with religion and the acceptance of some picture of the world makes a person moral.

Religious morality is an ordered system. It lies beyond the boundaries of religiosity and non-religiosity, it is a spiritual experience accumulated over centuries and centuries. Morality - sympathy, sinlessness in the religious sense, the ability to critically reflect on one's activities and the desire for self-improvement. Religion can serve us as a source of morality. But the most important thing is that where understanding ends in religion, the ability to conduct dialogue and understanding ends, where great attention observance of traditions and paraphernalia - the moral content becomes its opposite.

Religiosity is not synonymous with morality. The determining factor will not be the peculiarities of a person's perception of the world, but how he acts in the context of universal values.

Bibliography

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy - "Religion and Morality"
Martin Buber "Two Images of Faith" 1995.
ancient Chinese philosophy. Collection of texts in two volumes. 1972.
Radhakrishnan S. Indian Philosophy. T. I. 1956.
Brief Jewish Encyclopedia. T. 9. Jerusalem, 1999.
http://reosh.ru/
Religious and social philosophy of N.N. Neplyueva

The impeccable morality that a religious person speaks of includes being stoned for treason? Death for apostasy? Punishment for disrupting Shabbat? All these things based on religion are impeccable morality. I don't think I would like to have that kind of morality. I want a morality based on consciousness, arguments and discussions. One might say, on a reasonable design.

Morality is generally accepted ideas about good and evil, right and wrong, bad and good. According to these ideas, moral norms of human behavior arise. A synonym for morality is morality.

Why are we in such a mess? Everyone has their own answer. For example, some believe that there is no asshole, and everything goes on as usual, and the fall of the economy into hell is a common thing. Others see it as something divine and dangerous. Morality, they say, has become less, so life is getting worse. But if we assume that the last statement is true, then how to raise this very morality? It seems that we are building churches, and priests have begun to sing, and there are more mosques. It seems that the foundation for the moral revival of Russia has long been in place, and the population does not mind either - they were imbued with spirituality and fell in love with wax candles. Why doesn't all this work? Here it is necessary to think in detail, because the question is for the ages.

All people are born with a nose and five fingers on their hand, and not one of them is born with the concept of God.

– Voltaire –

Main question, which is asked by a believing person to an atheist, sounds something like this: “How do you understand where is good and where is evil if you don’t believe in God?”. Firstly, the concept of good and evil is not at all Christian, Islamic or Buddhist values. We observe in antiquity what was considered acceptable and what was wrong. In addition, history shows that even Christian norms have changed dramatically with the passage of time, which destroys the myth of their inviolability. The trial of Galileo, who was accused of "suspecting heresy", was forced to renounce his views, tortured and kept in prison for some time is indicative. Only in 1972 was the verdict of the court annulled, and on October 31, 1992, 359 years after the trial of a prominent scientist, the Pope admitted that the whole process was a mistake and the teachings of Copernicus were true, that is, dogmas are collapsing under the pressure of time and evidence, and even the most ossified organizations have to step back from their own words. Secondly, there is such a wonderful philosophy, life position, which is called humanism or, speaking in Russian, humanity.

Humanism is a progressive life stance that, without the help of a belief in the supernatural, affirms our ability and duty to lead an ethical life for the purpose of self-realization and in an effort to bring a greater good to humanity.

The formation of humanism was preceded by the works of many prominent and brilliant minds: philosophers of antiquity, revivalists, existentialist philosophers and writers of many peoples. This concept has been worked out for centuries outside the church walls and outside the dogmas that in a positive way affected the content. It is the philosophy of humanism that is the main tool in relations with the people of any right-wing state. Of course, this should be the ideal, but the reality is much sadder. But this does not mean that you have to bend under someone's desire to restore that dead structure of society that was alive hundreds of years ago. Now is a different time, the village is decentralized, there is the Internet, which gives us access to almost everything we can wish for in terms of information, there is the ability to think freely and not get punched for it. Being a good person is not the task of the church and spiritual guide and your task. Don't we just kill people because the law says not to kill them? Don't we steal TVs from stores just because we are afraid of being fried in a hell of a pan? Yes, there are restrictions, but they are all completely fictitious, far-fetched. Man is born free, but not born evil. Here's the truth. Everything else is just a desire to capitalize on you.

