Bible solving a problem of man’s soul regards world not as objectively and impartially as science but in the light of moral values and anti-values. Moral and spiritual way of thinking allows man to orient himself in private and social life and estimate historical events properly. To show historical events properly, birth development and death of world civilization one should use not scientific conceptions and categories but religious symbolic language which nowadays demands philosophical interpretation. In «The Revelation» of St. John the Devine the end of the global civilization is shown as the world-wide city, godless, global mediatory trade activity, show-business and erotomania. This civilization became a symbol of power, self-sufficiency and individual autonomy of man and at the same time his moral degradation and spiritual misery leading world-wide community to crisis and death.
Before our eyes, there appeared a special society, Babylon, that completes the historical process. St. Apostle and Evangelist John says about it in the Apocalypse. This apocalyptic Babylon is not just a city, but a «great city», which by replicating the prototype expands its influence in all the countries and peoples of the world. In other words, it is a modern global world civilization. Globalization facilitates the economic and political cooperation, promotes trade, capital flow, improves mutual understanding and communication between people. But it also imposes on the States and peoples single standard of life. This universal standard simplifies the national cultural identity of the peoples.
The dream of all globalists is people who have no connection with their homeland, cultural tradition, history, deprived of their national identity and indifferent to spiritual values. It is easy to control a man who is cut off from his roots. It is not difficult to make from such a man a «talking tool», it is easy to make him the ideal worker, standing for a penny at the machine tool, and consuming cheap products. However, the lack of freedom of development leads to a spiritual crisis. No wonder the Bible links the end of the world with unification, and total regulation of life: the lack of freedom makes human existence meaningless, turns it into a programmed creature.
The symbol of this city is the great harlot who sits on many waters. The essence of nature, the inner spiritual life, the true aspirations of the «great whore» are clearly expressed in her clothes and even painted on her forehead. But all this is mystery. People look and do not see, listen and do not hear. «The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And on her forehead was a name written: Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth» [1, Revelation Apoc. 17: 4–5].
The Harlot means Babylon which corrupts all men in a special way of life. All people are drawn into its sphere of influence. Under whoredom is meant the spread of immoral customs, corrupting religion and the cult of the total decomposition of morals. In the modern language, this means, first of all, the sexual revolution, which has transformed sexual pleasure into one of the most important values of humanity, into pseudo-religion. The media and show business spread it among people.
In the world City, Babylon, the division of labor reaches its maximum development. That is why special power is needed to link all these activities into a coherent whole. Bankers and traders become such power. These «useless» (Plato) people are gaining immense economic power, exercising the mediation efforts and turning all things and relationships into a commodity. This also concerns a man who alienates from his own essence and becomes a living commodity, «a talking instrument», along with other things (Marx). In this society everything has a price – everything is weighed, measured, bought and sold. And money, acting as a universal mediator, becomes a special fetish, «golden calf», which supposedly is able to solve all human problems instead of God, like the philosopher’s stone of medieval alchemists. All speak different languages, but they understand perfectly well, only one – the language of money. But we must remember that money (and that spiritual force that is behind them) is the main rival for supremacy of Christ in our lives.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that in these times dominated by the rider sitting on a black (black – a symbol of hell) horse and having a pair of scales in his hand. But this measure of labor is wrong. As it is written, «A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine» [1, Revelation Apoc. 6: 6]. Unfair wages lead to a sharp division of the population into very rich and the very poor. The first live in luxury, eat expensive food (wine and oil), and the latter can buy at a meager daily wage (a denarius), only a small measure of bread or three measures of barley, the cheapest cereals. This is the «mystery» of the modern global civilization that destroys human perspective of spiritual development through economic slavery, poverty and erotic dazzling stale.
But the problem is not only unjust economic and total erotic perverse system of social relations, but also the fact that the vast majority of people are used to this social order and began to perceive it as something normal, natural, positive and attractive. Many people are well adapted to this slavery and do not want to be freed from it, in the blinding light of the pleasures of forgetting all sorts of anxiety and remorse.
You could even say that many people sincerely love this City of trade and corruption, have made it their religion, the meaning of life. That is why, the rulers, the bankers, and corrupt and lecherous show businessmen do not want to change spiritually, but, on the contrary, will be very sorrowful about the destruction of Babylon. They will sincerely cry and worry that their happy days of enrichment, pleasure, debauchery, political and economic power over the world, the bodies and souls of ordinary people ended.
«And the kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning… And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore: merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men» [1, Revelation Apoc.18: 9–13].
This Babylon will be destroyed instantly. It will cease to exist, like a house of cards on a single click. Ap. John the Theologian symbolizes the destruction of this great City like this: «Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found anymore”». [1, Revelation Apoc. 18: 21].
Recently we all have witnessed the collapse of the stock market when the stock indexes in the U.S., Asian, Europe, and Russia crashed simultaneously. Following immediately after this a general crisis of the world economy began. Its cause is not only a commodity overproduction, over-accumulation of capital, problems in the marketing of goods, but, above all, a distortion of traditional spiritual values and moral degradation of society, of which the Bible and such saints of the Church, as St. Augustine and St. Symeon the New Theologian in his doctrine of the «Two cities»[2] speak.