Religious rules of law. Types of social norms

The rules of conduct established by any religion are special kind social norms -- religious norms, and not a component of morality, law or any other social systems. When speaking about a religious norm, it should be borne in mind that a commandment, a rule of behavior, is only one of its components. In addition, the norm includes indications of the sacred source of the rule of conduct and the supernatural means of ensuring it. The Bible, Koran, Talmud and other “holy” books are characterized by the “dispersion” of the constituent parts of religious norms, the absence of individual sanction in many of them, which gives rise to the unfounded identification of the “verse”, which sets out only the rule of behavior, with the entire religious norm.

Religious norms have all the necessary characteristics of a social norm. Take, for example, the commandments of the biblical decalogue, which in various combinations are given in the Old and New Testaments as the most important part of the “law of God.” This is a categorical prohibition of worshiping several gods and idols, killing, committing adultery, stealing and coveting the property of others, bearing false witness, the requirement to believe in one god, “keep the Sabbath day” and honor parents. All these are rules of human behavior related to the spheres of religious worship, family and other social relations. The commandments prescribe very specific actions or abstinence from actions condemned by religion.

A religious norm, like other social norms, has general character, which manifests itself in the following. Firstly, a religious norm acts as a scale, a model for the behavior of believers in a given situation, as a standard for certain relationships. Secondly, its prescriptions do not apply to a specific individual, but to a more or less wide circle of people: to followers of a given religion (members of a church, sect, denomination) or to some part of them (clergy, laymen, etc.) .

By providing specific behavior options in typical life situations, religious norms influence the will and consciousness of people, shape their social behavior and thereby regulate relevant social relations, manifested primarily in the actions or inactions of their participants. One of the specific features of these norms is that they also regulate relationships that are outside the sphere of influence of other social norms - relationships that arise during the practice of worship.

Religious norms most often have an authoritarian character, formulated as commands that must be fulfilled contrary to the requirements of any other norms, up to a direct ban on following the latter (for example, restriction by norms Old Testament and Islam of the custom of blood feud). Every religion, citing will supernatural powers and creatures, demands from his followers blind discipline, strict adherence to his instructions. Religious norms must be followed, despite the discrepancy between their instructions and the views and desires of the believer.

Religious norms differ from moral, legal and other social norms, primarily in that they are based on religious, and not any other ideas and concepts, and are inextricably linked with belief in the supernatural. For example, the rules governing the order in which magical actions, could not arise without faith in the possibility of achieving the results desired by man through his influence on the supernatural properties of real-life objects or on supernatural connections between objects. In the absence of ideas about the possibility of influencing supernatural properties, connections and beings in one direction or another, both any cult actions and the norms associated with them lose all meaning. The same can be said about religious prohibitions. Various food prohibitions are associated with magical beliefs or belief in spirits.

Religious norms are considered by believers as commands of supernatural forces or their representatives on earth - the supreme servants of the cult. IN primitive religions Totemic ancestors and spirits were considered the creators and guardians of religious regulations and prohibitions. Then the deities act as the source of religious rules of behavior and, finally, in monotheistic religions-- God. In the “sacred” books different religions religious norms are formulated as divine commands. In the Bible, for example, they are called commandments, commandments, statutes, laws of God, and their holiness is emphasized. Church rules are given out by theologians for concretizing the “laws of God.”

However, the connection between religious norms and religious ideas and concepts is not always noticeable. Not all religious injunctions indicate their sacred origin. In such cases, the existence of this connection is evidenced by specific means of ensuring the fulfillment of religious instructions: the threat of supernatural punishment and the promise of reward from supernatural forces. Compliance with religious norms is also ensured by punishments applied to violators by clergy (church punishment). With the emergence of the state and law, criminal punishment for so-called religious crimes is added to this, and then adverse civil consequences in cases of non-compliance with certain religious norms.

Religious norms are the rules established by various faiths and mandatory for believers. They are contained in religious books (Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, Sunna, Talmud, religious books of Buddhists, etc.), in decisions of meetings of believers or clergy (decrees of councils, boards, conferences), in works of authoritative religious writers. These norms determine the order of organization and activities of religious associations (communities, churches, groups of believers, etc.), regulate the performance of rituals, and the order of church services. A number of religious norms have moral content (commandments).