If you look at the morality that is accepted among modern people, among the people of the 21st century, you will see that we no longer have slavery, we believe in the equality of women, we believe in the friendship of peoples, in good attitude to animals. All of this has come about quite recently. It has almost nothing to do with biblical or Qur'anic writings. These are the things that have appeared throughout historical period based on consensus of reasoning, sober, reasoned statements, theory of law, political and philosophical morality. All this did not come from religion.

Is morality (morality) independent of religion possible?

For example, L.N. Tolstoy considered himself a deeply believing Christian and created his own religious and moral teaching. However, the Holy Synod called the latter "anti-Christian". It is quite obvious that in this case we are dealing with two different understandings of religion in general and Christian religion in particular. When people talk about the dependence or independence of morality on religion, they usually mean the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) in their historically established confessional forms.

If we reformulate the original question, taking into account the clarifications made, then it looks purely rhetorical. For the answer to it is quite obvious and indisputable: a morality independent of religion is possible. There were entire epochs and peoples who had great moral achievements even in the pagan period of their history. The clearest example is Ancient Greece, in whose culture the cardinal virtues of moderation, courage, justice, wisdom crystallized, the golden rule of morality was formulated, the concept of ethics was developed. All this is an invaluable heritage of mankind, fully retaining its significance to the present day.

Another historically large-scale experience of moral life, which took shape outside, and often in spite of, religious and confessional influence, was the Soviet experience. No matter how you evaluate Soviet era one thing is certain: its moral everyday life can in no way be considered a failure in comparison with the era that preceded it, and with the time that came after it. There are entire civilizations that, according to the usual canons of Abrahamic beliefs, are generally non-religious, but which, nevertheless, brilliantly proved their moral capacity.

In the evolution of man, morality arose first, and then religion. And in general, a non-religious person is not necessarily immoral, say the authors of a new study of two deeply philosophical terms.

Religion is prevalent in all cultures of the world, and scientists have no doubt that ideas about the supernatural are based in the human brain. But there are two views on the emergence of religion in human evolution. “Some believe that religion arose as an adaptation to solve the problems of human communication, as a necessary means of organizing society. Others believe that religion emerged as a “by-product” of pre-existing cognitive capabilities,” explains Ilkka Pyysiainen from the University of Helsinki. She and co-author Marc Hauser of the Department of Psychology and Human Evolutionary Biology Harvard University in their article in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences analyze these two points of view using their own approach.

Considering the first point of view, the authors discuss how religion strengthens public relations. It is based on the consciousness that a person's behavior is under the constant supervision of a higher principle, which encourages him for the right social deeds and punishes him for the wrong ones. Fear of punishment for bad behavior fixed in human evolution natural selection. Religion also supports the community of their own by faith and the rejection of strangers.

Morality is primary, religion is secondary

Scientists enter into problem solving evolutionary origin religions the concept of morality and consider the relationship of morality and religion. “Some understand this connection in such a way that there can be no morality outside of religion, while others see religion as just one of the ways of expressing morality,” says Mark Houser.

The main thesis of the authors is that high level cooperation and social relations between people is achieved through the development moral standards: concepts of permissible and unacceptable actions, definitions of good and evil. Religion appeared already on the basis of existing moral norms. The cognitive mechanisms that underlie religion are not specific to it, scientists say, they are more general mechanisms of consciousness.

The results of these studies indicate that, although religion influenced the nature of the answers, there were no significant differences in the solution of moral dilemmas in the groups of believers and non-believers (unfortunately, the authors of the article do not provide figures). From this, scientists conclude that internal concepts about good and evil do not depend on following religious dogmas.

In support of their thesis about the independent emergence of religion and morality, the authors cite as an example children's social relations, in which, of course, there are moral norms, despite the fact that children are not yet involved in religion.

In the course of the biological and cultural evolution of man, religion, according to scientists, began to largely determine social relations and mediate moral norms. Indeed, it provides a relatively simple way to comply with moral standards. And hence the widespread belief that morality without religion is impossible.

As an illustration of the fact that the solution of moral dilemmas does not depend on attitudes towards religion, the authors give an example of the legalization of euthanasia in the Netherlands and the ban in the United States, despite the similar level of religiosity in both societies.

Morality, of course, depends on religion in the sense that it interacts with it as well as with other forms of culture - art, science, maybe even more closely than with them. Morality and religion have common points of intersection. So, for example, for them (and only for them) the problem of the meaning of human life is specific. In our question we are talking, apparently, not about this kind of horizontal connections, but about something completely different, namely: is morality derivative in its origin and is it dependent in its existence on religion to such an extent that outside a religious context it is deformed, loses its authenticity?

There is no religion by definition, but there are diverse, often negating religious experiences, including, by the way, those that declared morality itself to be a religion. For example, L.N. Tolstoy considered himself a deeply believing Christian and created his own religious and moral teaching. However, the Holy Synod called the latter "anti-Christian". It is quite obvious that in this case we are dealing with two different understandings of religion in general and the Christian religion in particular. When people talk about the dependence or independence of morality on religion, they usually mean the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) in their historically established confessional forms.

If we reformulate the original question, taking into account the clarifications made, then it looks purely rhetorical. For the answer to it is quite obvious and indisputable: a morality independent of religion is possible. There were entire epochs and peoples who had great moral achievements even in the pagan period of their history. The most striking example is Ancient Greece, within whose culture the cardinal virtues of moderation, courage, justice, wisdom crystallized, the golden rule of morality was formulated, and the concept of ethics was developed. All this is an invaluable heritage of mankind, fully retaining its significance to the present day.

There are entire civilizations that, according to the usual canons of Abrahamic beliefs, are generally non-religious, but which, nevertheless, brilliantly proved their moral capacity. Such, for example, is Chinese civilization.

Finally, elementary and unbiased life experience in modern society shows that there are many morally worthy people who are far from official church beliefs and practices and are skeptical, even hostile towards them.

Morality not only can be independent of religion or other factors that determine it. But that's the only way she can be! It expresses the autonomy of the individual. There are many definitions and theoretical interpretations of morality. However, one of its features, in general, is recognized by everyone: morality covers the area of individually responsible judgments and actions - those judgments and actions of the individual, the commission or non-commission of which is entirely in his power and which can be fully imputed to him or her. merit. This does not mean that moral actions are unreasonable. It only means that the consciously, purposefully acting individual himself is their last reason in the sense that they could not have taken place without his moral sanction. A person, for example, may lose something due to the fact that he is red-haired, or has a small stature. But this does not cause remorse in him. At the same time, he can gain a lot by forging a signature or otherwise deceiving others. At the same time, somewhere in the depths of his soul he understands that he committed meanness. The difference is that the first does not depend on it. The second is his business.

It should be emphasized that, within the framework religious outlook morality is also actually seen as an area of human autonomy. No one has ever doubted that the norms of the Decalogue of Moses or the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ are within the capabilities of a believer, are a matter of his free choice, and as such are imputed to him as a debt. At one time, Augustine and Pelagius were engaged in a theological dispute about the extent to which the posthumous fate of a person depends on the moral quality of his earthly life. Pelagius saw a direct connection here. Augustine believed that there was no such connection, and viewed the salvation of man as an incomprehensible mystery of God. However, Augustine also considered moral choice as the exclusive prerogative of man, for, as he wrote, “in the divine commandments themselves, there would be no benefit to man if he did not have free will.”

