Summing up, we can say that science and religion are necessary to each other. These are two complementary paths that can help us become fully aware of the world in which we exist. So we don't have to choose between science and religion. The natural sciences can reveal the laws of the physical world and promote the development of technologies that will create a high level of material well-being for us. However, science needs moral values, which originate in religion, in order to be guided by them in their own activities and to carry out the responsible use of scientific knowledge for the benefit, and not to the detriment of humanity. As Albert Einstein said: "Science without religion is flawed, religion without science is blind."

conclusions

Summing up the above, I would like to note that at present, although there is no single view on the problem of the relationship between science and religion, the majority of scientists and the clergy still tend to the type of "non-contradiction", or one might even say "synthesis" of these areas.

When religion and science profess faith in God, the first puts God at the beginning, and the second at the end of all thoughts. Religion and science are by no means mutually exclusive.

The invisible line between science and religion occupies our mind, as it separates two important aspects of human nature - physical and spiritual. Science should in no way deny spiritual experience, just as religious faith cannot exclude the freedom of development. Science and religion cannot replace each other, nor should they be vulgarly combined, i.e. reduced to scientific religion and religious science. Two integral parts of world culture - science and religion, in essence, have the same roots, nourished by the ability of a person to be surprised and ask questions. The first develops a rational approach to unraveling the mystery of the universe, which allows us to study the world around us in detail. The second originates, on the one hand, in the sacred horror that inspires us with the greatness of the Universe, on the other hand, in the desire to know the Creator and our place in the implementation of His plan.

Such an approach to the problem of the relationship between science and religion will allow a person to live in a civilized world "created" by science, while not losing their spiritual and cultural values.

It is human nature to want to ask questions: What? Why? How? Each of us contains the desire to understand the world in which we live, to find the meaning of existence. Religion, philosophy and science arose and began their development in response to this human desire for knowledge, for understanding the surrounding reality. For many centuries there were practically no differences between these ways of knowing. Together they satisfied man's basic needs and confirmed his intuition that the universe is meaningful, ordered, intelligent, and governed by some form of just laws, even if those laws are not so obvious. Their approach was intuitive and rational, and all directions developed together. The priests were the first astronomers, and the doctors were the preachers. Philosophers tried to cognize reality with the help of reason. In the relatively recent past, there has been a division between philosophy, the natural sciences, and religion, as a result of which each of these areas has acquired its own sphere of application. The natural sciences focused on explaining and understanding the material side of reality, while the spiritual dimension of reality became the main subject of religious knowledge. A juxtaposition of science and religion arose, partly because at times the representatives of religion tried to appropriate to themselves absolute authority in interpreting the material nature of the world. In response to this, some scholars have considered religion a collection of prejudices and have attempted to reduce all religious experience to the realm of human error. However, the proper relationship between philosophy, science and religion can be compared to the story "Why does the kettle boil?". They can be seen as different approaches to understanding the same phenomena. It's not that one direction is right and the other is wrong. They ask different questions and naturally give different answers. In this sense, science and religion complement each other.

Questions about what the world is, how it can be understood by man, belong to the sphere of philosophy.

Questions about how the world works are within the realm of science.

Questions about why the world is arranged in such a way, what is the meaning and purpose of existence, belong to the sphere of religion.

However, for various reasons, many people believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive. In other words, if a person is engaged in scientific research, then he cannot believe in God, and if a person is religious, then he cannot accept certain laws of the world structure proven by science. However, the claim that science has somehow proved the failure of religion seems unfounded to say the least. For example, the fact that modern science has developed mainly in the West is not accidental. Christianity and Islam provided a common ideological framework through which science could develop. This worldview includes the following concepts:

The world was created good and therefore worth exploring (And God saw everything that he had created, and, behold, it was very good. Gen. 1:31),

God created the world in accordance with a certain logic and law, and therefore the world is knowable - with the help of science, a person can know the laws that govern the world.

Nature does not require worship, so people can explore it.

Technology is a means of "dominion over the earth" (Gen. 1:28), and man has the moral right to experiment and create.

