Why do we need priests in high school?

The reason for this post was the news that the Department of Theology was opened at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI . I am not a militant atheist, I am quite tolerant and with understanding I treat people who are believers - this is their own business, what and how to believe. Moreover, I even in some sense approve of the presence of various religions in our life: it’s still better that a person has at least some beliefs and internal regulators than none at all, and, moreover, all modern history and archeology practically exist at the expense of religions - many interesting and historically and scientifically important archaeological finds were cult, i.e. were born thanks to the religions that existed in those distant times. It is also not a secret that many great scholars were believers and even entered a narrow circle of people who have a little more relation to religion than ordinary worshipers (just look at the list of members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican). Still, the news mentioned above leads to very sad thoughts.

In my opinion, the ever deeper penetration of religion into the life of modern Russian society is not an indication that the world is getting better, being cleared of "communist contagion." Analyzing news related to church activities, I see only more and more aggressive marketing. Yes, it is marketing: there are all signs, ranging from press releases and ending with the price lists for services in churches and temples. By the way, do you know how much a rocket consecration costs before each launch? Yes, yes, at Baikonur (where I was fortunate to serve in the then Soviet Army during the launch of Buran), this procedure became standard in 1999 (it was then built at Baikonur and the temple of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious), and since and his assistants - regular units of the crew for launching missiles (sic!). So, the consecration of each rocket before the start costs the treasury 170 thousand rubles. From the budget for the construction of the rocket and launch - i.e. from the state budget (from your and my pockets, in other words). At the same time, the “toolkit” is used by the servants of the church in no way cosmic - absolutely the same as for the consecration of apartments or cars, the cost of which consecration starts from 0 rubles - according to church rules, everyone here does not give much.

But marketing is an integral part of business. And here - religion, concern for the souls of the parishioners ... However, there is no inconsistency here: religion has long become a business, and very profitable. Moreover, as in any traditional business, the cost of corporate services is much higher than the cost of similar services for individuals - and therefore the consecration of the rocket costs much more than the consecration of a car (for which people usually give 500-1000 rubles). So, after all the business. And now this business comes to universities, as one of the studied subjects. However, students will obviously not be taught the subtleties of church business - this is a forbidden topic. But the official version of the priests - supposedly a new subject should broaden the horizons of future scientists - is also hard to believe. The outlook has absolutely nothing to do with it. As with any “service”, the growth of the “user base” is important for religion. And the army of many thousands of university students is a very attractive audience, because they will become after a while the middle class, the most active backbone of society.
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As for the outlook ... I can not imagine how such opposite knowledge should be combined in the head of a future scientist, such as, for example, the theory of the formation of the Universe as a result of the Big Bang and the theory of the origin of the Universe according to God's will? And will there be a divine explanation of the nature of the neutrino? And as the theory of explaining the meaning of all the fundamental physical constants, can the great divine plan come forward?

Educated people, which, of course, must also include university graduates, understand that religion has always been used by mankind in cases where certain natural phenomena had no explanation from the point of view of the existing knowledge base about the surrounding world. It was then that religion came to the rescue — everything that was incomprehensible was attributed to some deity, and it was possible to continue to quietly go about their household chores. Why look for a reason if you already have a universal answer? Moreover, science has always developed in spite of church dogma, for which it burned at the stake. It was the expansion of the knowledge base of humanity that led to the fact that God gradually moved from the clouds to more and more distant frontiers, until it turned into something completely incomprehensible and which is not known where.

And here a very interesting idea is born: what if the growing volume of scientific knowledge reduced the role of God in the life of the Universe so much that the clergy themselves no longer believe in it? And it is precisely this that explains the fact that religion has transformed into a business: they themselves understood that the theory could not withstand criticism, but so far the congregation did not realize it - why not support general delusion and not use it for their own selfish purposes? If this is so - and I do not see the real facts refuting this conclusion - then it is doubly sad to see the appearance of priests in the “churches of science”. For me personally, this speaks of two things: it is beneficial for the state to keep people in ignorance as long as possible (and therefore the church is increasingly allowed into various areas of society), and the education system is profitable to become a partner of a successful and profitable business, which is religion. At the same time, science itself is of no interest to anyone - it is still not among the priority areas for the development of the state.

For dessert - a very convincing monologue of George Carlin about religion: