评论
打印
I think what most people get wrong when speaking of God is to imagine God as a big being.
我认为，在谈到上帝时，大多数人都会错误地把上帝想象成一个巨大的存在。
I look up in the night sky and I see stars and planets and look around, I see animals and plants.
我抬头仰望夜空，看到了恒星和行星，环顾四周，我看到了动物和植物。
I see the world of beings, of things.
我看到了世间万物。
The great mistake is to say, "Well, he must be the biggest being around.
最大的错误认知就是，“嗯，他一定是周围最大的人。
He's the supreme being among the many beings of the world."
他是世上众生中的至高无上。”
And that's precisely what God is not.
这恰恰与上帝完全相反。
How often atheists both old and new will say something like well, where's your evidence for God?
古往今来的无神论者曾无数次说过，上帝存在的证据是什么？
If you imagine God as one more big contingent thing among others, well then there's no evidence for that reality.
如果你把上帝想象成其他事物中一个很大的偶然，那么就无证据可证。
They're operating out of a scientific framework, but see, if you're looking for God that way you'll never find him, that's not what he is.
他们的运作方式不符合科学规律，但是如果你用那种方式去寻找上帝，那你永远也找不到，因为上帝并不是那样的。
God is the sheer act of existence itself in and through which all particular things exist.
上帝是纯粹的存在，所有具体的事物都存在于其中并通过它存在。
But people get caught up in misunderstanding God and therefore seeking him in a sort of empirical scientific way.
但人们对上帝的认识陷入了误解，因此会以一种经验主义的科学方式去寻找上帝。
That's not gonna work.
那是行不通的。
You know, the theologian, Paul Tillich, who was one of the great Protestant theologians of the last century, he said the word faith is the most misunderstood word in the religious vocabulary and I've always felt that's right.
神学家保罗·蒂里奇是上个世纪最伟大的新教神学家之一，他说信仰这个词是宗教词汇中最容易被误解的词，我一直觉得这种说法很正确。
How do people read faith?
人们如何解读信仰？
Through a scientific lens or scientistic lens, faith is credulity, it's superstition.
从科学视角或唯科学视角来看，信仰是轻信，是迷信。
It's accepting things on the basis of no evidence.
它是在没有证据的基础上接受某件事。
It's the way a child thinks. That is not faith.
这是孩子的思维方式。不是信仰。
That is indeed superstition, credulity, stupidity.
这确实是迷信、轻信和愚蠢。
The church at its best is calling people beyond that.
优秀的教会吸引的是超越这一层次的人。
We're not satisfied leaving people in a state of pre-rational superstition.
我们不满足于让人们处于一种非理性的迷信状态。
So what's faith then?
那么，什么是信仰呢？
It's something on the far side of reason.
它是某种不可理喻的东西。
When reason has gone about as far as it can possibly go, it looks into a kind of alluring darkness.
当理性走到尽头时，它看到的是一种诱人的黑暗。
Faith in a way's like that.
在某种程度上，信仰就是这样的。
The full presence of God is such that it overwhelms the mind.
上帝的存在超越了人的头脑。
And of course it does and that shouldn't be surprising that God, ipsum esse, the sheer act of being itself, the creator of all things, that in whom essence and existence coincide, is not gonna be definable by our minds, it won't fit into our minds.
当然是这样的，上帝本身--万物的创造者、本质和存在的重叠--不由我们的头脑定义，跟我们的头脑也不合，这没什么好惊讶的。
So what does the mind want?
那么，人类的大脑想要什么呢？
Well, it wants the truth. And so it seeks it.
它想要的是真相。它也会寻找真相。
It seeks it scientifically, psychologically.
它会从科学和心理上寻找真相。
It seeks it through literature. It seeks it through philosophy.
它会从文学中去寻找真相。从哲学上去寻找真相。
That's the beauty of the mind.
这就是心灵之美。
I'd be asking people not to close their minds, but to keep opening their minds.
我会让人们不要关闭他们的思想，而是开放他们的思想。
I love the sciences, but I don't like scientism, which is the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge.
我喜欢科学，但我不喜欢科学主义，科学主义是将所有知识简化为科学形式的知识。
I love the sciences and their success in the technology they've delivered to us.
我爱科学，爱他们为我们提供的技术上的成功。
But first of all, there's all kinds of other ways of knowing the truth about the world.
但首先，了解这个世界的真相还有其他各种各样的方法。
Hamlet doesn't have a bit of science in it, but Hamlet delivers to us profound truth about human life and about love and about frustration and about aspiration.
《哈姆雷特》中没有一点科学知识，但《哈姆雷特》向我们传达了关于人类生活、关于爱情、关于挫折和关于抱负的深刻真理。
We gotta open our mind- beyond just a scientific vision of reality.
我们必须开放我们的思想--不仅仅是对现实的科学看法。
So what I would say is religion doesn't close the mind.
所以我要说的是，宗教不会让你的心灵关闭。
On the contrary- I'm opposed to any system that wants to shut down the spirit and say, no, no, that's all you can know.
相反，我反对任何让我们的精神关闭的制度，它会告诉我们“不，不，这就是你所能知道的一切”。
No, no, no, don't go beyond these limits.
“不，不，不要越过这些限制。”
Blow open the limits, go beyond the limits.
要打破极限，超越极限。
See, and that to me is language of faith.
对我来说，那就是信仰。
Not infrarational stupidity and superstition, no- but faith is this alluring horizon- this darkness beyond the light, and by God, yes, I want to keep opening that up for people.
不是下层民众的愚蠢和迷信，不是--信仰是这诱人的地平线--这光明之外的黑暗，我想以上帝的名义，继续为人们敞开信仰的大门。