- two inherently polar ways of man's relationship to the world: if science is turned to the study of natural objects, then religion - to the supernatural.
The forms and methods of the relationship between science and religion are very diverse. The interaction between science and religion has a long history. For a long time they developed within the framework of mythology and did not stand out as independent forms. Gradually, scientific knowledge separates into an independent form of comprehension of nature. Science develops its own methods and criteria, its own model of rationality and picture of the world.
With the help of observation and reasoning, science establishes facts and, on their basis, builds laws, which in some cases makes it possible to successfully predict the future. Science has a practical orientation (the criterion of practice in science appears in the Renaissance). Science is closely related to technology, since technology is one of the practical embodiments of science.
Essentially, religion and science are two different ways of explaining the same reality. They explain
essence, origin of the world, life and man.
Religion in a certain sense is a more complex phenomenon than science, because it combines the church as a social institution, human faith and the moral foundations of human existence. Religion considers the relationship of man with the Absolute. Religion embraces hundreds of millions of people, while those involved in science are much fewer.
In Antiquity, religion and science develop together, while sharp clashes between them do not yet arise. In the Middle Ages, religion becomes the determining factor in the development of the worldview, while science is considered only as an addition to religion. Thomas Aquinas developed the concept of natural theology, in which he substantiated the possibility of a consistent transition from scientific truths to philosophical and religious ones.
Since the Renaissance, the ratio of science and religion has changed dramatically. The decisive clash between science and religion is the dispute over the system of the world of N. Copernicus. The system of the world of K. Ptolemy was considered orthodox, according to which the Earth rests in the center of the Universe, while the Sun, Moon, planets and a system of fixed stars revolve around it - each in its own sphere. According to the Copernican doctrine, the Earth is not at all at rest, but moves around the Sun and around its own axis. Later, scientific views about the world were developed by Galileo.
G. Galileo points to significant differences between the judgments of science and faith. Science and faith, in his opinion, have different foundations and tasks. Science should not depend on tradition and dogmas, and scientific knowledge should be autonomous, since science is based on experiment.
In a distinct form, the contradictions between scientific and religious ideas about the world manifested themselves in the 17th-18th centuries, when a mechanistic picture of the world arose, which, on the basis of the laws of mechanics, claims to comprehend everything, proceeding from nature itself. The laws of conservation of energy and motion, the law of conservation of matter, the discovery of the cellular structure of living nature, the theory of evolution formed the basis of the scientific picture of the world, thereby depriving religious ideas of explanation from the point of view of nature. At this time, almost complete independence of science from religion was achieved, and atheism appeared, the first most consistent representatives of which were the French Enlightenment. Atheism found its practical embodiment in the slogans of the French Revolution.
In the 19th century followed by a reaction to these processes, but the authority of science, supported by the same industrial revolution, has already been so strengthened that it was not dangerous for the offensive of religion. Belief in science has greatly replaced faith in religion. The most serious attempt by the clerics to take revenge is the discussion around the Darwinian theory of the origin of species, especially around the thesis of the origin of man. But it was repulsed without much difficulty and with great honor for scientists.
As a result, to n. In the 20th century, at least in the enlightened part of society, atheism based on the belief in the omnipotence of science won unconditionally. "God is dead" - proclaimed the philosophers (F. Nietzsche). This, however, hid one of the two main dangers for a purely atheistic scientific worldview: such a position was convincing only for the intellectually developed part of society, for the enlightened minority of the inhabitants of the planet.
Another danger to the atheistic worldview has suddenly grown out of its very foundation and pride - fundamental science, mainly physics. The development of quantum physics and the theory of relativistic gravity has led to the discovery of fundamental internal limitations in the study of the micro- and macroworld. It turned out that science is not omnipotent at all. Theologians did not fail to take advantage of this. Yes, catholic
theologian J. Maritain argued that science and theology had reached the watershed line. Starting from the 20s. 20th century discoveries are made in science and theories arise that do not fit into the mechanistic model of the world, requiring its serious revision. These include the theory of relativity, which has changed the idea of ​​the connection between space and time, quantum physics, which discovers the laws of the microcosm, etc. On the basis of these discoveries, the modern scientific picture of the world has not yet been developed as integral as that created on the basis of mechanics.
At the end of the XX century. The “ideological dictate” of atheism disappears, it is no longer so popular, it is replaced not by convinced religiosity, but by skepticism and abstract religiosity, all kinds of phenomena are pouring into the minds of people - occultism, mysticism, theosophy, magic, spiritualism, etc. Religion and science still have different foundations: science is based on knowledge obtained by scientific methods, while religion is based on faith.
There are several approaches when considering science and religion:

1. Approaches claiming that science plays the main role. They appeared in the 17th-18th centuries, when a mechanistic picture of the world emerged.

