第99篇		Paper 99
宗教的社会问题		The Social Problems of Religion
99:0.1 (1086.1) 当宗教与社会的世俗制度有着最少的关联时，它便会实现其最高的社会职责。在过去诸个时代，由于社会改革在很大程度上限于道德领域，宗教不必调整其态度来面对经济和政治体系中的广泛变化。宗教的主要问题曾是努力去在既有的政治经济文化所拥有的社会秩序内以善代恶。宗教由此间接易于使既定的社会秩序长存下去，促进现存类型文明的维持。		99:0.1 (1086.1) RELIGION achieves its highest social ministry when it has least connection with the secular institutions of society. In past ages, since social reforms were largely confined to the moral realms, religion did not have to adjust its attitude to extensive changes in economic and political systems. The chief problem of religion was the endeavor to replace evil with good within the existing social order of political and economic culture. Religion has thus indirectly tended to perpetuate the established order of society, to foster the maintenance of the existent type of civilization.
99:0.2 (1086.2) 但宗教不应直接涉及新社会秩序的创建或旧社会秩序的保留。真正的宗教的确反对暴力作为一种社会演进的手段，但它却不反对社会的智性努力来调适其惯例，并使其制度适应新的经济状况和文化需求。		99:0.2 (1086.2) But religion should not be directly concerned either with the creation of new social orders or with the preservation of old ones. True religion does oppose violence as a technique of social evolution, but it does not oppose the intelligent efforts of society to adapt its usages and adjust its institutions to new economic conditions and cultural requirements.
99:0.3 (1086.3) 宗教确曾赞同过去几个世纪偶尔的社会改革，但在二十世纪，它必被要求来面对调整，以应对广泛而持续的社会重建。生活状况改变得如此迅速，以致制度改变必须要被大大加速，宗教也必须要相应加快其对这种不断变化之新社会秩序的适应。		99:0.3 (1086.3) Religion did approve the occasional social reforms of past centuries, but in the twentieth century it is of necessity called upon to face adjustment to extensive and continuing social reconstruction. Conditions of living alter so rapidly that institutional modifications must be greatly accelerated, and religion must accordingly quicken its adaptation to this new and ever-changing social order.
1. 宗教与社会重建 ^top		1. Religion and Social Reconstruction ^top
99:1.1 (1086.4) 机械的发明和知识的传播正在改造着文明；若要避免文化的灾难，某些经济调整和社会变革便势在必行。这种即将到来的新社会秩序不会千年永逸，人类必须要适应于一个充满变化、调整及再调整的进程。人类在朝向一个未被揭示的新行星天命行进。		99:1.1 (1086.4) Mechanical inventions and the dissemination of knowledge are modifying civilization; certain economic adjustments and social changes are imperative if cultural disaster is to be avoided. This new and oncoming social order will not settle down complacently for a millennium. The human race must become reconciled to a procession of changes, adjustments, and readjustments. Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny.
99:1.2 (1086.5) 宗教必须要变成一种对道德稳定和灵性进步强有力的影响，在这些不断变化的状况和永不止息的经济调整中动态地发挥作用。		99:1.2 (1086.5) Religion must become a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritual progression functioning dynamically in the midst of these ever-changing conditions and never-ending economic adjustments.
99:1.3 (1086.6) 玉苒厦(Urantia)社会无法再指望像过去诸个时代那样安定下来了。社会之船已驶出了既定传统的避风港，并开始了其在进化天命之公海的巡航；而人类心灵也前所未有地需要仔细去查看其道德航图，不遗余力地去观察宗教导航的罗盘。作为一种社会影响，宗教的最高使命是在这些从一个文明阶段过渡到另一文明阶段，从一个文化层次过渡到另一文化层次的危险时期中，稳定人类的诸多理想。		99:1.3 (1086.6) Urantia society can never hope to settle down as in past ages. The social ship has steamed out of the sheltered bays of established tradition and has begun its cruise upon the high seas of evolutionary destiny; and the soul of man, as never before in the world’s history, needs carefully to scrutinize its charts of morality and painstakingly to observe the compass of religious guidance. The paramount mission of religion as a social influence is to stabilize the ideals of mankind during these dangerous times of transition from one phase of civilization to another, from one level of culture to another.
