Orthodoxy or life

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Before the eyes of the whole country, the ROC, groaning with delight, puts on its old gendarme overcoat, helpfully provided by United Russia. The priests did not play at enlightenment and complacency for long. Having received many challenges of our time and being unable to answer them, they chose the simplest path, deciding to silence their opponents with police fists and barbed wire zones. The first pterodactyl of the new era of church-public relations was the article of the Criminal Code, which, in addition to additional protection of houses of worship and religious accessories, frankly spells out criminal liability for dissent.

For the first time in the last hundred years, church hierarchs so clearly exposed their god to ridicule. Now it is clear that, despite his omnipotence, that is, for stocks of epidemics, celestial cobblestones and legions of angels, without an additional article in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation prohibiting laughing at the ministers of his cult, well, he can’t even last until the new year, 2013. … However, the question of the quality of their god interests us least of all. The intrigue lies elsewhere.

In the context of today's political picture, the well-known slogan of religious fanatics "Orthodoxy or death" acquires a special, strictly practical meaning. However, I would recommend Mr. Naryshkin, Zhirinovsky and other Duma gonfalons bearers for the time being to confine themselves to the inscription on their ties, T-shirts and jackets of an intermediate version, namely: "Orthodoxy or article." At the moment, this will be more accurate and will allow them to remain in the same "legal field" in which it is so convenient for Duma members to play football with the severed head of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. (It will be possible to smoothly go over time to various versions of the type "Orthodoxy or: fire, death, electric chair, stake, bullet, etc.") It is curious that the leitmotif of punitive initiatives is the indispensable "respect" for religion and certain traditions. At the same time, the legislators do not want to explain in any way: how and for what it is possible to "respect" a bloody, destructive, hypocritical and aggressive ideology?

Another point justifying the need for a new criminal article is that "believers are insulted." But, firstly, we know that the entire world civilization and culture is a continuous and continuous insult to those who want to live according to the rules of Hebrew folklore. Secondly, we see how very specific individuals train believers to be offended, and moreover, demand from them the proper degree of insult; and when the degree falls, it is diligently sublimated. It is enough to analyze the recent scene of the so-called. prayer standing at the HHS. Presiding at the event gr. Gundyaev, in the best traditions of Kashpirovsky's sessions, insists that when translated from priest into Russian it sounds like “Be offended! Be offended harder! Grit your teeth from the flour at the sight of THIS! Be horrified! " At the same time, images are shown on the boards, scribbled by another religious fanatic, poor "pussies", exhibitions, TV programs are recalled and diligently hinting that God has somehow suffered terribly from all these tricks. (It's funny that the neutral reaction of the very poor fellow-god is not taken into account in any way, although, as we know from the "scriptures", his responses to any oversight of humanity have always been high-speed and sparkling.)

The card of tradition and patriotism is played just as cunningly and carefully in these training sessions. It is worth dwelling on this in more detail. The fact is that Russian patriotism does not oblige to wear bast shoes, have lice or be Orthodox. But the desire to push Russian thought, life and consciousness into the Orthodox cave, to return Russia to a long passed, archaic stage of development - this is a genuine, real Russophobia. Traditions are, of course, cute trinkets, but one must have the courage to part with them on time and without regret, since they are the main enemies of any development. The preservation of the traditions of thinking and worldview would never have allowed Russia to have I. M. Sechenov, I. P. Pavlov, M. V. Lomonosov and K. E. Tsiolkovsky. All of them were the personification of the rebellion against the traditional, in this case Orthodox, view of the world, and not at all a consequence of it.

In general, as you know, there are two recipes for patriotism. Military and scientific and civilizing.

Patriotism grows faster with military yeast, looks more elegant, and is easier for the masses to assimilate. The recipe for its sublimation is extremely simple: using the rubble of lies in history, we must sing the praises of various generals who, by and large, senselessly led crowds of serfs around Europe in powdered wigs and pierced the bellies of belly burghers with the cry "God be with us, understand the heathens." Despite the idiocy and hopelessness of this model, it has its own charm: it is more practical than scientific, because it is military patriotism that is the best recipe for making cannon fodder. This model is convenient for the administration of the country, and in general for any performers of political rituals: it only requires knowledge of a couple of generals' names and the ability to flash a tear from the right eye in time.

Patriotism of the second type is more complicated and requires some special knowledge; for example, the fact that Pavlov was not a Dominican monk, and Timiryazev was not sentenced by the Athenians to drinking poison. Of course, such a depth of knowledge in the history of science is almost inaccessible for lawyers-economists-philologists in the government, but the question can be resolved by finally giving the administration the right to speak at important events with a phonogram. (Of course, puffing the cheeks of scientific greatness, firmly holding the beautiful 155th place in the world in terms of the quality of education, is difficult, but no more difficult than being great-power, blowing the war even to tiny Chechnya.)

The second recipe is undoubtedly good because Russia, which has given the world examples of amazing free thinking, genius in science and technology, really has something to be proud of. But in this version of the state ideology, our merchants of spirituality can be offered a very modest place. And this will offend their feelings again. As strong as abortion or gay pride parades. Although it is completely incomprehensible to me, what is the fundamental difference between a gay pride parade and a religious procession? And in fact, and in another case, we see a fancy-dress pompous procession, aimed at demonstrating a certain exclusivity in it. Abortion is even more fun. It is curious that the church has its own opinion on this topic, although it does not have any special knowledge to resolve this issue. Moreover, we know that the church has always defended the wildest ignorance with foam at the mouth, but invariably sat in a puddle. This was the case in matters of astronomy, biology, zoology, anthropology, etc.

In particular, the "father of the church", the ecumenical teacher and Saint Isidore of Seville, is the author of the version that "bees are formed from decaying veal, cockroaches from horse meat, grasshoppers from mule meat, and scorpions from crabs." An equally curious version of zoogenesis was proposed by Thomas Aquinas in Summa theologiae: "Even if new species appear, they potentially existed earlier, which proves the fact that some animals are formed from the decay of other animals." It is curious that theology until the end of the 19th century offered the remains of mammoths and dinosaurs as evidence of the existence of "biblical giant people", "giants" who, according to the 6th chapter of Genesis and the 13th Earth in the days of Noah and Moses. Of course, then no one conducted special excavations, but erosion, landslides, collapses of steep river banks often exposed giant bones. And they were hung in churches just like the bones of the biblical giants who died in the flood. I'm not even talking about geo- and heliocentrism, about the shape and age of the Earth … Wherever we look for even the slightest manifestations of rationality or "special knowledge" of the church, we, unfortunately, will not find them and will be forced to admit that we are considering history not only a very aggressive, but also downright stupid organization. Perhaps this explains her resentment - always, at everyone and at everything.

However, this does not make it any easier for us in Russia in the 21st century. Again, now by law, we are offered "Orthodoxy or death." I think that this slogan still makes sense to rephrase once and for all in "Orthodoxy or life." And then make a free and meaningful choice between these two positions.