They've been asking for it for years, praying for it even.

多年來，他們一直在要求，甚至在祈禱。

I'm John Green.

我是約翰-格林。

Welcome to Crash Course Religions.

歡迎來到《宗教速成班》。

So let me begin with a confession.

所以，請允許我首先懺悔。

I don't know what religion is.

我不知道宗教是什麼。

But I also don't know what art is, or what literature is, or for that matter, what biology is.

但我也不知道藝術是什麼，文學是什麼，或者生物學是什麼。

Like, is studying viruses biology?

比如，研究病毒是生物學嗎？

I don't know, because I don't know whether viruses are alive.

我不知道，因為我不知道病毒是否有生命。

To say that religion is a fraught word would be a fairly dramatic understatement.

如果說宗教是一個充滿爭議的詞，那也太輕描淡寫了。

Like think of the many ways people answer questions about religion.

比如想想人們回答宗教問題的多種方式。

I'm not religious, but I am spiritual.

我不信教，但我有靈性。

I don't go to church, but I do follow my star chart.

我不去教堂，但我遵循我的星相圖。

I don't practice a religion, but I do practice yoga.

我不信教，但我練瑜伽。

Yoga is a fascinating example, actually.

事實上，瑜伽就是一個引人入勝的例子。

Like in 2009, the U.S. state of Missouri's government pushed to reclassify yoga classes not as tax-exempt spiritual practices, but as recreational businesses in the same taxable category as gym memberships.

就像 2009 年，美國密蘇里州政府推動將瑜伽課程重新分類，不再將其視為免稅的精神修行，而是將其視為與健身房會員資格相同的應稅類別中的娛樂業。

But a few years later, in 2013, some parents in California sued their kid's school district arguing that teaching yoga during P.E. was promoting Hinduism to students.

但幾年後的 2013 年，加利福尼亞州的一些家長起訴了他們孩子所在的校區，認為在體育課上教授瑜伽是在向學生宣傳印度教。

So which group was right?

那麼，哪一組是正確的呢？

Well, that's the thing.

這就是問題所在。

Whether something counts as religious or not often depends on who's asking the question and who benefits from the answer.

一件事算不算宗教，往往取決於誰在提問，誰能從答案中獲益。

INTRO

導言

We've fought wars over it.

我們為此打過仗。

We've built societies around it.

我們圍繞它建立了社會。

We've even pretended that we weren't home when people knocked on our doors about it.

當有人敲我們家的門時，我們甚至假裝不在家。

That's right, we have two cameras this time.

沒錯，這次我們有兩臺攝影機。

Camera two is for silly fun time.

二號攝影機用於拍攝無聊的娛樂時間。

And camera one is for serious religion business.

而攝影機則是用於嚴肅的宗教事務。

But what even is religion?

但宗教到底是什麼呢？

Like, what unites Hinduism, Christianity, and Wicca under the same umbrella?

比如，是什麼將印度教、基督教和巫術聯合在一起？

And what sets religions apart from other stuff that people do, like reciting the Pledge of

是什麼讓宗教有別於人們所做的其他事情，比如背誦 "宗教誓言"？

Allegiance or wearing the same jersey every time you watch the world's greatest fourth-tier

忠誠，還是每次觀看世界上最偉大的四級聯賽時都穿著同一件球衣？

English soccer team?

英國足球隊？

Well, we can think of religions as frameworks that help people organize, shape, and make sense of their lives.

我們可以把宗教看作是幫助人們組織、塑造和理解其生活的框架。

But of course, if that's our only definition, then is veganism a religion?

當然，如果這是我們唯一的定義，那麼素食主義算不算宗教呢？

What about capitalism?

資本主義又如何？

What about organizing your entire life around the exploits of eleven 23-year-old men in

如果你的整個生活都圍繞著 11 個 23 歲的年輕人在《侏羅紀公園》中的冒險經歷，那又會怎樣呢？

South London?

南倫敦？

Or over-identifying as a Texan?

還是過度認同自己是德克薩斯人？

Like, yeah, it's a big state.

比如，是的，這是個大州。

It's very impressive.

