Round table discussion "Youth and religion today"

Purpose: to give the concept of the word "spirituality", "spiritually rich person", "sect", to tell about the role of religion in human life, its main trends.

Conversation plan:

Once again about spirituality
Religion in the modern world
How not to fall under the influence of sectarians

Once again about spirituality

In the spiritual life, as well as in the physical life,
there is inhalation and exhalation,
the soul needs to absorb the feelings of another soul,
assimilate them to yourself, so that she can return them enriched.
Without this beautiful phenomenon there is no life for the human heart,
it then lacks air, it suffers and pines.
O. Balzac (1799-1850).

In the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language S. I. Ozhegov gives this definition of spirituality: "Spirituality is a property of the soul that consists in the predominance of spiritual, moral, and intellectual interests over material ones." The spiritual life of a person and society is constantly changing and developing. The spiritual world of man is a unity of mind, feelings, and will. The world of each individual is individual and unique.
Physical health is closely related to the spiritual health of a person, his worldview culture and the culture of everyday life.

I would like to note that the more developed a person is, the higher their culture, the richer their spiritual life. If a person is interested in the past culture of the human race, this undoubtedly contributes to his intellectual and spiritual development.
The spiritual life of a person is also impossible without joy, optimism or despondency, faith or frustration, knowledge, needs, abilities, aspirations, goals.
To be a spiritually rich person, you need to join the spiritual culture, that is, you need to learn to meet spiritual needs. For example, the most important spiritual need of a person is for knowledge. This is what philosophers of different eras have said. Aristotle wrote: "All people naturally strive for knowledge." And the French thinker of the XVI century M. Montaigne stated: "there Is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge."
Another important spiritual need is the aesthetic one. We must strive to master the world according to the laws of beauty, to see harmony in nature and in people, to feel deeply music, painting, poetry, and to improve human relations.
Next, I want to focus on another spiritual need of a person – in communication. It is necessary to develop such truly human needs as love for a person, friendship, camaraderie, moral and psychological support, attention to each other, empathy, empathy, exchange of ideas, joint creativity.
A person's spiritual needs are different. One is looking for books that encourage reflection on the meaning of human life, the other does not go beyond adventure literature. One reads the description of nature, the other skips these pages. One needs serious music, the other just an entertainment genre…

We must not forget about the qualitative characteristics of spiritual consumption. You can enjoy the masterpieces of world music, or at the same time listen to primitive works whose value is questionable. Some people only watch Vesti, while others sit for hours at the TV and watch everything in a row. Everything depends on a person's spiritual needs.
Fashion also influences the development of a person's spiritual wealth. Various books, plays, poems and songs can become fashionable.
Books, radio, and television are common means of enriching spiritual values. Reading books is the most important type of spiritual enrichment. "People stop thinking when they stop reading," said the French philosopher D. Diderot (1713-1784). And another French thinker – R. Descartes (1596-1650) wrote: "The reading of good books is like a conversation with the most venerable people of the past centuries-their authors, and moreover a study conversation in which they reveal to us only the best of their thoughts."

Do you read books? Which ones?

In our time, much attention has been paid to churches and mosques. They also make a significant contribution to the spiritual life of society, preaching faith, love, and morality.
The spiritual need of people is diverse, everyone has a wide choice of its forms and types. He can be a scientist or a writer, an actor or an artist, a teacher or a librarian, a guide, and so on. They can participate in folk theater and Amateur competitions. And most importantly, everyone should communicate with books, music, theater and movies. A person is spiritual to the extent that he thinks about these questions and seeks to get an answer to them. We must remember this statement of the Russian writer L. N. Tolstoy (1828-1910): "The more you live a spiritual life, the more independent of fate, and Vice versa."

Religion in the modern world

Religion is an integral part of the modern world, since it performs three blocks of social functions. First, religious institutions carry out the spiritual registration of believers, which is manifested in the organization of the relationship "man - God", in the education of religiosity and citizenship, in the saturation of man with good and the removal of evil, sins. Secondly, religious organizations are engaged in religious and special secular education, charity and charity. Third, representatives of churches actively participate in public activities, contribute to the normalization of political, economic and cultural processes, interethnic and interstate relations, and solve global problems of civilization.

They distinguish between world and national religions. World religions include Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, i.e. those religions that are supranational in nature and develop outside the specifics of the mono-national identity of a particular ethnic group. The formation of national religions-Judaism, Confucianism, Shintoism, etc. - is possible only on the basis of a monoethnic community (no more than 10-15 percent of foreigners) due to the presence of national exclusivity in the public consciousness of this ethnic group of people.
Developed religions form religious systems that have the following structure: 1-faith in God; 2-dogmatic theology; 3 - moral theology and the corresponding moral imperative of behavior; 4-historical theology; 5 - a system of cult (ritual) practice; 6 - the presence of churches (mosques, prayer houses, etc.), preachers, Ministers.

The main differences between religious systems are the peculiarities of the perception of God (God is " dissolved” in Buddhism, Trinity in Christianity, unity in Islam, etc.). Each of the religions solves its own important problem in a dogmatic way. Differences also exist in historical theology (i.e., the interpretation of the history of the Universal Church and specific churches), in the system of cult or ritual practice, and in the activities of priests and laity. Thus, the difference in the understanding of God and his ways of communicating with man leads to the functioning of various religious systems characterized by specific religious practices and independent religious associations. At the same time, religions were and remain the spiritual core of the development of earth's civilization.

How to avoid falling under the influence of sectarians?

Every epic hero meets a lot of difficulties and temptations on the way of life: Prince Ivan stands at a roadside stone and decides whether to be killed or get rich. Dobrynya Nikitich faces a choice: stay safe or go to the rescue of Russian people.

They challenge the passions that rule over a person by opposing them with their mind, their feelings, their"I". At the end of the journey, the characters not only acquire material goods, but also find themselves - the most important condition for happiness.

In traditional society, shamans, priests, and spiritual teachers served as guides on the path of self-discovery. It is not so easy for a modern person to find an assistant in such a difficult task as self-knowledge. Experiencing a crisis of values, some of today's youth and adults have turned to totalitarian sects and destructive cultures. In the view of this category of people, such "teachings" are associated with the internal realization of goals, development and growth of the individual.

Every organization of this kind offers ready-made answers to all vital questions, without any mental or intellectual effort. Whether it helps solve human problems is another matter…