英文自修117：人性与宗教分歧
本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站，朋友们也可以下载节目录音收听。
译者：Young
审读：武太白
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Thought for the Day 20140613 Rabbi Lord Sacks
So the battle for the World Cup has finally begun. You could hardly miss it. Already in anticipation 期待 the logo on my computer search engine has been jumping up and down in excitement. And there’ll be many cheers and groans ahead.
世界杯的征战终于拉开序幕，精彩不容错过。电脑搜索引擎中，世界杯的标志早已跃跃欲试，上下跳动，激动人心。比赛注定会几家欢喜几家忧。
Truth is, that I’ve been reluctant 犹豫的 to talk about football ever since an episode that happened more than twenty years ago. George Carey had just been chosen as Archbishop of Canterbury, and I’d just been elected Chief Rabbi, when someone discovered that we had one major passion in common. We were both great Arsenal fans. So he wondered whether we might like to have our first ecumenical 超教派的 gathering in his box 包厢 at Highbury stadium, then Arsenal’s home ground: a midweek match for obvious religious reasons.
实际上，自从20多年前发生了那段小插曲，我就不愿再谈足球赛事。那时，乔治•凯里刚刚当选坎特伯雷大主教，我被选为大拉比。有人发现我们俩都酷爱阿森纳，是该队的忠实球迷。因此，这人问我们是否愿意在当时阿森纳的主场海布里球场他的包厢里举行我们的第一次超宗教会面：这场周中的比赛有着明显的宗教原因。
George Carey
Rabbi Lord Sacks
We both enthusiastically agreed, and the great night came. Before the start of the match we were taken out onto the sacred turf 草皮 itself where we presented a cheque to charity. The public address system announced who we were, and you could hear the buzz go around the ground. Whichever way you played the theological wager 赌注, that night Arsenal had friends in high places. They could not possibly lose.
我们都满怀热情地同意了会面，伟大的夜晚到来了。比赛开始前，我们被带到神圣的绿茵场，在那里给慈善团体捐赠了支票。广播里宣告我们的身份，你能听到那嗡鸣声传遍球场。无论你把赌注下在哪一方，那一晚，阿森纳都不可能会输，他们有强大的靠山。
That night Arsenal went down to their worst home defeat in more than sixty years. They lost 6-2 to Manchester United. The next day a national newspaper reported the story and said, if the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi between them can’t bring about 带来 a win for Arsenal, does this not finally prove that God does not exist?
那晚，阿森纳的主场战绩是六十多年来最差的一次，2比6败给曼联。第二天，一份全国性报纸报道了这场赛事，并评论说既然坎特伯雷大主教和大拉比都无法给阿森纳带来胜利，这是不是最终证明了上帝并不存在？
My reply was simple. I said, to the contrary. It proves that God exists. It’s just that he supports Manchester United.
我的回答很简单。我说恰恰相反。这证明上帝是存在的。只不过上帝支持的是曼联而已。
Football is, of course, more than just a game. It has at least some similarities with religion. It involves ritual. It’s about moments where we merge our identity with something larger than ourselves. It’s about loyalty, about supporting your team even when it tests your faith to the limit. And when the winning goal is scored, and you rise to cheer with the crowd, you come as close as a secular moment can to a sense of transcendence, what Hobbes （Thomas Hobbes，英国政治哲学家——译注） called “sudden glory.”
足球当然并不只是运动。至少它与宗教有一些相似之处。足球比赛也有仪式。那些时刻，我们把自己的身份融入比我们自身更大的群体。你满怀忠诚，在信仰受到极限挑战时依然支持自己的球队。制胜球打进时，你和人群一起欢呼雀跃，此刻世俗中的你无比接近超然的存在。霍布斯称之为“突然荣耀感”。
But what I learned that night that my team lost, was that the game is bigger than the team. That is a very deep truth indeed. We are tribal creatures. That’s why humans fight wars. The more we can find symbolic substitutes for conflict the better. And they might just remind us of the even deeper truth that our shared humanity ultimately matters more than our religious differences.
而我支持的球队输掉比赛的那晚，我学到的是，运动大于球队。事实上这是一个深刻的道理。我们是种族生物，因此人类反对战争。我们能找到战争的象征性替代活动越多越好。这也提醒我们，有更为深刻的道理：人类共同的人性最终会比宗教分歧重要得多。