There have been entire eras in the history of law when many religious norms were of a legal nature and regulated certain political, state, civil, procedural, marriage and other relations. In a number of modern Islamic countries The Koran ("Arabic law book") and Sunnah are the basis of religious, legal and moral standards, regulating all aspects of a Muslim’s life, determining the “right path to the goal” (Sharia).

In our country, before the October (1917) armed uprising, a number of marriage, family and some other norms were recognized and established Orthodox Church(“canon law”), was an integral part of the legal system. After the separation of church and state, these norms lost their legal nature.

In the early years Soviet power the application of Islamic law (Sharia) was allowed in some areas of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Currently, the norms established by religious organizations come into contact with the current law in a number of respects. The Constitution creates a legal basis for the activities of religious organizations, guaranteeing everyone freedom of conscience, including the right to freely profess, individually or together with others, any religion or not to profess any religion, to freely choose, have and disseminate religious and other beliefs and to act in accordance with them.

Religious associations may be granted the status of a legal entity. They have the right to have churches, houses of worship, educational institutions, places of worship and other property necessary for religious purposes. The norms contained in the charters of the relevant legal entities, which determine their legal capacity and capacity, are of a legal nature.

A citizen of the Russian Federation is given the right to replace military service with alternative civilian service if performing military service contradicts his convictions or religion.

Believers have the opportunity to freely perform religious ceremonies, related to marriage, the birth of a child, his coming of age, the funeral of loved ones, and others, however, only documents received from the civil registry office or other government bodies authorized to issue such documents have legal significance in connection with these events.

Some religious holidays officially recognized by the state, taking into account historical traditions. However, the difficulty is that in secular state, where there are many religions celebrating different holidays and dates, it is almost impossible to officially designate religious holidays common to all believers and non-believers.

Of course, religion was not an eternal companion of humanity. However, religious norms appeared a long time ago, from time immemorial. It’s hard to say when exactly. Probably since man began to reflect (lat.

Reflexio - reflection, reflection, analysis of one’s own mental state), i.e. realize oneself as a person and think about what surrounds one. Man was surrounded by unknown forces, forces of nature, with which man was clearly unable to compete. In the struggle with the surrounding nature, people often felt their powerlessness and suffered heavy losses. But their knowledge was still too imperfect to rationally explain the reason for this kind of failure. Instead, they gave them an irrational, distorted, fantastic explanation.

That is why man considered these unknown forces powerful (and quite deservedly), attributing to them an unearthly, divine essence.

Religious norms are rules of behavior that regulate relationships between people through the prism of the requirements of divine principles.

Let's note the most characteristic features religious norms of primitive society.

1. The essence of religion as a system of religious norms is that religion (Latin religio - shrine, object of worship) is the spiritual union of man with the gods (god). This union consists in the fact that God reveals to man his essence and his will (hence “revelation”), and man, entering into this union and being in communion with the deity, makes his will his norm and devotes his strength to its implementation. It is clear that religious person perceives the will of God as the norm of his behavior and sees in the deity the establisher of commandments. Their meaning boils down to the fact that a person must serve God first, and only then people and society. The will of God permeates religious norms.

2. In primitive society there were many gods, probably as many as there were forces of nature unknown and terrible for humans. Polytheism - first stage religious consciousness. Later, when society rises to a higher level in economic development and there will be a need for the unity of people inhabiting a particular territory, there will be a need to identify a professional layer of managers, i.e. in the emergence of the state, then monotheism will arise. The emergence of a monoreligion strongly points to the emergence of a state.

