Tsvetana Alеkhina
© Tsvetana Alеkhina, 2022
ISBN 978-5-0055-9652-9
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Hello dear readers! The idea to write this book originated in me a few years ago. Once I read this phrase on the Internet, «Choosing religion, you choose fate. This phrase made me think. I have lived most of my life in Christianity, and I only knew about the existence of heaven and hell. For several years now, I have been in paganism, in the Slavic Rodnoveria. Having studied this faith, I realized that there is no heaven and hell. There are other paybacks for the deeds done. There are other religions and rituals. So which faith and religion are the most correct?
In this book, I will describe three world religions, where they came from, what they carry in themselves, and what awaits the soul after death. This book will consist of three parts: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Since I am in paganism, another fourth part will be written, dedicated to the choice of my faith. All three religions described above are world religions. All accept the fourth paganism. Paganism is not recognized by the world, and is not a religion at all. This will be written about in the first part dedicated to the Slavs’ Rodnoverie.
A person should think about the choice of his faith from the moment he came to it. Everyone who reads this book, remember how you accepted your faith. No one remembers the day of his or her baptism. Because he was baptized in infancy. Faith should be accepted voluntarily, not imposed. God Jesus himself was baptized at the age of thirty-three. Nowadays, they try to baptize children in one month. Thereby trying to protect from the evil eye. Is it right?
Of course, every parent will raise their child in the religion in which they are themselves. But this does not give the right to prevent a person from studying and choosing another religion.
Now the most important thing is what is faith? And what is religion?
Religion is a kind of social phenomenon, one of the forms of perception, understanding of everything that exists, the world, the Universe. It is usually based on a belief in some supernatural entities. According to theologians, religion connects God and people. Religion is an official affiliation to a certain denomination, as well as a creed with a ritual.
Faith is the acceptance of an unproven something, an idea, a phenomenon, based more on an inner feeling, intuition. It is justified subjectively and does not require proof. The object of faith exists exclusively in the state of possibility. It can be felt psychologically, emotionally and figuratively. It depends on the characteristics of the body.
I very often hear the question, «Do you believe in God?» I answer. But who is God? This is a difficult question. Everyone believes in his or her chosen God. God himself is good. It is a higher power that controls us, helps us, and protects us. If you look at it this way, then no one has seen God, but everyone believes in him, and no one knows what he really looks like.
Every religion has its own God, disciples, and prophets. In every religion, God is called differently, but in fact, God is one. And everyone believes in him. By assuming a religion, a person undertakes before God to follow his commandments, abandoned teachings, canons, etc. If this religion is accepted voluntarily. It is worse if a person is in faith and does not understand what he believes. It is just that every person violates the heavenly laws, commandments, canons, etc. Voluntarily or not consciously, or he has to break them. That’s how the world works. That’s how man works.
Everyone knows that after death he will have to answer for his every crime. And the closer this day comes, the scarier a person becomes. He begins to remember his life, his actions, some of the people try to repent in order to ease their soul, and leave this life with forgiveness.
The way of life changes the inner world of a person. Breaks it. The environment in which a person lives is also not a little important. Of their own free will, or under duress. There are also life circumstances under which a person commits certain actions. Once, while in church confession, when I was in Christianity, I heard such a parable. One priest was engaged in painting icons, and he was looking for a young man to draw an image of an angel. He found one, the young man’s face was clean and beautiful and an angel was drawn from this young man. A few years later, the same priest was looking for a man to draw a demon. And he started going to prisons and confessing prisoners. One day he found such a man, his face was so ugly that the priest was afraid to confess him. And he asked this man to portray a demon. But the worst part is that it was the same person.
In every religion, there is an afterlife. In Christianity and Islam, this is heaven and hell. In Buddhism, this is the transmigration of souls. In Paganism, our ancestors are waiting for us.
Now let us talk about accepting religion by force. This is about those people who have accepted this or that faith against their will. First, this is a violation of human rights, an insult to religious feelings, and most importantly, it is the destruction of the individual. This violent act destroys a person from the inside. How many people died while converting to Islam or Christianity?
Let us remember our princesses who forcibly took vows. Solomonia Saburova. The first wife of Vasily III, forcibly tonsured into a monastery with the name Sophia after 20 years of marriage. She was never able to give birth to her husband’s child. There is evidence that she was even beaten because she persisted and did not want to become a nun.
Anna Vasilchikova. The wife of Ivan the Terrible. Forcibly tonsured as a nun in 1575. She lived out her sorrowful age in the Pokrovsky Convent of the city of Suzdal, which more than once in history became a shelter for unwanted wives.
Sofya Alekseevna Romanovna. The ruler of Russia, the regent of the state during the infancy of the brothers Ivan and Peter. She was tonsured by her younger brother Peter I in 1698 after another revolt of the Streltsy, who tried to bring Sophia, who had been overthrown by her brother, back to power. In monasticism, she bore the name of Susanna, but in 1704, she accepted the «great schema» and regained the name Sofia. She ended her days in the Novodevichy Monastery in Moscow, in severe monastic imprisonment.
So you can enumerate indefinitely. If you go into details, you can find arguments and facts about how people were tortured and killed in monasteries. There were torture chambers. And even an instrument of torture. And in fact, religion should bring good, love.
It is good when a person has accepted faith consciously, voluntarily. This man has thoroughly imbued himself with religion and knows what he believes in. My first part will be devoted to Paganism, since I am in it myself.
PART one PAGANISM
CHAPTER 1
The ancient history of the Slavs is being restored based on archaeological sources, linguistics data and evidence from written sources. Written sources are of particular importance for the restoration of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs. Ancient Greek and Roman authors mention the Veneds, who live north of the Carpathians, along the Vistula and are adjacent to the Fenns (Finno-Ugrians) in the north, the Pevkins and Sarmatians in the south. Extensive information is contained in the works of Byzantine writers; there is also important information from the Gothic historian of the VI century Jordan. He divides the Slavs into three major groupings – Veneds, Ants and Sklavens.
In recent years, archaeologists have established that this information can be trusted. It is important to note that recreating the correct picture of the origin and life of the ancient Slavs is impossible only from one source. Such an integrated approach was defined by A.A. Shakhmatov (experiments on the reconstruction of the oldest dialect interaction with the help of «extra-linguistic» material). This idea was supported and implemented by the Polish linguist T. Ler-Splavinsky, and the Soviet scientist Indo-European B. V. Gornung. He believed that «only generalized archaeological data can be a criterion for testing the historically real possibility of certain linguistic hypotheses.» One of the sources for studying the history of the Slavs are various notes from ancient sources and travelers. The Slavs were first mentioned in the monuments of writing, starting from the I—II century A.D. in the works of Roman