令人印象深刻。

But it's not that big of a state.

但這並不是一個大州。

I've seen bigger.

我見過更大的。

So yeah, it's tricky because no single definition contains all the ways people do religion.

所以是的，這很棘手，因為沒有一個單一的定義包含人們信奉宗教的所有方式。

And the stakes are high here because how we define what counts as religion and what doesn't has impacts on all our lives, whether we're religious or not.

這其中的利害關係很大，因為我們如何定義什麼是宗教，什麼不是宗教，會影響到我們所有人的生活，無論我們是否信教。

So when we use the word religion, what we often mean is belief in a higher power, a trait that English philosopher Lord Herbert of Cherbury proposed back in the 17th century as one of the five fundamental truths about religion.

是以，當我們使用宗教一詞時，我們通常指的是對更高力量的信仰，英國哲學家赫伯特-謝伯裡勳爵早在 17 世紀就提出了宗教的五大基本真理之一。

Oh my god, I'm so good at pronouncing the names of Lords of Cherbury.

哦，天哪，我真會念切爾伯裡領主的名字。

Like is that a job?

這也算是工作嗎？

Is mispronouncing British lord names a job?

讀錯英國領主的名字也是工作嗎？

Because if so, sign me up.

如果是這樣的話，我就報名參加。

And to give credit to Lord Herbert, it's true that lots of religious traditions involve gods and goddesses, except for the ones that don't, of course, like many forms of Jainism and Buddhism, which focus on ethical behavior and self-transformation.

要感謝赫伯特勳爵，確實有很多宗教傳統都涉及神靈，當然，除了那些不涉及神靈的宗教傳統，比如耆那教和佛教的很多形式，它們都注重道德行為和自我改造。

So okay, what if we defined it more broadly?

那麼好吧，如果我們把它定義得更寬泛一些呢？

Let's say a religion doesn't have to have a higher power, but it needs a shared belief system.

比方說，宗教不一定要有更高的力量，但它需要一個共同的信仰體系。

Again, for some traditions, that's fair.

同樣，對於某些傳統來說，這也是公平的。

Like for most Christians, it's really important that everybody's on the same page about the whole Jesus is Savior thing.

就像大多數基督徒一樣，每個人對耶穌是救世主這件事的看法是一致的，這一點非常重要。

Religions with shared beliefs are called creedal religions and are often linked to a sacred text.

具有共同信仰的宗教被稱為信條宗教，通常與聖典相關聯。

But even this broader interpretation doesn't cover everything, right?

但即使是這種更寬泛的解釋也不能涵蓋一切，不是嗎？

Like the Soto Zen school of Buddhism emphasizes action over beliefs, building mindful awareness through meditation, cooking, and caring for other people.

就像佛教的曹洞禪派強調行動而非信仰，通過冥想、烹飪和關愛他人來培養心智意識。

We sometimes call these votive religions, traditions that stress what people do rather than what they believe.

我們有時稱其為 "獻祭宗教"，即強調人們的行為而非信仰的傳統。

And of course, many religions focus on belief and action, like Islam's emphasis on both correct doctrine, or orthodoxy, and correct practice, or orthopraxy.

當然，許多宗教都注重信仰和行動，比如伊斯蘭教既強調正確的教義（或正統性），也強調正確的實踐（或正統性）。

And within a religion, there can be disagreements, profound ones, ones seen as worth killing and dying for over this stuff.

而在一個宗教內部，也會有分歧，深刻的分歧，值得為之殺戮和犧牲的分歧。

So in truth, no single idea unites every religion.

是以，事實上，沒有任何一種思想能將所有宗教統一起來。

Not belief in God, not prayer, not prepping for the afterlife.

不是信仰上帝，不是祈禱，不是為來世做準備。

The term religion is sort of like the word sports, which lumps together soccer and synchronized swimming and curling and even pickleball, which its adherents genuinely seem to treat like a religion.

宗教一詞有點像體育一詞，把足球、水上芭蕾、冰壺甚至是皮球都混為一談，而皮球的信徒們似乎真的把皮球當成了一種宗教。

The way we define religion is specific to the societies we live in, just like the practices themselves.