The first beginnings of a unified religion appeared in Ancient Egypt in the 14th century BC, when Pharaoh Amenhotep IV reigned. He carried out a religious reform in order to introduce the cult of the single god Aten - Ra (the sun god) and was called Akhenaten (literally "pleasing to Aten"). However, the ground for the adoption of monotheism (monotheism) in Egypt at that time was not yet prepared, and the reform turned out to be short-lived. Z. Freud believed that the exodus of his companions to Judea after the death of Pharaoh did not make it possible to lose the idea of ​​​​monotheism and ultimately led to its triumph, but not in Egypt, not in the homeland of the reformer pharaoh1. Monotheism was established in the ancient Jewish state and only in the 10th century. BC as the cult of the god of the tribe of Judah - Yahweh. Thus began the process of formation of national and world religions. The reasons for the establishment of monotheism can also be cited as the increased intellectual abilities of mankind, the increase in the level of abstract thinking of people, which required establishing order not only on earth, but also in heaven.

So, the idea of ​​tens and hundreds of gods was contained in the minds of primitive people.

3. At first pagan religion had only a compensatory function, i.e. she acted as an explainer and comforter for primitive people. Religious norms indicated the path to salvation, deliverance from suffering, and the achievement of immortality. Subsequently, religion begins to play a purely regulatory function. It should be seen in the fact that religious norms, prescribing rules of behavior through the prism of the divine principle, were addressed to people and regulated their behavior. Thus, a certain order was established in society to replace the possible, in the absence of any social norms at all, general anarchy and permissiveness. We must not forget that religious and mystical images acted not only as personifications natural forces, but were also closely intertwined and contained moral ideals, spiritual traditions, historical values ​​that ancient people had developed by that time. Religious norms gradually became a tool for strengthening the stability of primitive society.

Moreover, to a certain extent, the creation of primitive religious cults should be seen as an attempt by primitive people to influence these external forces that dominated them in everyday life, even somehow manage them. This is where primitive magic, sacrifices, and spells came from. The most complex rituals become the means by which a person seeks to force supernatural beings serve him.

4. The forms of religion are extremely diverse. But research by ethnographic scientists, our contemporaries, shows that Eskimo spirits are in many ways reminiscent of African ones. In primitive society, the essential similarity of the gods was also observed. Moreover, even today world religions, despite all their external dissimilarities, have not only common roots, but also many common features.

The striking similarity of religious norms created in different regions of the globe is explained primarily by the unity of humanity, the similarity in the processes social development, laws of psychology common to all people. Development religious ideas and the development of religious norms proceeded in all cultural and historical regions according to approximately the same plan, while differing endlessly in details. We find totem worship in both South Asia and North America, and in Central Africa, and in Australia. The gods themselves of ancient Greece, India, Mexico, and the rituals associated with the worship of these gods are similar. Drawing a parallel with today, we can note that “heresies” and reform movements are found in both Christianity and Islam.

5. Since religion is always a reflection, albeit fantastic, of reality, it changes along with the change in this reality, with the development of human society.

Early forms of religious belief were very primitive. Middle Paleolithic people actually had only the rudiments of religious ideas. During the Upper Paleolithic period, magical and totemic ideas, as well as a funeral cult, were already taking shape. Magical beliefs are understood as ideas about a person’s ability to influence other people and nature (magic that causes harm, healing, love, etc.). Totemism is a belief system involving species of animals that are prohibited from hunting. In developed tribal societies, totemism becomes obsolete. However, it is being replaced by other forms of beliefs, for example shamanism, i.e. a system of ideas according to which it is believed that a person can, having brought himself to a state of ecstasy, communicate with spirits and use them for his own purposes. One can also note such a form of religious beliefs as fetishism, i.e. veneration of inanimate material objects supposedly possessing supernatural properties.

In a word, the following pattern is present here. A person leads an appropriating economy, vital importance Hunting is important to him - he worships ancestor animals. A productive economy appeared - man felt his power, and his gods lose the features of powerful animals and become like powerful people, and he himself is already the crown of creation and the king of nature, God’s favorite creature, while animals were created only for his needs.

6. For violation of religious norms, as well as for non-compliance with other social norms of primitive society, sanctions were provided and imposed. They were believed to be an expression of the wrath and judgment of the gods over sinners. The peculiarity of religious sanctions was that they were often invisible. Well, how can one actually monitor the fulfillment of such a sanction as the enduring of eternal torment in the afterlife, or how to see how the gods create doomsday over the guilty one. It seems that none of the tribesmen was also able to contemplate the implementation of such a sanction as heavenly punishment. However, some sanctions were more than noticeable, especially when the shaman, after consulting with the spirits, “hears” their unmerciful sentence and the order addressed to him to organize its execution.