99:1.4 (1087.1) 宗教并没有新的职责要去履行，但它却被迫切要求去在所有这些全新而又快速变化的人类状况中担当明智的向导和干练的参事。社会正变得更为机械、更为紧凑、更为精密相互依存。宗教必须要防止这些全新而紧密的相互关联变得交互倒退甚或是交互毁灭。宗教必须要充当宇宙之盐，以防止进步之酵素破坏文明的教化风味。这些全新的社会关系和经济剧变，只能通过宗教的侍奉才会产生持久的兄弟情谊。		99:1.4 (1087.1) Religion has no new duties to perform, but it is urgently called upon to function as a wise guide and experienced counselor in all of these new and rapidly changing human situations. Society is becoming more mechanical, more compact, more complex, and more critically interdependent. Religion must function to prevent these new and intimate interassociations from becoming mutually retrogressive or even destructive. Religion must act as the cosmic salt which prevents the ferments of progression from destroying the cultural savor of civilization. These new social relations and economic upheavals can result in lasting brotherhood only by the ministry of religion.
99:1.5 (1087.2) 从人类角度来说，一种无神的人道主义是一种高尚的姿态，但真正的宗教却是唯一能够持久增强一个社会团体对其他团体需求和困苦之同情心的力量。在过去，制度性宗教在社会上层对无助下层的困苦和压抑听而不闻时还能保持被动，但在现代，这些较低的社会等级不再如此悲惨无知，也不再在政治上如此无助了。		99:1.5 (1087.2) A godless humanitarianism is, humanly speaking, a noble gesture, but true religion is the only power which can lastingly increase the responsiveness of one social group to the needs and sufferings of other groups. In the past, institutional religion could remain passive while the upper strata of society turned a deaf ear to the sufferings and oppression of the helpless lower strata, but in modern times these lower social orders are no longer so abjectly ignorant nor so politically helpless.
99:1.6 (1087.3) 宗教切不可有机卷入到社会重建和经济重组的世俗工作中，但它必须要通过对其道德指令和灵性诫命、其关于人类生存和卓越续存的进步哲学做出清晰而有力的重述，来积极保持与所有这些进步并驾齐驱。宗教的精神是永恒的，但其表达形式则要随着每一时代人类语汇的改进而加以重述。		99:1.6 (1087.3) Religion must not become organically involved in the secular work of social reconstruction and economic reorganization. But it must actively keep pace with all these advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous restatements of its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive philosophy of human living and transcendent survival. The spirit of religion is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised.
2. 制度性宗教的弱点 ^top		2. Weakness of Institutional Religion ^top
99:2.1 (1087.4) 制度性宗教无法在这种即将到来的世界范围社会重建和经济重组中给予启发并提供领导，因为它已不幸或多或少成了该注定要经历重建的社会秩序和经济体系的一个有机组成部分。只有充满了个人灵性体验的真正宗教，才能在现今的文明危机中发挥有益而创造性的作用。		99:2.1 (1087.4) Institutional religion cannot afford inspiration and provide leadership in this impending world-wide social reconstruction and economic reorganization because it has unfortunately become more or less of an organic part of the social order and the economic system which is destined to undergo reconstruction. Only the real religion of personal spiritual experience can function helpfully and creatively in the present crisis of civilization.
99:2.2 (1087.5) 制度性宗教此时已陷入了一种恶性循环的僵局之中。若它无法首先重建自身，它便无法重建社会；由于它已成了既成秩序的一个有机组成部分，以致直到社会在根本上得以重建之时，它才能重建自身。		99:2.2 (1087.5) Institutional religion is now caught in the stalemate of a vicious circle. It cannot reconstruct society without first reconstructing itself; and being so much an integral part of the established order, it cannot reconstruct itself until society has been radically reconstructed.