我們定義宗教的方式是我們所生活的社會所特有的，就像宗教活動本身一樣。

Sociologist Emile Durkheim said that religion is a system of beliefs and practices surrounding the sacred—basically anything a community has given special meaning to, like crucifixes or landscapes or altars.

社會學家埃米爾-杜克海姆（Emile Durkheim）說過，宗教是圍繞神聖事物的信仰和實踐體系--基本上是一個社區賦予其特殊意義的任何事物，如十字架、景觀或祭壇。

But his definition also leaves a lot of room for other things to be considered sacred, like Taylor Swift or Diet Dr. Pepper.

但他的定義也為其他被視為神聖的事物留下了很大的空間，比如泰勒-斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）或健怡博士胡椒（Diet Dr. Pepper）。

Because there's no shared feature of these systems we call religions, it's all the more important to be aware of whose interests are served by the definitions we use.

由於我們稱之為宗教的這些系統並沒有共同的特徵，是以更有必要了解我們所使用的定義是為了誰的利益。

Like a lot of yoga teachers disagreed with Missouri's reclassification of the practice and believed that yoga studios had more in common with churches, which don't have to pay sales tax, arguing that yoga is more than exercise and can't be separated from its spiritual ties.

很多瑜伽老師都不同意密蘇里州對瑜伽的重新分類，認為瑜伽館與不用繳納銷售稅的教堂有更多的共同之處，認為瑜伽不僅僅是一種運動，不能與其精神聯繫分開。

But in the California case, the judge acknowledged that yoga is religious, yes, but ruled this kind of yoga wasn't religious enough.

但在加利福尼亞州的案件中，法官承認瑜伽是宗教活動，但裁定這種瑜伽不夠宗教化。

Not in the way school kids were learning to do it anyway.

反正學校裡的孩子們學的不是這種方式。

For one thing, the kids called the lotus position criss-cross applesauce.

首先，孩子們把 "蓮花式 "叫做 "十字蘋果醬"。

And you can tell that's not a joke because we're staying at camera one.

你可以看出這不是一個玩笑，因為我們正待在一號攝影機前。

They literally called it criss-cross applesauce.

他們把它叫做 "十字蘋果醬"。

So how did we get to this point?

那麼，我們是如何走到這一步的呢？

Was there ever a time when religion was simple or straightforward?

宗教曾有過簡單明瞭的時候嗎？

Not really.

其實不然。

In the United States today, we often use the word religion to imply a special sphere of society set apart from the rest of life.

在今天的美國，我們經常使用宗教一詞來暗示社會中與其他生活相分離的特殊領域。

It's sort of separate from politics or culture or the economy, but also overlaps with all of them in many ways, including that I don't want to hear my uncle's opinions about any of them at Thanksgiving dinner.

它與政治、文化或經濟是分開的，但在很多方面又與它們重疊，包括我不想在感恩節晚餐上聽到我叔叔對它們中任何一個的看法。

Which is also not a joke.

這也不是玩笑話。

But until just a few centuries ago, most languages didn't have a word for the kind of religion we're talking about in this series.

但是，直到幾個世紀前，大多數語言中還沒有一個詞來形容我們在本系列中討論的這種宗教。

Like the Arabic word din originally meant custom or law, but when it appears in the

就像阿拉伯語中的 "din "一詞，原意是習俗或法律，但當它出現在

Quran it sometimes gets translated into English as religion, which is kind of like interpreting an ancient word for horse to mean car, an invention that didn't exist yet.

古蘭經》有時會被翻譯成英文宗教，這有點像把古代的馬翻譯成汽車，而汽車是當時還不存在的發明。

Even the Latin word religio originally just meant rules at a time when many Roman emperors were seen as divine.

即使是拉丁語 religio 一詞，最初也只是指統治，當時許多羅馬皇帝都被視為神明。

Like Caesar's law was God's law.

就像凱撒的法律就是上帝的法律一樣。

The idea of religion as a private, personal belief system traces back to a very specific time and place, 16th century Western Europe.