Naturalism and materialism are ideological positions in which not only the leading role of science is affirmed, but also the need for religion is completely denied.

1. Approaches that give the main role to religion. This point of view was the main one in the Middle Ages. At present, this view is held by religious thinkers, theologians; There are a number of philosophies in which priority is given to religion.
2. There are concepts that believe that science and religion should develop in parallel. Their supporters proceed from the fact that science and religion can be reconciled, their common grounds can be found (see, for example: Chicherin B. Science and Religion. M., 1999). After all, it is reason that determines the content of religion, and true faith is tested by reason. The gap between science and religion comes from the insufficient development of science or from the imperfection of religion. The final goal of development is the highest unification of both areas, the synthesis of the entire spiritual world. Religion and science do not and cannot contradict each other for the simple reason that they speak of different things; a contradiction is possible only where two opposing statements are expressed about the same subject: science studies the real world, religion knows God, therefore the truths of one should not contradict the truths of the other (Frank S. Religion and science. M., 1992).

In response to this, it must be admitted that religion and science also have common questions, and important ones at that.
Such a question, for example, is the question of the essence of the world. From the point of view of classical science, the Universe is a closed, self-regulating system in which all ongoing processes go "on their own", without any external interference, and can be described by dynamic and statistical laws. Such a world, said the creators of science, does not need the hypothesis of God. In other words, the Universe is a world determined by dynamic and statistical laws and only by them, fundamentally devoid of anything external to it; it is the world, of which we ourselves are a particle, the world, in principle, cognizable by us. This world, by virtue of some still obscure laws, creates itself, and no one intervenes in it from the outside and does not observe it either compassionately or indifferently. And man, being the “organ of self-knowledge of the world”, by virtue of the fact that he is a particle of this world, is aware of his role as a creator and sets himself the goal of remaking and improving it. Traditional science considers the discovery of the laws that govern the universe to be the main task of knowledge.
From the point of view of religion, God created the world, he controls it. Man is a creation
eat God. The world was created by God rationally, that is, it has its own order.
Origin of the world and life. The doctrine of the gradual evolution of plants and animals, which passed into biology mainly from geology, can be divided into three parts. In the first place, it is a fact, as certain as it can be for remote epochs, that the simpler forms of life are the more ancient ones, and the forms with a complex structure appear at a later stage of development. Secondly, there is a theory that later and organized forms did not arise spontaneously, but developed from earlier forms, having undergone a number of modifications; this is, strictly speaking, what is meant by "evolution" in biology. Thirdly, there are studies of the mechanism of evolution. The main historical merit of Charles Darwin from the point of view of science is that he proposed natural selection as a mechanism, thanks to which the idea of ​​evolution began to seem more plausible. However, this assumption, which satisfied the followers of Charles Darwin, cannot be considered indisputable.
According to the religious point of view, the world arises as a result of the creation of God. He creates not only "inanimate" nature, but also life on Earth. Life on Earth appears immediately in all its diversity, i.e. there is no gradual evolution, some species do not originate from others.
Human Origins. Both religious and scientific teachings about the origin of man speak not of the same thing, but of different things: science is about the relative "origin" of man, i.e., his biological continuity with other, lower organisms of earlier stages of organic life, religion but - about the absolute origin of man, that is, about his origin from the very beginning of being and about his relationship to this beginning - God. Religion claims that man is a higher, special being, different from the entire animal world, that he was created by God as "the image and likeness of God"; and the same religion, in its doctrine of the Fall, adds that later man (for one reason or another) “fell,” i.e., lost the purity of his divine image and mingled with the world of the lower nature, submitted to it. Religion reveals a different, earlier era of human existence, which preceded all that organic evolution that science studies.
Darwinism, as well as the teachings of N. Copernicus, came into serious conflict with religious ideas. It was necessary to abandon the notions of the permanence of species and the many individual acts of creation contained in the book of Genesis, and also to recognize that after the emergence of life, a huge period of time passed before the appearance of man. They also abandoned many arguments in favor of the grace of providence, which allegedly granted animals the finest adaptation to the environment - now this is explained by the mechanism of natural selection. In addition, it is argued that man descended from lower animals.
Explaining Miracles. This is the main stumbling block between religion and science. Belief in miracles is considered incompatible with the scientific truth about the strict regularity of all natural phenomena. The religious man believes that he is under the constant guidance of God; and if he sees the will of God in the linkage of phenomena due to natural causes, then he cannot give up the idea that if God wants, He can always change the natural course of events, i.e., create a miracle. A miracle is understood as the direct intervention of higher, Divine forces in the course of phenomena - an intervention that leads to such a result that is impossible with the action of only natural, natural forces. Science and scientism do not refute and cannot refute the possibility of miracles. Science studies the regularities only of the natural, internal forces of nature and therefore does not say anything about the possibility or impossibility of a miracle.