99:2.3 (1087.6) 笃信宗教者们必须要作为个人，去在社会、产业和政治中发挥作用，而非作为团体、党派或机构。一个擅自如此运作的宗教团体，除了宗教活动以外，立即就会变成一个政治党派、一个经济组织或是一个社会机构。宗教集体主义必须要将其努力限定在宗教事业的促进上。		99:2.3 (1087.6) Religionists must function in society, in industry, and in politics as individuals, not as groups, parties, or institutions. A religious group which presumes to function as such, apart from religious activities, immediately becomes a political party, an economic organization, or a social institution. Religious collectivism must confine its efforts to the furtherance of religious causes.
99:2.4 (1087.7) 笃信宗教者们在社会重建任务中并不比非笃信宗教者们具有更多价值，除开其宗教授予了他们提升的宇宙视野，赋予了他们更高的社会智慧，这种智慧源于无比热爱神和把每个人视为天国兄弟般热爱的真诚渴望。一个理想的社会秩序，是其中的每一个人都爱邻如己。		99:2.4 (1087.7) Religionists are of no more value in the tasks of social reconstruction than nonreligionists except in so far as their religion has conferred upon them enhanced cosmic foresight and endowed them with that superior social wisdom which is born of the sincere desire to love God supremely and to love every man as a brother in the heavenly kingdom. An ideal social order is that in which every man loves his neighbor as he loves himself.
99:2.5 (1087.8) 制度化的教会或许看似已在过去通过美化既定的政治经济秩序而服务了社会，但它若要存续的话，就必须要赶紧停止这种活动。它唯一适当的态度在于教导非暴力，即以和平演进来取代暴力革命的教义 -- 亦即世间的和平和所有人之间的善意。		99:2.5 (1087.8) The institutionalized church may have appeared to serve society in the past by glorifying the established political and economic orders, but it must speedily cease such action if it is to survive. Its only proper attitude consists in the teaching of nonviolence, the doctrine of peaceful evolution in the place of violent revolution—peace on earth and good will among all men.
99:2.6 (1088.1) 现代宗教发现要调整其态度以面对瞬息万变的社会变革十分困难，这仅仅是因为它已让自身变得过于彻底地传统化、教条化和制度化了。具有鲜活体验的宗教则会发现保持领先于所有这些社会发展和经济剧变毫不困难，它在其中始终作为道德稳定者、社会引导者和灵性领航者。真正的宗教将会把有价值的文化和智慧代代相传，那种智慧源于知神的体验和效法他的努力。		99:2.6 (1088.1) Modern religion finds it difficult to adjust its attitude toward the rapidly shifting social changes only because it has permitted itself to become so thoroughly traditionalized, dogmatized, and institutionalized. The religion of living experience finds no difficulty in keeping ahead of all these social developments and economic upheavals, amid which it ever functions as a moral stabilizer, social guide, and spiritual pilot. True religion carries over from one age to another the worth-while culture and that wisdom which is born of the experience of knowing God and striving to be like him.
3. 宗教与笃信宗教者 ^top		3. Religion and the Religionist ^top
99:3.1 (1088.2) 早期的基督教完全摆脱了任何民事纠葛、社会承诺和经济联盟。只是到了后来，制度化的基督教才变成了西方文明政治和社会结构的一个有机组成部分。		99:3.1 (1088.2) Early Christianity was entirely free from all civil entanglements, social commitments, and economic alliances. Only did later institutionalized Christianity become an organic part of the political and social structure of Occidental civilization.
99:3.2 (1088.3) 天国既非一种社会秩序也非一种经济秩序；它是知神个人们所形成的一种专有的灵性兄弟情谊。诚然，这样一种兄弟情谊就其本身而言，便是一种全新而令人惊叹的社会现象，它会伴随着足以使人震惊的政治经济反响。		99:3.2 (1088.3) The kingdom of heaven is neither a social nor economic order; it is an exclusively spiritual brotherhood of God-knowing individuals. True, such a brotherhood is in itself a new and amazing social phenomenon attended by astounding political and economic repercussions.
99:3.3 (1088.4) 笃信宗教者并非不同情社会困苦，不留意民事不公，不接触经济思维，也并非对暴政麻木不仁。宗教会直接影响社会重建，因为它会使个体公民灵性化和理想化。教化文明会被这些个体笃信宗教者的态度所间接影响，因为他们会成为各种社会团体、道德团体、经济团体和政治团体积极而又有影响的成员。		99:3.3 (1088.4) The religionist is not unsympathetic with social suffering, not unmindful of civil injustice, not insulated from economic thinking, neither insensible to political tyranny. Religion influences social reconstruction directly because it spiritualizes and idealizes the individual citizen. Indirectly, cultural civilization is influenced by the attitude of these individual religionists as they become active and influential members of various social, moral, economic, and political groups.
99:3.4 (1088.5) 一个高级教化文明的达成，首先需要理想类型的公民，其次需要理想而适当的社会机制，这类公民可以用其控制这样一个先进人类社会的经济和政治制度。		99:3.4 (1088.5) The attainment of a high cultural civilization demands, first, the ideal type of citizen and, then, ideal and adequate social mechanisms wherewith such a citizenry may control the economic and political institutions of such an advanced human society.
99:3.5 (1088.6) 教会由于过多错误的情感，长期以来照料贫困者和不幸者，这当然是好的，但这同样的情感却导致了种族退化血统的不智持续，这极大地阻碍了文明的进步。		99:3.5 (1088.6) The church, because of overmuch false sentiment, has long ministered to the underprivileged and the unfortunate, and this has all been well, but this same sentiment has led to the unwise perpetuation of racially degenerate stocks which have tremendously retarded the progress of civilization.
99:3.6 (1088.7) 许多个体社会重建者尽管激烈否定制度化宗教，但终究在其社会改革普及的过程中却是热心宗教的。正是那种个人的、多少不自觉的宗教动机，在当今社会重建计划中发挥了巨大作用。		99:3.6 (1088.7) Many individual social reconstructionists, while vehemently repudiating institutionalized religion, are, after all, zealously religious in the propagation of their social reforms. And so it is that religious motivation, personal and more or less unrecognized, is playing a great part in the present-day program of social reconstruction.
99:3.7 (1088.8) 所有这种不自觉和无意识类型宗教活动的的一大弱点，就是它无法从公开的宗教批评中获益，由此而达到自我修正的有益层次。事实是，宗教若未被建设性批评所规范，未被哲学所扩充，未被科学所净化，以及未被忠诚联谊所滋养，它便无法成长。		99:3.7 (1088.8) The great weakness of all this unrecognized and unconscious type of religious activity is that it is unable to profit from open religious criticism and thereby attain to profitable levels of self-correction. It is a fact that religion does not grow unless it is disciplined by constructive criticism, amplified by philosophy, purified by science, and nourished by loyal fellowship.
99:3.8 (1088.9) 一个巨大的危险总是存在着，即宗教会被扭曲颠倒成对错误目标的追求，正如在战争时期，每个相争的国家都会将其宗教沦为军事宣传工具一样。无爱之热情对宗教总是有害的，而迫害则将宗教活动转向了对某种社会学或神学驱动的达成。		99:3.8 (1088.9) There is always the great danger that religion will become distorted and perverted into the pursuit of false goals, as when in times of war each contending nation prostitutes its religion into military propaganda. Loveless zeal is always harmful to religion, while persecution diverts the activities of religion into the achievement of some sociologic or theologic drive.
99:3.9 (1089.1) 宗教只有通过以下途径，才能得以免于不适宜的世俗联盟：		99:3.9 (1089.1) Religion can be kept free from unholy secular alliances only by:
99:3.10 (1089.2) 1. 一种批判修正的哲学。		99:3.10 (1089.2) 1. A critically corrective philosophy.
99:3.11 (1089.3) 2. 对所有社会、经济和政治联盟的摆脱。		99:3.11 (1089.3) 2. Freedom from all social, economic, and political alliances.
