THE AUTHENTIC RELIGION (NATIVE FAITH) AND THE PROBLEM OF THE TYPOLOGY OF NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

Аннотация

Introduction. The analysis of new religious movements (NRMs), identification of the defects in the religious typology and classification of native faith as “neo-religion” are conducted by the author. The research shows the diversity of the followers purposes’ of traditional and new religious movements and their ideological systems (national – international), reveals the opposites of these religions in terms of the world and God/Gods (natural – artificial; mythological – historical, polytheism – monotheism, immanence – transcendence), etc., which enabled the author to find out the criteria for religious classifications. Purpose. The purpose of the article is to clear up the basic principles of theology, ideals, and ideologies of New Age and native faith of the Slavs, to determine their fundamental opposition. It’s logically motivated the fallacy of classification the native faith to “neo-paganism” as a segment of NRMs. Results. It is concluded that native faith was and still is a traditional autochthonous natural religion of the Ukrainians, which has long existed in hidden forms in parallel with the official Christianity. Only in a democratic society it has been given the possibility of its revival as officially recognized ethno-religious (national) confession. On the example of the creation of NRM, the author states the use of the methods of manipulation with human consciousness that have the features of “religious weapons” as one of the tools of information war. Originality and conclusion. There is an urgent need for state’s awareness of the fact of total world informational war to create its own self-protective philosophy of antiglobalism. So in this philosophy a significant importance will be given to scientific developments of native faith and ideology of national self-preservation to prevent the foreign intervention in autochthonous spiritual culture.