Functional component of religious bases of culture and its influence on culturegenesis

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleФункциональная составляющая религиозных основ культуры ее влияние на культурогенез
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Asliturk, Miriam
5. lemma category Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning > Philosophy of science/epistemology - Ethics - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning - Orthodox Anthropology - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning > Materialism/Idealism
6. Publication date 27-01-2017
7. lemma work Бабич, Владимир Владимирович [Author]. Функциональная составляющая религиозных основ культуры ее влияние на культурогенез
8. lemma manifestations Ценности и смыслы
9. Keywords materialism - individualism - relativism - Philosophy - Greek philosophy - Kant, Immanuel - Russian Orthodox Church - ethics - anthropology - Christian anthropology
10. Url Click Here
11. Citations
    1. <p>Бабич, Владимир Владимирович (2010). Функциональная составляющая религиозных основ культуры и ее влияние на культурогенез. <em>Ценности и смыслы. </em>Retrieved from: <a href="http://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/funktsionalnaya-sostavlyayuschaya-religioznyh-osnov-kultury-i-ee-vliyanie-na-kulturogenez-1">http://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/funktsionalnaya-sostavlyayuschaya-religioznyh-osnov-kultury-i-ee-vliyanie-na-kulturogenez-1</a> <br /><br /><br /></p>
12. Lemma body

    1. The author argues that although science does not create ethics in a society, it should still be viewed as a limited part of human culture. Babich believes that during the last few centuries science destroyed more ethical norms than provided new ones. At the same time, the functioning of society requires integration of different ethical models. According to Babich, it is religion that constitutes the basis for such an integration. Religion is also an accumulation of semantic ideas.

       The author gives a historical overview of the philosophy of ethics. In Ancient Greece the main ethical problems were based on one’s attitude toward the community. An appeal to gods for help did not resolve problems but rather ended them. Therefore Ancient Greek mythology constructed an idea of authority without the idea of universal truth. At the time of Aristotle (367-326 BC) Greek philosophers developed a teleological approach in ethics where virtue is realized not only within a single human being but in the community (e.g. a city makes laws for the common good of society).

       Early Christians disliked Ancient Greek philosophical ideas. It was only after the 12^th century that authors in Europe returned to the ancient philosophy of ethics. At that time they synthesized the ancient virtues of justice, reason, modesty, and courage with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Christian culture also added the virtues of mercy and forgiveness in contrast with ancient punishments for breaking ethical codes.

       Mercy in Christianity is seen as a universal law of harmony between human desires and the divine law. A virtuous person is a citizen of the world and does not have to be loyal only to his community. Solitude then is not seen as a negative isolation. Morality in Christianity is measured in how one is as a person and in society; morality is seen ontologically. If one does not see morality in an ontological manner, one ends up believing in an illusory division of good and evil, while identifying with goodness. It becomes an extreme intellectual abstraction that loses ties with actual life.

       Babich argues that without an ontological understanding of morality, goodness has only utilitarian social value (one has to obey community laws and this is its main virtue). In this logic, denying Orthodox Christian theological tradition where evil is an ontological reality, we risk falling into an illusion that being and life are good whereas evil is non-being and therefore death. Individualistic ethics implies ontology based on the assumption that people are self-closed individuals. In Orthodox Christian ethics, the ontology is based on the idea that a human is endlessly free in his dialogue with God that exists within him. Here a human is not only a carrier of individual will but a carrier of an authentic role. During the Enlightenment period, and Kant in particular, developed the idea of rationality and universal applicability of ethics. For Kant ethics is developed through intellectual intuition and not by means of deduction as in Orthodox Christianity.

       Further development of the philosophy of ethics in Protestantism, Catholicism, and Western philosophy radically changed the idea of personality. The concept “human” ceased to include the essential nature of a human being, his function, nor his purpose. After Enlightenment, morality and ethics no longer express divine laws, they are linguistic archaisms. The materialistic point of view does not recognize the spiritual nature of the human. According to Babich this leads to moral relativism. In order to overcome this relativism one needs religion that is unity with the source of all life, an anthropological process of seeking the absolute. Babich calls religion a storage of collective social memory – the basis of genesis of culture. Ethics in religion is not something imposed from the outside but an archetype that already exists in human nature. He concludes by stating that religion helps people to overcome atomization and isolation with the help of charity and the sense of community.