The retribution for good attitude and service to the gods: a prosperous life in the afterlife. Since one of the main values ​​for people in primitive society was service to the gods, this “measure of encouragement” was very significant for people. Gradually, primitive people came to understand that religious duty had an advantage over human duty. This advantage was based on the feeling of complete dependence of people on the gods, on faith in their supernatural power.

7. With development religious mythology, primitive beliefs are also associated with the identification of the first professions in history - sorcerers, healers, shamans, and finally, priests, clergy, i.e. people to whom their fellow tribesmen entrusted the role of intermediary in contacts with the supernatural world, so important for the tribe or people, with spirits and gods.

The role of the priests was enormous. They were astrologers, agronomists, and meteorologists for their tribe. The priest told when to sow and when to begin harvesting. In essence, the priest is the guardian of the customs of his tribe, taking care of the physical and spiritual health fellow tribesmen. The priests also helped in solving purely practical social and personal problems - they “consulted with the spirits” to find out whether it was worth undertaking a dangerous winter journey, gave recommendations on a variety of everyday conflicts, and treated people based on their experience and skills.

Who are they, sorcerers?

All peoples and tribes went through terrible trials before taking the place of a sorcerer. The pains of initiation (the rite of passage into adulthood) could not even be compared with these tests. In Africa, candidates for sorcerers were kept in smoke for long hours, wounded, and forced to endure poisonous insect bites for long periods of time. The candidate for priesthood of the South American tribe also went through several difficult trials.

First of all, the sorcerer was forced to spend the night in the forest. And depending on what place in the priestly hierarchy he claimed, he was supposed to go into the forest dressed or naked, and sleep there or not. But the tropical forest is full of predators and poisonous snakes. Coming out of the forest (unless, of course, he died there), the applicant must eat a paste of leaves of some Trees ground with water.

A person already ordained as a priest was subject to numerous restrictions. If he reached the highest rank, he must wash only with his left hand, he was not allowed to cut his hair and nails, eat spices, leave the settlement where the rituals were held, and he could only talk to other people through a special intermediary. He was allowed to communicate with a woman only once every few years.

Among the Eskimos, the son of a shaman, who was also destined to become a shaman, for this profession is hereditary, went in early spring alone without food or weapons to “search for the spirit.” He had to defeat this spirit and force it to serve himself. Usually he undertook this “campaign” when it was still frosty. And it is not surprising that a person who spends many days, and sometimes weeks, without food under open air, attend hallucinations: he sees a spirit, he enters into a fight with it and defeats it.

The purpose of all these tests is to teach the future shaman to go through an ecstatic state, in which only one can “communicate with spirits.” According to psychologist V. Levy, in this state a person’s ability to model the psyche of other people in his head sharply increases - a property called reflection. If the sorcerer does not have the ability to reflect at least an order of magnitude higher than his environment, he cannot manipulate the psychological atmosphere and consciousness of his fellow tribesmen, and therefore, he will not stay in his place. Among other things, the trials he endured raise the shaman high in the eyes of his fellow tribesmen, convincing them that the person who voluntarily took on such hardships is not like everyone else. They expect a lot from him, they believe in him, and faith, as you know, works miracles. Belief in the power of a sorcerer, healer, or shaman often healed, but sometimes also killed people.

Religious norms

These are rules established by various church denominations and mandatory for believers. They are contained in religious books (the Bible, Talmud, Koran, Sunnah, Laws of Manu, etc.), in acts adopted by church societies, meetings of the clergy or higher ranks of the church, in commentaries of religious books. Such norms regulate the performance of rituals, church services, keeping fasts. Religious norms can also have moral content (for example, commandments from the Old Testament: do not kill, do not steal, honor your parents, etc.).

In ancient times and the Middle Ages, many religious norms were given a legal character (canon law in medieval Europe). In modern Muslim states, the main sources of law are religious books - the Koran and Sunnah. It is also known that in the first years of Soviet power, the norms of Muslim law were applied in some regions of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Nowadays, in most civilized countries, people have the opportunity to freely perform religious rituals that are not associated with violence against the individual, violation public morality(marriage, burial of the deceased, etc.), however, such acts do not have legal significance.

