How important is religion to you personally?

Drawing up a portrait of today’s society together with the Levada Center, we could not ignore the religiosity of Russians. “How important is religion to you personally?” sociologists asked¹. 26% of the participants chose the option “Religion makes me think about the meaning of life, about the soul, eternity” (multiple answers could be chosen). 4% of respondents approach religion pragmatically, believing that “observance of religious rites helps to avoid misfortunes, contributes to success in business.” However, the most votes – 32% – received the option “religion has no meaning in my life.”

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There were other questions in the study. For example, “what can you say about the religious feelings of the people around you?”. 31% of respondents do not notice any changes in these feelings. A paradox arises: since June 1991, the number of people who consider themselves Orthodox has more than doubled, to 75%, while the number of non-believers has dropped from 61% to 14%. At the same time, religion does not matter to the majority, and they do not see changes in the environment in this sense. How is this possible?

“Back in 1958, the American psychologist Gordon Allport showed that religiosity can be external and internal,” comments psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova. – The internal is connected with a conscious choice, a decision of a person, it is based on his internal experience and does not correlate much with the outside world and its influences. External religiosity often turns out to be the result of conformism, caught social expectations and pressure, which has been very high in recent years. We just act like everyone else, go to church after the bosses that are shown on TV.

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But surely some faith is better than none? “A person with outward religiosity transfers decision-making functions to an external instance, the church and the clergyman become for him a kind of conscience taken outward,” continues Svetlana Krivtsova. – This can lead to the fact that the voice of one’s own conscience sounds ever quieter. It is known, for example, that people with external religiosity are less tolerant than people with internal religiosity. They delegate their moral choice to the institution of the church, refusing to do inner work. Whereas it is precisely moral work that forms the basis of religiosity. Psychologist and philosopher Viktor Frankl said that conscience is our unconscious God. Even atheists are unlikely to deny the greatness and beauty of the central idea of ​​Christianity: the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the salvation of people. But its realization requires efforts, which, unfortunately, are often not implied in outward religiosity.

¹ The survey was conducted on December 18–21, 2015, see levada.ru.