Thus, we can say that science and religion, despite the fundamental and significant differences, also have points of intersection. And in such phenomena of culture as alchemy, astrology, science and religion are combined into one. The language of science and the language of religion also share similarities. Both of them rely on natural language, adding some special terms and proofs; in science and religion, reasoning is built using arguments and logical evidence. These similarities are explained by the fact that science and religion developed mutually influencing each other.
K. Izabolotskikh

Science provides good conditions, comfort and convenience, and spirituality, Dharma gives peace, tranquility.

In that period of time when science prevails, humanity will enjoy luxury and comfort, but it will not have peace. When religion (spirituality, Dharma) prevails, luxury and comfort can be enjoyed by a few, but most people will be in peace. Therefore, science and religion are two complementary things.

Science can be described as a piece of knowledge used to find the hidden energy in any material phenomenon. Religion can be defined as a piece of knowledge used to find the hidden power of human consciousness.

There is no conflict between science and religion. Let's look into the past. The East was inclined towards religion, and the East gave the world beliefs, religious systems and advanced cultures, but remained poor. And the Western world, developed science, created a lot of material values, but they lost the understanding of spirituality. They have all the material goods, but the understanding of the Divine Soul (Atma) is lost.

In our time, we need a culture in which science and religion are balanced. In such a culture all sciences will be religious and all religions will be scientific.

Human life is the connecting link between body and soul. There is no conflict between body and soul. So in the coming times, science will be like the body, and religion the soul of the world.

Both of these components should work together in their respective areas. For example, if someone lives only for the sake of the body, he loses the understanding of the Divinity of his Soul. Accordingly, if a person lives only by spiritual consciousness, his material body will suffer. Hence the need to balance these two aspects in order to maximize the potential of the human incarnation.

The future will be bright only if religion and science work together. In this combination, religion will become a central theme, and science an external addition. Religion will precede science.

In a body-soul combination, the body cannot become the master of the soul. Similarly, science will never control religion. The overdevelopment of science becomes dangerous if the balancing force of religion does not intervene. Therefore, the time has come when religion must regain its rights.

Freedom of religion (spirituality) means that we don't care whether there is Truth, whether there is ahimsa, whether there is Love, whether there is culture. There is no freedom of religion in any country. This will lead her to ruin. It is necessary to talk about freedom of teachings, freedom of traditions. This means that we don't care if you are Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Jain. Religion is one, traditions are many. It is necessary to say freedom of traditions, but we say freedom of religions.

From Pilot Babaji's book "Here's What I Learned".

43. Religion and science in the context of culture.

Science and religion are two fundamental layers of culture and two fundamental types of worldview that complement each other. Each era has its dominants, along with which there are peripheral background types of worldview, background types of cultural subsystems, which nevertheless play a significant role in the development of human society.