宗教是一種私人的、個人的信仰體系，這種觀念可以追溯到一個非常特殊的時間和地點，即 16 世紀的西歐。

During the Protestant Reformation, Christians disagreed over how much authority the church should have and whether it was valid for the church to sell indulgences, which were these like little pieces of paper that let people off the hook if they donated to the church building fund.

在新教改革期間，基督徒們對教會應該擁有多大的權力以及教會出售贖罪券是否合法的問題產生了分歧。

Martin Luther, the guy who kicked off the Reformation by purportedly nailing 95 hot takes to a church door, radically argued for a separation of church and state.

馬丁-路德（Martin Luther），這個據說將 95 篇熱門文章釘在教堂門上從而揭開宗教改革序幕的人，從根本上主張政教分離。

Basically, he thought that the government should worry about stuff on earth and let the church handle the afterlife.

基本上，他認為政府應該操心人間的事情，讓教會來處理來世的事情。

This idea served Protestants' interests as it broadened Christianity to allow ideas and practices other than those okayed by the Pope, the shot-caller-slash-big-boss-slash-yes-chef of European religious authority.

這種思想符合新教徒的利益，因為它擴大了基督教的範圍，允許教皇（歐洲宗教權威的 "槍手--刀鋒--大老闆--刀鋒--是的--廚師"）以外的思想和實踐。

The Reformation also redefined the everyday meaning of religion in Western Europe as a personal, private relationship with the divine.

宗教改革還重新定義了宗教在西歐的日常含義，即個人與神的私人關係。

And it wasn't long before Europeans took this model of religion on the road.

不久，歐洲人就把這種宗教模式帶到了世界各地。

During the colonial era between the 15th and 20th centuries, Europeans encountered other ways of doing religion while colonizing cultures in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

在 15 世紀至 20 世紀的殖民時代，歐洲人在亞洲、非洲、大洋洲和美洲進行殖民統治時，遇到了其他的宗教活動方式。

And they found that many indigenous peoples' traditions related to their ancestors, or the land, rather than a deity.

他們發現，許多原住民的傳統與祖先或土地有關，而不是與神靈有關。

For example, Native Hawaiians honored the sacredness of the Mauna Kea volcano, considered to be the physical embodiment of the gods, as well as Amakua, or ancestral spirits who provide families with guidance.

例如，夏威夷原住民尊崇莫納凱亞火山的神聖性，認為它是眾神的化身，也尊崇阿瑪庫阿，即為家庭提供指引的祖先神靈。

But that didn't vibe with European thought, which assumed religions to be Christianity-shaped, with a founder, sacred texts, clergy, rituals, and a church.

但這與歐洲人的思想並不一致，歐洲人認為宗教是基督教式的，有創始人、聖典、神職人員、儀式和教堂。

Now we're going to explore more of what stemmed from that in our next episode, but for now, what's important to know is that this prevailing model of religion hasn't always existed.

我們將在下一集探討由此產生的更多問題，但現在，重要的是要知道，這種流行的宗教模式並非一直存在。

It served very particular interests in 16th century Western Europe, as it does now, prioritizing some traditions over others.

在 16 世紀的西歐，它為特定的利益服務，就像現在一樣，某些傳統優先於其他傳統。

And this has tangible impacts outside of the religious sphere.

這在宗教領域之外也產生了切實的影響。

Like calling something a religion can come with some distinctly earthly perks like tax exemption and legal protection and baptismal hot tubs.

就像把某種東西稱作宗教會帶來一些明顯的世俗福利，比如免稅、法律保護和洗禮熱水浴缸。

And when this label gets denied to some traditions, that can create real-life consequences.

如果某些傳統被剝奪了這一標籤，就會造成現實生活中的後果。

Many countries today have laws protecting religious freedom, or the right to follow the religion of your choice.

如今，許多國家都有保護宗教自由的法律，或者說保護信奉自己選擇的宗教的權利。

But how those countries define religion determines who is actually afforded that freedom.

但這些國家如何定義宗教，決定了誰能真正獲得這種自由。

For example, the Chinese constitution officially grants legal protections to normal religious activities.