There is, however, one point where the idea of morality seems to be dependent on the idea of God. This was the main argument due to which L.N. Tolstoy (see his work “Religion and Morality” about this) gave a negative answer to the question about the possibility of morality independent of religion, immediately, however, specifying that it was about religion in his understanding. By religion, he understood the relationship of a person to the infinite world around him, his beginning and root cause, and at the same time he believed that without such an attitude to the world, the existence of a person is just as impossible as his existence is impossible without a heart. Accordingly, he called morality the designation and explanation of the activity that follows from one or another religious attitude to the world. Thus, we are talking about the comprehension of moral absolutes and the absoluteness of morality itself in the value system of coordinates of human behavior. As far as I can judge, no satisfactory philosophical solution to this problem has yet been found, unless, of course, the rejection of moral absolutism itself is considered as such a solution.

The primary sources of the most important universal norms in the cultural zone of the Abrahamic religions are the Torah, the Gospel, and the Koran. They are formulated there on behalf of God. This fact seems to refute the idea of autonomous morality. In fact, it can be an additional argument in its favor. The erection of moral standards to God, considered in the context of culture, can be understood as a sign and recognition that none of the people has the exclusive right to speak on behalf of morality, that before it, before morality, as well as before God, everyone is equal and that, consequently, on each individual lies the burden of responsibility and judgment for following those norms that determine the measure of his humanity.

In Deuteronomy, Moses, summing up the instructions of God, says: “Behold, today I have offered you life and good, death and evil” (Deut. 30, 15). Good carries its reward in itself, it coincides with life, evil bears its punishment in itself, it coincides with death. This idea of the inherent value of goodness, of the primordial nature of morality in human life runs like a red thread through the entire Bible. The biblical version begins and ends with him. human history. Having created man and settled him in the Garden of Eden, God allowed him to eat from every tree except the tree of knowledge and goodness: “Do not eat from him, for on the day you eat from him you will die by death” (Gen. 2, 17) . Man understood this prohibition as a moral prescription. In fact, God's words were factual statements. God simply informed the person about the poisonousness of the fruits of this tree and warned him, just as an adult warns a child, forbidding him to play, for example, with matches. Man learned only what he himself can choose. He ignored the most important thing, namely, that the choice would be adequate, sustaining his life and therefore also corresponding to his self, only if it was a choice of the good. Moral autonomy is the privilege and right of a rational being to be moral, to build his knowledge and his life along the vector of good. And man, according to biblical legend, which, however, summarizes the historical truth quite accurately, interpreted it falsely - as the right to decide for oneself what is good and what is evil. It was this fatal error that became the root cause of human disasters, which we learn from the final book "The Revelation of St. John the Theologian", which completes the Bible ideologically and compositionally. It describes a terrible end, where peoples destroy each other, lining up along the lines of good and evil as they understand them.

When discussing the topic of the relationship between religion and morality, one must bear in mind its explosive power. George W. Bush, President of the United States, drawing his axis of evil, passing through 60 countries and more, as he put it, appeals to God. God is not neutral, he argues. But those who oppose him, the same Bin Laden, also do their dirty deeds in the name of God. Who will show us the criterion that separates the abuse of the name of God from the justified appeal to him?! I think the moral atmosphere modern society it will be much cleaner if we do not pretend to know what God wants from us or what history requires of us, but make decisions and act with full consciousness of our own responsibility for them.

In conclusion, there is one more important remark. Content moral standards and virtues is banally simple and practically the same in all developed cultures; so, any modern person knows that deceiving is bad, but helping those in need is good. But as for the philosophical and religious-confessional justifications and configurations of morality, they are very different from each other. Therefore, in modern conditions corrosive worldview pluralism, it is very important to focus on the unity of the moral experience of people within the generally accepted secular forms of life, and not on differences that are associated with doctrinal justifications and versions of this experience.

Abdusalam Huseynov