So, if in the Middle Ages in the European tradition the dominant was Christian religiosity- both officially and at the level of mass consciousness, the New Age in the same European tradition, starting from the 17th century, shows us an example of increasing domination scientific type of understanding of the world. And in the Middle Ages, science existed in the form of a background, mostly elitist type of worldview, characteristic of the circles of enlightened monasticism and the then emerging secular university science. This does not mean, however, that one form of worldview replaces another, completely displacing the previous one from human culture. Although the history of culture shows that in the era of the dominance of religious systems as forms of knowledge of the world and as structures of mass consciousness, science is suppressed and abused, including by force. In the era of the dominance of science as a form of knowledge of the world and as an orientation of mass consciousness, religiosity is suppressed by the same methods. In fact, the relationship between the scientific and religious types of worldview is, of course, much more complicated.

Science today has not supplanted the religious forms of understanding the world, has not destroyed them. It only pushed religiosity to the periphery of the strategic highway of knowledge and understanding of the world in the structures of the mass consciousness of society.

^ The fundamental cognitive attitudes of the scientific and religious way of understanding the world intersect with each other very tightly. . On the one hand, science does not represent a continuous stream of objectified knowledge, the full justification of which comes down to evidence, whether theoretical or experimental. On the other hand, systems of religious belief are not limited to the acceptance of certain fundamental principles on faith. In science, there are structures that substantiate the knowledge derived from them and are taken on faith as an axiomatic basis for certain scientific theories.

The degree of substantiation of such statements varies, but almost always they proceed from self-evidence for the knowing mind, intellectual transparency, sufficiency from the standpoint of parameters external to the theory, etc. All this, upon closer examination, turns out to be modified attitudes of faith.

^ Religious systems are not only sets of provisions that appeal primarily to human faith , but also some generalized constructions based on an attempt argumentation and evidence. Such fragments or aspects of the religious attitude to the world are called theology, or, in Russian, theology, where the basis of rational substantiation and proof is brought under the attitudes of religion, the basis that basically and primarily works in science.

In this way, scientific knowledge is inseparably linked with faith, accompanied by it, moreover, to a large extent begins with some elements of taking on faith as self-evident intellectually transparent postulates for the starting points of scientific creativity. And religious faith needs at least partial confirmation of the persuasiveness of dogmas using the methods of rationalization and argumentation adopted in scientific knowledge. But then there are significant differences.

^ Science studies the surrounding nature, reality, the reality perceived by us with the help of the senses and comprehended by the intellect, the mind. Science is a system and a mechanism for obtaining objective knowledge about this surrounding world. Objective - that is, one that does not depend on the forms, methods, structures of the cognitive process and is a result that directly reflects the real state of affairs. Scientific knowledge is based on a number of principles that define, clarify, detail the forms of scientific knowledge and the scientific attitude to the comprehension of reality. They capture some features of the scientific worldview, quite subtle, detailed, peculiar, which make science a really powerful, effective way of knowing. There are several such principles that underlie the scientific understanding of reality, each of which plays a significant role in this process:

- principle of objectivity. An object is something that lies outside the cognizing person, outside his consciousness, existing on its own, having its own laws of development. The principle of objectivity means nothing more than the recognition of the fact of the existence of an external world independent of man and mankind, of his consciousness and intellect, and the possibility of his knowledge. And this knowledge - reasonable, rational - must follow verified, reasoned ways of obtaining knowledge about the world around.

- principle of causality. The principle of causality, the principle of determinism, means the assertion that all events in the world are interconnected by a causal relationship. According to the principle of causality, there are no events that do not have a real cause that can be fixed in one way or another. Every event creates a cascade, or at least one consequence. Therefore, the principle of causality asserts the presence in the Universe of natural balanced ways of interaction between objects. Only on its basis can one approach the study of the surrounding reality from the standpoint of science, using the mechanisms of proof and experimental verification.

- principle of rationality, reasoning, evidence of scientific provisions. Any scientific statement makes sense and is accepted by the scientific community only when it is proven.. Science does not accept unproven propositions, which are interpreted as very possible. In order for a certain statement to receive the status of scientificity, it must be proven, argued, rationalized, and experimentally verified.

