Religion is an integral part of the spiritual life of society. Probably everyone knows what religion is, its definition can be formed as follows: it is a belief in divine or supernatural forces, in the power of providence. A person can live without religion, of course, maybe in the world about 4-5 percent of atheists. However, a religious worldview forms a high moral value for a believer,
therefore, religion is one of the factors in reducing crime in modern society. Religious communities also actively promote a healthy lifestyle, support the institution of the family, condemn
deviant behavior, all this also contributes to maintaining order in society.
However, despite the apparent simplicity of the issue of religion, the best scholars for many centuries have tried to understand the phenomenon of the indestructible faith of mankind in forces that are much stronger than us, in what no one has ever seen. Thus, one of the directions of philosophical thought, called the philosophy of religion, was formed. She deals with issues such as studying the phenomenon of religion, religious worldview, the possibility of knowing the divine essence, as well as attempts to prove or refute the existence of God.
The philosophy of religion was studied by such prominent scholars as Kant, Hegel, Descartes, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Feuerbach, Huxley, Nietzsche, Dewey and many others. The philosophy of religion in ancient Greece was born in the Hellenistic period, its main question was how to get rid of the problems of being and merge with the Divine. In this period
an epistemological worldview is emerging, however, cognition was not interpreted as an objective study of the surrounding material world, but as a process of receiving divine revelation. Gradually, all Greek philosophical schools - Platonic, Tabernacle, Aristotelian, Sketic and many others - begin to be imbued with this idea, this situation continued until the period of decline of Greek culture.
In the Middle Ages, when all spheres of society were totally controlled by the church, religion became the only way of knowing being, the only law - Holy Scripture. One of the strongest movements of religious philosophy of the time was patristics (the teaching of the "fathers of the church") and scholasticism, which defended the foundations of Christianity and the institution of the church.
As an independent discipline, the philosophy of religion was born in the era
The Renaissance, when philosophers questioned many church doctrines and defended the right to independently consider religious issues. The most striking philosophers of that time were Spinoza (the unity of nature and God), Kant (God is a postulate of practical reason, religious requirements should be fulfilled only because society needs people with high morality), whose views were also held by his followers: Schleiermacher and Hegel. The philosophy of religion of the era of bourgeois prosperity is characterized by increasing criticism of religion, the desire for atheism, which jeopardized the very existence of philosophical religion as a research discipline.