Religious prohibitions and permissions, representing elementary norms of human relationships, concentrate the experience of social coexistence of people developed over millennia. This is the source of divine and human wisdom, the guiding compass of prosperity, the normal existence of humanity.

Political norms

They regulate the relations of classes, estates, nations, political parties and other public associations aimed at conquering, retaining and using state power. These kinds of norms exist both in the form of general slogans (the principle of democracy, building communism, introducing the foundations of a market economy, etc.), and in the form of more specific political norms (privatization of state property, introduction of the principles of local self-government, economic program, pension, tax reforms etc.). In any case, they act as a form of awareness and expression of class, collective, group interest, and assessment of political existence.

Political norms are contained in the views of philosophers, politicians, leaders of political parties, social movements, their public speaking, in the charters and programs of parties and other public associations regarding their tasks and functions, general and specific programs and areas of activity, the structure and nature of state power. Depending on specific historical conditions, the relationship of class, national, religious forces, the level of consciousness of society and its culture, the interaction of such norms varies. This includes mutual support, compromise, and confrontation.

Political norms should not take precedence over the law, otherwise this gives rise to political arbitrariness and contributes to the creation of totalitarian regimes. Only there are a truly democratic system and a civilized civil society possible, where politics and political norms are based on the law, where law limits political power, where a person, his interests and rights are the main object of state activity.

Norms of public associations (corporate norms)

These norms regulate the rights and obligations of members of parties, trade unions, voluntary societies (youth, women's, creative, scientific, cultural, educational, sports and recreational and other associations), the procedure for their creation and functioning (structure, management procedure, powers of association bodies, size membership fees, etc.), as well as relations of such associations with government bodies and other associations. Such norms are formulated in the charters and other documents of associations, express the will and interests of their members and are binding only for them. Violators of corporate norms are subject to sanctions (reprimand, exclusion from the association, etc.) provided for by the charters of the relevant associations.

Corporate norms also include those provided for by the charters of cooperatives and other non-governmental organizations of a commercial nature.

Some of the most important aspects The organizations and activities of public associations are also regulated by legal norms. The legislation will create a legal basis for the organization and activities of public associations, determine the general procedure for their creation and activities, and relationships with government bodies. The Constitution provides for the right of everyone to associate and guarantees the freedom of activity of public associations. No one can be forced to join or remain in any association.

The law establishes prohibitions on creating associations that have criminal goals or carry out their activities using violent methods, as well as committing actions that go beyond the tasks provided for by their charters.

Moral standards

Under morality (from Lat. - moral) refers to the views and ideas of people about good and evil, about shameful and praiseworthy, about honor, conscience, duty, justice. At the same time, morality is also norms, principles of behavior emanating from this kind of views, as well as feelings and emotions that evaluate one’s own and others’ behavior from the point of view of goodness, justice and decency.

Being a form public consciousness, morality, like law, is historical in nature. It is in motion, constantly changing, reflecting the level of development of society, its social structure, national, household, religious and, first of all, economic factors. The morality of primitive society, the eras of slavery, feudalism and modern moral ideas are in many ways different, and some of them are even opposite to each other.

Morality presupposes a value assessment of an individual not only in relationships with other people, but also with oneself, a sense of personal dignity and self-esteem of one’s behavior. The highest moral principles for a person are his conscience, decency, honesty, and awareness of his own duty.

Such universal human moral principles and foundations, developed over centuries, as honesty, philanthropy, mercy, justice, integrity, hard work, are called upon to be the guiding principles of people’s behavior and their relationships. The humane content of morality is formulated in concentrated form in the “golden rule”, known since ancient times: “Do towards others as you would like them to act towards you.” The general legal prescription of modern civil society that the exercise of the morals and freedoms of man and citizen should not violate the rights and freedoms of other persons (Article 17 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation) harmoniously complements and develops this rule.

Finally, the last type of social norms is rules of law (see chapter 20).