Often, students ask how to explain the fact that some scholars in the West who are well known for their scientific discoveries are religious people? Moreover, some religiously minded scholars claim that the study of the universe proves the existence of a god. Yes, the English astrophysicist E. Milne wrote: "In my explanation, the universe is inseparable from what we would like to portray as the visible creation of the Divine Creator ... You can say when you want us to discover God in the Universe because the Universe seems to be a beautiful expression of those temporal and extra-spatial attributes that we associate with the Divine. ''
To some extent, the answer to this question was given by the famous physicist, one of the creators of quantum mechanics V. Heisenberg in his book "Physics and Philosophy".
"All the way we think," Heisenberg wrote, "is shaped in our youth by the ideas we are confronted with at the time, or by the fact that we come into contact with the prominent personalities we learn from. This way of thinking will be crucial. influence on all our daily work, and as a result, difficulties in adapting to completely different ideas and systems of thought are possible.
The second consideration is that we are part of a society or a collective. common ideas mo ut supported by the authority of the church or the state ... and ... it is very difficult to move away from conventional ideas, not opposing "the society".
Thus, in the idealistic, and sometimes frankly, religious statements of scholars of the bourgeois world, one must be able to see not only their immediate worldview content but also the social basis. There are, of course, among these people outspoken, militant idealists and mystics who are openly fighting materialism. But there are scholars who stand in the elemental and materialistic positions, and their statements are similar to religious-idealistic only externally and in fact are only a reflection of the ideology prevailing in the bourgeois society, as well as the philosophical prejudices common in the West.
In modern capitalist states, religion remains an essential element of social life, and religiosity is not only a centuries-old tradition but also actively supported and planted. This state of affairs can not but have a significant impact on scientists who live and work in today's society. Therefore, often their religiosity is a religion that comes from tradition, from the way of life, from the social system in which a person exists and is formed.
Of course, the epistemological reasons for the reproduction of religious beliefs are also significant. In the absence of a consistent dialectical-materialistic approach to understanding the phenomena of nature and social processes, they can help to shape religious views.
Some scholars in the West, aware of the incapacity and naivety of traditional religious beliefs, however, cannot abandon the idea of God at all and seek to give it a scientific form. So, American physicist C. Townes, one of the creators of the laser, a Nobel laureate, calls God "the highest expedient." Well-known physicist R. Milliken at one time identified God with "rational order and orderly development."
A. Einstein said most emphatically: "I believe in the god Spinoza, who manifests Himself in the harmony of all things, but I do not believe in a God who deals with the fates and activities of men"!
It is very important to emphasize that when it comes to the religiosity of bourgeois scholars, it is necessary to distinguish between the religious errors of scholars and the deliberately devised idealist philosophers and religious theorists.
Natural science and philosophy. "... Natural science is progressing so fast," Tsiolkovsky wrote at the beginning of our century, "it is going through a period of such profound revolutionary breakdown in all fields that without the philosophical conclusions of natural science there is no way to do it."
In ancient times, philosophy actually merged with science. This was the so-called natural philosophy. She regarded nature as one, interpreting it as purely speculative. In the Renaissance, natural philosophy opposed medieval scholasticism and put forward a number of deep ideas, in terms of its materialistic and dialectical content, including the idea of the infinity of the world and the innumerable worlds, as well as the idea of the convergence of opposites and the idea of infinitely large.
And now, when it is enough for us to look at the results of the study of nature dialectical, that is, from the point of view of their own connection, to obtain a satisfactory "system of nature" for our time, and when the consciousness of the dialectical nature of this connection penetrates even into the metaphysically trained heads of naturalists contrary to their will, - now natural philosophy has come to an end. Any attempt to resurrect it would not only be superfluous, but it would also be a step backward.
Only natural sciences can solve the problems associated with the study of certain specific properties of the real world. It is in these positions that dialectical-materialist philosophy stands.