- principle of reproducibility. Any fact obtained in scientific research as intermediate or relatively complete must be able to be reproduced.

in an unlimited number of copies, either in the experimental study of other researchers, or in the theoretical proof of other theorists.

- theoretical principle. Science is not an endless heap of scattered ideas, but a set of complex, closed, logically completed theoretical constructions. Each theory in a simplified form can be represented as a set of statements interconnected by intra-theoretical principles of causality or logical consequence. Any object of reality is a huge, in the limit of an infinite number of properties, qualities and relationships. Therefore, a detailed, logically closed theory is needed, which covers the most significant of these parameters in the form of an integral, detailed theoretical apparatus.

- principle of consistency. General systems theory is the basis of the scientific approach to understanding reality in the second half of the 20th century and treats any phenomenon as an element of a complex system, that is, as a set of elements interconnected according to certain laws and principles.

- criticality principle. It means that in science there are no and cannot be final, absolute truths approved for centuries and millennia. Any of the provisions of science can and should be the jurisdiction of the analyzing ability of the mind, as well as continuous experimental verification. In science no absolute authority, while in previous forms of culture, the appeal to authority was

as one of the most important mechanisms for the realization of the ways of human life. ^ Authorities in science rise and fall under the pressure of new irrefutable evidence. There remain authorities, characterized only by their brilliant human qualities. New times are coming, and new truths contain the previous ones, either as a special case or as a form of limit transition.

Religiosity, based not on an attempt to obtain objective knowledge, but on such a type of human relationship to the world as faith, belief in the existence, in development, in the presence of something that is not based on evidence, is due to the fact that the source of religiosity is not objective reality, not reality, yes known to us in sensations, but what we call super-existent being. The source of religious knowledge, experience, worldview becomesRevelation.Revelation is supernatural, supernormal knowledge given to man from above. The source can be either a prophet (Moses, Mahammad - in the history of great monotheistic religions), or the Absolute itself, God, incarnated on Earth, or directly appeared in this world and declares what he wants to convey to man. Revelation is not subject to the critical judgment of the mind, since what we receive through it is the highest, absolute information that the limited mind of a person is not able to present in its entirety and unfolding and which must be taken on faith.

On the whole, the differences between science and religion can be reduced to the following: science studies the actually perceived and consistently conceivable being. Religion represents not what is connected with the world of objective existence, logically ordered and empirically fixed, but what goes back to the meaning of our existence. Religion is interested in the meanings and values ​​of human existence, its ethical, moral and aesthetic components. Religion answers the ultimate questions that go back to the absolute forms of existence and worldview, which do not exist and cannot exist in science.

Science answers or, rather, tries to answer the question of how reality works, how it exists, functions, and develops. To do this, she formulates laws based on the results of experimental or theoretical research. Religion is interested in those questions that cannot be answers to the question how?, but why? and why?. Why is this world arranged this way and not otherwise? Why do we live? The answers to these questions lead a person to the idea of ​​God, the Absolute. Why is this happening"."

Science studies what is, religion is interested in what should be. Religion answers the most important questions of human life, the answers to which science does not give, and the mechanism for finding answers to these questions is not connected with evidence and theoretical or experimental confirmation, but with the universal, albeit deeply individual, specificity of human experience.

^ Thus, science and religion interact according to the principle of complementarity of formal-rational-cognitive and intuitive-ethical ways of mastering the world.

The dilemma of knowledge and faith, science and religion has again lost its unequivocal evidence in our days. And again, as it happened more than once at the breaks of history, a person strives to find his own way to the Truth. But it seems that along the way we have much more questions than answers.

The crisis of nature, society, personality, which we are facing, despite the numerous warnings of the most deeply thinking representatives of mankind, has called into question a number of values ​​that have been established in our century, both within science itself and in other areas of public consciousness. As it turned out, science itself is not yet a panacea for all ills, and its recommendations need additional ethical and aesthetic adjustments. The loss of a natural sense of harmony in relation to the world and to oneself threatens humanity with an inevitable catastrophe. The technogenic civilization created and deified by him for a long time fetishizes the artificial habitat, and turns to the natural one only in order to increase its own power and strength. The results of all this are visible today, as they say, "with the naked eye."

