and through our conscience, which is, as it were, the voice of God in us, telling us what is good and what is bad, and also through life , the history of all mankind. If a people loses faith in God, then calamities and misfortunes befall them, and if they do not repent, they perish and disappear from the earth; let us remember: the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Jewish people scattered throughout the earth, etc .

The entire world around us is a great book of God's revelation, testifying to the omnipotence and wisdom of God the Creator. People who study this world, scientists – all, with very rare exceptions, are believers. "Because in order to investigate (study) something, you need to be sure, to believe that everything that is studied is done meaningfully, according to a certain plan."

"Even the simplest machine, by chance, cannot arise by itself, even if we meet a correctly placed group of stones, we will already conclude from their correct location that they were laid in this way by some person. A random group will always be formless, irregular. Even Cicero (an ancient scientist and writer who lived before Christ) said that no matter how many millions of times you roll dice with letters, lines of poetry will not work out of them.

And the universe that surrounds us is much more complex than the most complex machine and is full of much more meaning than the most deeply meaningful poem" (from the conversations of Arch. Nathanael). The Apostle Paul was the most educated man of his time, and he says: "Every house is built by someone, but he who has made all things is God" (Heb. 4:3) The great scientist Newton, who discovered the laws of motion of heavenly bodies, as if exposing the greatest mystery of the universe, was a believer and was engaged in theology.

When he pronounced the name of God, he reverently stood up and took off his hat. The great Pascal, a genius of mathematics, one of the creators of new physics, was not just a believer, but also one of the greatest religious thinkers in Europe. Pascal said: "All the contradictions that most of all seem to want to remove me from the position of religion most of all have led to it."

The great founder of all modern bacteriology (the science that studies the life of bacteria and their influence on the human body), the thinker who penetrated more deeply than others into the mystery of organic life , Pasteur says: "The more I study nature, the more I stop in awe at the works of the Creator." The famous scientist Linnaeus ends his book on plants with the following words: "Truly there is a God, great, eternal, without Whom nothing can exist." Astronomer (studying the movement of celestial bodies-stars)

Kepler exclaims: "Oh, great is our Lord and great is His might, and His wisdom has no bounds. And you, my soul, sing the glory of your Lord all your life." Even Darwin, whose teachings were later used by semi-scientists to refute faith in God, was a very religious man all his life and for many years was a churchwarden in his parish.

He never thought that his teachings could contradict faith in God. After Darwin expounded his doctrine of evolution and the development of the living world, he was asked: "Where is the beginning of the chain of development of the animal world, where is its first link?" Darwin replied, "It is chained to the Throne of the Most High." The great geologist (earth scientist) Lyell writes: "In every investigation we discover the clearest proofs of the foresight, power and wisdom of the creative mind of God."

The learned historian Müller declares: "Only with the knowledge of the Lord and after a thorough study of the New Testament did I begin to understand the meaning of history." It would be possible to cite an unlimited number of testimonies of scientists about faith in God, but we think that this is enough for now, and we will point to one more eloquent proof. The scientist Dennert asked 432 natural scientists (studying nature) about faith in God through letters (questionnaires).

56 of them did not send answers, 349 scientists turned out to be believers in God, and only 18 said that they were either non-believers or indifferent to faith. The results of this survey of scientists coincide with the results of other similar studies. "Only half-knowledge leads people to godlessness. No one denies the existence of God, except those who benefit from it," says the English scientist Bacon.

A young girl, the Holy Great Martyr Barbara, seeing the greatness and beauty of God's world, came to the knowledge of the true God. In this way, God reveals Himself through the visible world to every person who has reason and good will. Faith in God is the basic property of the human soul. The soul is given to man from God: it is, as it were, a spark and a reflection in man of the Divinity itself.

Proceeding from God, having in Him a kindred being, the soul of its own accord, of its own free will, turns to God, seeks Him: "My soul thirsts for the strong and living God" (Psalm 41:2-3). Just as the eyes turn to the light and are designed to see the light, so the human soul strives for God, has a need for communion with Him, and finds peace and joy (happiness) only in God.

A flower is drawn to the sun because it receives light and warmth from the sun, without which it cannot live and grow. In the same way, man's constant, irresistible attraction to God comes from the fact that only in God can our soul find everything that it needs for a proper and healthy life. That is why all peoples at all times believed in God and offered up prayers to Him, although they often errred, incorrectly believed in God, but never lost faith in the Divinity, i.e ., they always had a religion. (

Religion is the spiritual union of man with the Divine). The universality of faith in God has been known since the time of Aristotle, the greatest Greek scientist (philosopher and naturalist, born in 384 BC). And now, when scientists know all the peoples who have inhabited and inhabit our land without exception, it has been confirmed that all peoples have their own religious beliefs, prayers, temples and sacrifices. "Ethnography (