例如，中國憲法正式賦予正常宗教活動以法律保護。

But since 2017, the government has detained over one million Uyghurs and other Turkic

但自 2017 年以來，政府已拘留了 100 多萬維吾爾人和其他突厥人。

Muslims in re-education camps.

穆斯林被關進再教育營。

In India, a controversial 2019 law created a fast track to citizenship for refugees from some religious groups, but specifically excluded Muslims.

在印度，一項有爭議的 2019 年法律為來自某些宗教團體的難民設立了快速入籍通道，但特別將穆斯林排除在外。

And governments have sometimes weaponized their classifications of religion as a way to demonize control and exclude certain people.

政府有時會將宗教分類作為一種武器，對某些人進行妖魔化控制和排斥。

Often, religious practices that aren't officially recognized are deemed illegitimate or illegal.

通常，未得到官方承認的宗教活動會被視為非法或違法。

Like many Rastafari adherents have been incarcerated for smoking marijuana, a substance they view as a sacrament, but one that's criminalized in many countries, from the UK to Cuba.

與許多拉斯特法裡信徒一樣，他們也曾因吸食大麻而入獄，他們視大麻為聖物，但在從英國到古巴的許多國家，大麻都被定為犯罪。

In North Korea, where unauthorized religious activity is prohibited, Christians and followers of Korean folk religion have been arrested, tortured, and even executed by the government.

在北韓，未經授權的宗教活動是被禁止的，基督徒和北韓民間宗教的信徒曾遭到政府的逮捕、酷刑，甚至處決。

The big takeaway here is that there's no single way of doing religion, no defining quality that unites these practices.

這裡的主要啟示是，沒有一種單一的宗教活動方式，也沒有將這些活動統一起來的決定性特質。

But that's what makes it so important to be conscious of the definitions we're using and aware of who's policing their boundaries.

但正因為如此，意識到我們所使用的定義以及誰在維護他們的界限就顯得尤為重要。

I'll leave you with one more slightly jazzy definition from the philosopher and theologian

哲學家和神學家又給我們下了一個略顯詼諧的定義："......"。

Paul Tillich, who called religion the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.

保羅-蒂利希（Paul Tillich）稱宗教是一種被終極關懷所把握的狀態。

And throughout this series, we'll find no single idea about what that ultimate concern is, the shape it takes, or how we're grasped by it.

在整個系列中，我們找不到任何一個關於這種終極關懷是什麼、它的形式是什麼、我們如何被它抓住的想法。

There are many ways people define and debate religion, contest it and make sense of it, practice it and live it.

人們可以通過多種方式來定義宗教、辯論宗教、爭論宗教、理解宗教、實踐宗教和生活宗教。

Over the course of this series, we're going to try to make sense of some of them together.

在本系列文章中，我們將嘗試共同理解其中的一些內容。

But this idea of an ultimate concern, a belief or series of beliefs that structures and animates your life, can be a very valuable thing to have.

但是，這種終極關懷的理念，一種或一系列構建並激勵你生活的信念，可能是一種非常寶貴的東西。

And of course, it can be dangerous too.

當然，這也可能是危險的。

I wonder if you have an ultimate concern, or I guess more to the point, if you're conscious of what your ultimate concern is, and how beliefs and practices in your life tend to that ultimate concern.

我想知道你是否有一個終極關懷，或者更確切地說，你是否意識到你的終極關懷是什麼，以及你生活中的信仰和實踐是如何趨向於這個終極關懷的。

In our next episode, we'll ask, how many religions are there?

下一集，我們將問，到底有多少種宗教？

And again, find out that the answer is complicated.

結果還是發現答案很複雜。

I'll see you then.

到時候見

Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Religions, which was filmed in our studio in Indianapolis, Indiana and made with the help of all of these nice folks.

感謝您收看本期《宗教速成班》，本期節目是在印第安納州印第安納波利斯的工作室拍攝的，得到了各位好心人的幫助。

If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can join our community on Patreon.

如果您想幫助《速成課程》永遠免費，可以加入我們的 Patreon 社區。

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