Suddenly enlightened, we begin to realize that theoretical schematization and logical simplification of reality steal its beauty from it. Having made violence against nature almost the only means of achieving his material well-being, man has lost his once living sense of coherence, rhythm and mystery of being, deprived him of a deep meaning and, as it were, conserved in his mind. He now lives in regret for the past and in dreams of an earthly paradise, but out of tune with the present. Is it possible to resurrect that attitude towards nature, when the world was perceived in its original purity, in every moment as a powerful, but also vulnerable, dangerous, but also saving, living and sensitive organism.

The conclusion we have reached is the following. Science is both a creative and destructive tool in the hands of an educated humanity. It is capable of directing this instrument for the good only if it retains in itself a sense of direct involvement in nature and the cosmos. Science and religion are two scales, and their balance is necessary as a unity of knowledge and faith.

On August 1, 2016, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia met with Russian scientists at the round table "Faith and Science - Interaction for the Good of Russia" in the domed hall of the chambers of the Assumption Monastery of Sarovskaya Pustyn, at which, in particular, he said:

<…>Although the relationship between religion and science has developed very differently throughout human history, the religious and scientific ways of understanding the world do not contradict each other - in the sense that science and art, religion and art do not contradict each other.

It can be said that religion, science and art are different ways of comprehending the world and man, of knowing the world by man. Each of them has their own tools, their own methods of cognition, they answer different questions. Science, for example, answers the "how" and "why" questions. Religion - to the question "why". At the center of religious knowledge is the problem of the meaning of life and attitudes towards death. If science is occupied with the question of how organic life appeared on earth, then religion is concerned with why life appeared. It is naive to read the book of Genesis as a textbook on anthropogenesis, but it is equally counterproductive to look for an answer to the question of the meaning of life in textbooks on biology or physics.

Another popular misconception is the following statement: science and religion not only complement each other, but are necessary for each other. Religious ideas, in accordance with this thesis, are an incentive for scientific activity, and scientific data can help cleanse religion of unnecessary imagery and symbolism. I am sure that this is also a simplification, and it is connected with a rethinking of the interaction between religion and science. This rethinking is caused, firstly, by a new understanding of the role of religion in the modern world, and secondly, by a rethinking of the content and place of science after a number of discoveries of the 20th century.

<…>On the other hand, sometimes some religious apologists are too zealous, trying to attract science to "their side." And now there is a point of view that modern physics is almost the best proof of the existence of God, and the creation of the world, etc.<…>It is important for Christian apologists not to lose a sense of proportion and to remember that if the Truth of religion were revealed to the greatness of reason, then Christianity would be different. The Gospel tells us something else: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God(Matthew 5:8).

The difference between the scientific and religious apparatuses and the impossibility of their mechanical "pairing" does not at all mean their absolute incompatibility. Science and religion, of course, complement each other in the overall picture of our knowledge about the world, making it more voluminous and bright. Only this whole picture does not fit completely either into the scientific framework or into the framework of proper religious ideas. In other words, this complementarity does not take place in the field of science (i.e., religious arguments do not work here, although we owe many scientific discoveries to the religious intuition of scientists) and not in the field of religion (science does not serve to directly confirm religious truths, although and it happens). Science answers its own questions, and religion answers its own. And the more answers a person has, the richer his ideas about the world, about God and about himself.

<…>In a world of intensive development of technologies based on scientific knowledge, the moral responsibility of scientists is extremely important. Several decades ago, speaking about the possible dangerous consequences of scientific progress, we had in mind, first of all, nuclear technologies. But now the most acute problems have arisen related to biotechnology, the rapid development of information technology, the creation of virtual realities, the formation of comprehensive databases, the control and accounting of people, the improper use of which can endanger human freedom and civil rights.

It is important to understand that the very topic of the consequences of scientific and technological development certainly has a moral component. It is inextricably linked with ideas of good and evil, with the ability to distinguish between harm and benefit. And here is a natural field for combining the efforts of science and religion.

(From the words of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill at a meeting with scientists in Sarov)