信或不信神，圣誕都與你同在

Religion Without God

信或不信神，圣誕都與你同在

This Christmas our family will go to church. The service is held in a beautiful old church in the charming town of Walpole, N.H., just over the border from Vermont. The Lord’s Prayer hangs on the wall behind the sanctuary. A lectern rises above the nave to let the pastor look down on his flock. The pews and the side stalls have the stern, pure lineaments suited to the Colonial congregation that once came to church to face God.

這個圣誕節(jié)我們?nèi)視ソ烫?。那是一座美麗的老教堂，在迷人的新罕布什爾小?zhèn)沃爾浦爾，離佛蒙特州界不遠。圣壇后的墻上懸掛著主禱文。讀經(jīng)臺聳立在中殿前，讓高高在上的牧師可以俯瞰他的教眾。長椅和側(cè)席有種嚴肅、純粹的特質(zhì)，這和曾經(jīng)來教堂面對上帝的殖民地公理會教眾是相稱的。

Except that this church is Unitarian. Unitarianism emerged in early modern Europe from those who rejected a Trinitarian theology in preference for the doctrine that God was one. By the 19th century, however, the Unitarian church had become a place for intellectuals who were skeptical of belief claims but who wanted to hang on to faith in some manner. Charles Darwin, for example, turned to Unitarians as he struggled with his growing doubt. My mother is the daughter of a Baptist pastor and the black sheep, theologically speaking, of her family. She wants to go to church, but she is not quite sure whether she wants God. The modern Unitarian Universalist Association’s statement of principles does not mention God at all.

不過這是個一位論派教堂。一位論派始于近代歐洲，當時的一些人拒絕接受三位一體的神論，信奉上帝只有一位的教義。到了19世紀，一位論派已經(jīng)成為一些知識分子的聚集地，這些人對信仰的主張產(chǎn)生了質(zhì)疑，但同時又希望能以某種方式保持信念。例如在日漸加劇的疑惑中掙扎著的查爾斯·達爾文(Charles Darwin)，就選擇了一位論。我的母親是一位浸禮會牧師的女兒，從神學的角度來說，她是家中的“黑羊”。她愿意去教堂，但不太確定是否需要上帝。現(xiàn)代一神普救派協(xié)會(Unitarian Universalist Association)的準則宣言中，完全沒有提到上帝。

As it happens, this kind of God-neutral faith is growing rapidly, in many cases with even less role for God than among Unitarians. Atheist services have sprung up around the country, even in the Bible Belt.

事實上這種無神的信仰正在迅速興起，在很多地方，上帝的戲份要比一位論中還要少。無神論者的宗教儀式在全美各地出現(xiàn)，包括在“圣經(jīng)地帶”(Bible Belt)。

Many of them are connected to Sunday Assembly, which was founded in Britain by two comedians, Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans. They are avowed atheists. Yet they have created a movement that draws thousands of people to events with music, sermons, readings, reflections and (to judge by photos) even the waving of upraised hands. There are nearly 200 Sunday Assembly gatherings worldwide. A gathering in Los Angeles last year attracted hundreds of participants.

其中相當一部分跟“禮拜日大會”(Sunday Assembly)有關(guān)，這是一個由英國諧星桑德森·瓊斯(Sanderson Jones)和皮葩·伊文斯(Pippa Evans)創(chuàng)辦的集會。他們是公開的無神論者。然而他們開創(chuàng)的這個運動，吸引了成千上萬的人前來參加，活動包含有音樂、講道、誦讀、反思等內(nèi)容，甚至(從照片上看)還會揮動高舉的雙手。全球有將近200個禮拜日大會的舉辦地。去年在洛杉磯的一次集會吸引了數(shù)百名參與者。

How do we understand this impulse to hold a “church” service despite a hesitant or even nonexistent faith? Part of the answer is surely the quest for community. That’s what Mr. Jones told The Associated Press: “Singing awesome songs, hearing interesting talks, thinking about improving yourself and helping other people — and doing that in a community with wonderful relationships. Which part of that is not to like?”

對信仰心存猶豫，甚至已經(jīng)沒有信仰，卻還渴望舉辦一種“禮拜”儀式，我們該如何理解這樣的一種沖動呢?對社群的追求無疑是一部分原因。瓊斯在接受美聯(lián)社(The Associated Press)采訪時就這樣說：“唱好聽的歌，聽有趣的講話，思考如何提高自己，幫助他人——在一個關(guān)系融洽的社群中做這些事。這樣的事，哪點你不喜歡?”

Another part of the answer is that rituals change the way we pay attention as much as — perhaps more than — they express belief. In “The Archetypal Actions of Ritual,” two anthropologists, Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw, go so far as to argue that ritual isn’t about expressing religious commitment at all, but about doing something in a way that marks the moment as different from the everyday and forces you to see it as important. Their point is that performing a ritual focuses your attention on some moment and deems it worthy of respect.

還有一個原因是，儀式會改變我們對注意力的投放，這和它作為一種信仰表達方式是同等重要的——甚至可能更重要。在《儀式之原型行為》(The Archetypal Actions of Ritual)一書中，人類學家卡洛琳·亨弗萊(Caroline Humphrey)和詹姆斯·雷德洛(James Laidlaw)甚至直陳儀式和抒發(fā)宗教信念毫無關(guān)系，它的重點是以一種和日常生活不同的方式去做某事，迫使你覺得這事很重要。他們認為，通過舉行一場儀式來讓你把注意力集中于某個瞬間，讓你對這個瞬間頓生崇敬之情。

In Britain, where the rate of atheism is much higher than in the United States, organizations have now sprung up to mark life passages for those who consider themselves to be nonbelievers. The anthropologist Matthew Engelke spent much of 2011 with the British Humanist Association, the country’s pre-eminent nonreligious organization, with a membership of over 12,000. The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist, is a member. The association sponsors a good deal of anti-religious political activity. They want to stop faith-based schools from receiving state funding and to remove the rights of Church of England bishops to sit in the House of Lords. They also perform funerals, weddings and namings. In 2011, members conducted 9,000 of these rituals. Ceremony does something for people independent of their theological views.

在英國，無神論者的比例遠高于美國，各種組織應(yīng)運而生，伴那些認為自己沒有信仰的人走過人生各個階段。人類學家馬修·恩格爾克(Matthew Engelke)在2011年花了很多時間和英國人道主義協(xié)會(British Humanist Association)共事，那是該國非常知名的非宗教組織，擁有超過1.2萬名成員。著名的無神論人士、演化生物學家理查德·道金斯(Richard Dawkins)就是其中之一。該協(xié)會資助了許多反宗教政治活動。他們希望政府停止向有宗教背景的學校撥款，剝奪圣公會主教在上議院的席位。他們還會主持葬禮、婚禮和命名禮。2011年，該協(xié)會成員舉行了9000場這樣的儀式。不管對象的神學觀是什么，這些典禮是有意義的。

Moreover, these rituals work, if by “work” we mean that they change people’s sense of their lives. It turns out that saying that you are grateful makes you feel grateful. Saying that you are thankful makes you feel thankful. To a world so familiar with the general unreliability of language, that may seem strange. But it is true.

更重要的是，這些儀式有效果，這里的“效果”意思是說它改變了人們對生活的感受。原來，說出你的感恩，會讓你心生感恩。說出你的欣喜，會讓你感到欣喜。我們都知道在這個世界上語言是多么靠不住，因此這些話會顯得奇怪。但這是真實的。

In a study in which undergraduates were assigned to write weekly either about things they were grateful or thankful for; hassles; or “events or circumstances that affected you in the past week,” those who wrote about gratitude felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the coming week. There have now been many such studies.

有一項研究要求本科生每周寫一篇文章，講述讓自己感激或欣喜的事;煩心的事;或“過去一周里打動了你的事件或境遇”，那些敘述了感激之情的人，對自己人生的看法會有總體上的改善，會更樂觀地看待接下來的一周。類似的研究現(xiàn)在有很多。

Religion is fundamentally a practice that helps people to look at the world as it is and yet to experience it — to some extent, in some way — as it should be. Much of what people actually do in church — finding fellowship, celebrating birth and marriage, remembering those we have lost, affirming the values we cherish — can be accomplished with a sense of God as metaphor, as story, or even without any mention of God at all.

從根本上說，宗教是一種幫助人們?nèi)タ辞迨澜缯鎸嵜婷驳霓k法，但又要在某些方面、某種程度上，幫助人們按照它最理想的形態(tài)去體驗它。人們在教堂里做的很多事——尋找友愛，慶祝新生與結(jié)合，緬懷逝者，重申我們珍視的價值觀——即便抱著上帝只是一種隱喻或故事的想法，也是可以去做的，甚至可以完全不提及神。