Animal immortality in Russian cosmism: Scientific and religious aspects

Abstract

The article considers scientific and religious aspects of animal immortality in the Russian cosmism philosophy, showing its ideological connection with the Orthodox tradition, for which both “cosmic” and “resurrection”, Easter motifs with significant ecological potential are more typical than for Catholicism and Protestantism. The special place of man in the Christian picture of the world together with anthropocentrism specific to historically Christian cultures do not imply as a mandatory consequence a worldview characterized by the exaltation of man over the world and animals or ethically unjustified speciesism. The article focuses on the specific features of people and animals according to Christianity which emphasizes humanity's guilt before our smaller brothers due to the fall (loss of the heavenly state) and the human moral non-superiority over animals, providing religious arguments for animal immortality. The author stresses the absence of gap between religious-philosophical and natural-scientific branches of cosmism, since the thinking of cosmists is filled with patterns of the Orthodox outlook and national mentality. Thus, V. I. Vernadsky's ideas about the autotrophic humanity and its influence on the biosphere are considered as a manifestation of the trend of animal emancipation from the “natural” deadly order, V. F. Kuprevich's immortalist views - as proving the appropriateness of the immortality-through-science perspective for animals, including the positive role of technology and the ‘animalistic immortalism” art of the Russian cosmism.