AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
cults, who are often called pagans and idolaters. Practices of
stigmatization have a negative impact on the mental health of
believers, cause psychological problems, form personality
complexes and the perception of “oneself” as an outcast, and
contribute to the destruction of social groups.
Legal protection of the feelings of believers is a fairly
widespread practice of ensuring religious security. The
legislation governing the activities of religious organizations in
society is an integral component of the legal and regulatory
system of many secular states. The regulation of interactions
between the secular and religious segments of society, as well as
the extracult activities of religious organizations, is of particular
importance, first of all, for polyconfessional societies, since it is
designed to maintain the stability of the space for the coexistence
of many confessions with their specific systems of norms and
values. However, legislation is often on the side of the
historically traditional religion for a particular region. This
violates the constitutional principle of freedom of conscience
and religion. Examples of this are laws on granting citizenship to
immigrants of certain religions, state protection and state
funding of religious buildings and structures of religion
traditional for a particular country, while buildings and
structures of other religions are not subject to state guardianship
[19], legislation of several countries, providing for punishment
for insulting the feelings of believers, which discriminates
against atheists.
It should be noted that not only representatives of the atheistic
worldview, but also adherents of new religious movements and
cults, including those of a syncretic nature, suffer from this kind
of legislation. For example, by decision of the Supreme Court of
the Russian Federation in 2016, the activities of Jehovah’s
Witnesses were banned, and the religious organization “Soiuz
sotvortsev sviatoi Rusi” (Union of Cocreators of Holy Russia)
and “Saentologicheskaia tserkov Moskvy” (The Church of
Scientology of Moscow) were liquidated [5].
In general, authoritarian practices of religious security are
characterized by the priority of national security over the
security of the individual, the idea that some authority over the
individual is the source of norms and the guarantor of their
observance. Mechanisms of this kind to ensure religious security
are based on traditional, conservative systems of norms and
values. Their essence is itself conflictogenic, since it is based on
the opposition “ours is good, and someone else's is bad”.
The nonclassical paradigm in the understanding of the norm (S.
Freud, F. Nietzsche, M. Foucault) leads to the emergence of
humanistic practices of religious security: tolerance and a call for
a peaceful resolution of conflicts.
The essence of the practice of tolerance lies in a
tolerant/nonaggressive attitude towards the presence of a variety
of forms of social behavior.
The practice of tolerance must be viewed in an individually
psychological and socially oriented aspect. The line between
these aspects is thin and rather arbitrary.
The individual psychological content of tolerance for otherness
is characterized by the psychological sensations of individuals,
arising based on mental processes and states of an individual.
This is, first of all, the psychological depression of an individual
due to feelings of pity, empathy, and a sense of involvement in
the experiences of another person. Empathic experiences are
based on natural prerequisites – the instinct of caring for others
and the instinct of mutual assistance perform the most important
functions of the development and preservation of society. N.D.
Subbotina rightly notes: “society could not exist in the absence
of qualities in people that are opposite to aggression and
selfishness – altruism, empathy and instinctive concern for loved
ones. These features, as well as aggression, have a natural
prerequisite” [20, p. 58]. Therefore, minimization of the danger
of normative conflicts in society is sometimes carried out due to
the unconscious desire of individuals to protect another person
or at least not to harm them, which to a certain extent stabilizes
society.
The individual psychological content of the practice of tolerance
can, to a certain extent, explain the withdrawal from the conflict,
the suppression of the conflict by representatives of different
normative value systems: representatives of different religions or
believers and nonbelievers.
The social level of the practice of tolerance is represented by
religious tolerance, largely based on the moral and legal
provision of religious security. Religious tolerance presupposes
tolerant relationships between believers of different confessions,
tolerant attitude towards representatives of other religions in
situations of lack of contacts between believers of different
religious traditions, recognition of their right to religious
activities of a different nature. However, there is no talk of
adopting the normative system of another religion. In contrast to
the secular understanding of tolerance, which allows the
acceptance of “alien” values and worldview guidelines in view
of the relativity of any ideals and truths. Religious tolerance, as
professor A.Iu. Grigorenko writes, “only means the absence of
statements or actions that could be regarded as derogatory or
offensive for representatives of another religious tradition and
would be aimed at infringing on the rights and freedom of
religion and worship (closing churches, banning missionary
activities, etc.)” [21]. The important point is that religious
tolerance has found its consolidation in legal norms (Dignitatis
humanae
(Declaration on Religious Freedom) 1965,
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief 1981, etc.).
The growth of aggression and hatred in society testifies to the
need for calls for tolerance and prevention of conflicts that split
society.
The practice of calling for a peaceful resolution of conflicts is
currently being used quite actively. The call to end conflicts
between warring parties and eliminate differences between
different worldview systems, is an essential element of
peacemaking service in traditional religions. In Christianity, the
Bible indicates the need for peacemaking: “Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” [18, p. 89].
The very same facts of conflict are considered as sinful behavior.
However, some researchers assess the normative conflicts in the
world as constructive, signaling the problems of society [2, 22],
while criticizing the widespread in society perceptions of
protesters as traitors.
In general, the specificity of the humanistic practices of religious
security lies in their nonviolent nature, the recognition of the
well-being of the individual as the only criterion for a normative
assessment.
4 Conclusion
In the 21
st
century, the world remains religious; moreover, the
number of new religious movements is increasing and religious
and esoteric teachings appear, aimed at personal, individualistic
spirituality. This inevitably entails the formation of new
normative-value systems of a specific nature, exacerbating the
problem of opposition and rivalry between their adherents. In
such conditions, the religious segment of society is increasingly
drawn into a series of normative conflicts. Conflicts of this kind
are cyclical (they subside and flare up again), characterized by a
protracted nature, and difficult to resolve. To minimize
normative conflicts in modern world practice, authoritarian and
humanistic methods of ensuring religious security are used.
Practices of an authoritarian nature arise under the dominance of
the classical paradigm of understanding the “norm”. They are
characteristic of the authoritarian level of government
(government bodies, religious clerks) and carriers of traditional
religious consciousness. The implementation of this type of
religious security practice is ambiguous and often leads to the
aggravation of conflicts.
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