99:3.12 (1089.4) 3. 创造性、抚慰性和扩展爱的社团。		99:3.12 (1089.4) 3. Creative, comforting, and love-expanding fellowships.
99:3.13 (1089.5) 4. 灵性洞见的逐步提高，以及对宇宙价值的欣赏。		99:3.13 (1089.5) 4. Progressive enhancement of spiritual insight and the appreciation of cosmic values.
99:3.14 (1089.6) 5. 通过科学心态的补偿防止狂热。		99:3.14 (1089.6) 5. Prevention of fanaticism by the compensations of the scientific mental attitude.
99:3.15 (1089.7) 笃信宗教者作为一个群体，决不能将自身与宗教以外的任何事情相关联，即便任何一位笃信宗教者作为个体公民，都可能成为某个社会、经济或政治重建运动的杰出领袖。		99:3.15 (1089.7) Religionists, as a group, must never concern themselves with anything but religion, albeit any one such religionist, as an individual citizen, may become the outstanding leader of some social, economic, or political reconstruction movement.
99:3.16 (1089.8) 宗教的任务是在个体公民身上创造、保持并激发这样一种宇宙忠诚，也指导他在所有这些艰难却又合意的社会服务进程中取得成功。		99:3.16 (1089.8) It is the business of religion to create, sustain, and inspire such a cosmic loyalty in the individual citizen as will direct him to the achievement of success in the advancement of all these difficult but desirable social services.
4. 过渡的困难 ^top		4. Transition Difficulties ^top
99:4.1 (1089.9) 真正的宗教会使笃信宗教者获得社交上的愉快，令其形成对人类联谊的洞见。但宗教团体的形式化却屡屡摧毁了该团体组织起来时所宣扬的价值。若人性友谊和神性宗教在彼此当中的成长得以平衡化及和谐化，那就会相得益彰。宗教将新的意涵放入到了所有的群体联合 -- 即家庭、学校和社团中。它传递了新的消遣价值，提升了一切真正的幽默。		99:4.1 (1089.9) Genuine religion renders the religionist socially fragrant and creates insights into human fellowship. But the formalization of religious groups many times destroys the very values for the promotion of which the group was organized. Human friendship and divine religion are mutually helpful and significantly illuminating if the growth in each is equalized and harmonized. Religion puts new meaning into all group associations—families, schools, and clubs. It imparts new values to play and exalts all true humor.
99:4.2 (1089.10) 社会领导阶层会被灵性洞见所转化；宗教会防止一切集体运动忽略其真正目的。宗教与孩子们一道，是家庭生活的统一者，设若它是一种鲜活而又不断成长的信仰。家庭生活不能没有孩子；它可以没有宗教，但这种不利条件会极大增加这一亲密人类结合的困难。在二十世纪初叶从旧的宗教忠诚向逐渐出现的全新意涵价值过渡所造成的颓废，使得家庭生活紧随个人宗教体验之后而遭受了最大损失。		99:4.2 (1089.10) Social leadership is transformed by spiritual insight; religion prevents all collective movements from losing sight of their true objectives. Together with children, religion is the great unifier of family life, provided it is a living and growing faith. Family life cannot be had without children; it can be lived without religion, but such a handicap enormously multiplies the difficulties of this intimate human association. During the early decades of the twentieth century, family life, next to personal religious experience, suffers most from the decadence consequent upon the transition from old religious loyalties to the emerging new meanings and values.
99:4.3 (1089.11) 真正的宗教是一种面对日常生活平凡现实动态生活的有意义方式。但若宗教要去激发个人的品格发展并加强人格的统合，那它就切不可被标准化。若它要去激发对体验的评估并担当一种价值诱饵，那它就切不可被套路化。若宗教要去提升至高的忠诚，那它就切不可被形式化。		99:4.3 (1089.11) True religion is a meaningful way of living dynamically face to face with the commonplace realities of everyday life. But if religion is to stimulate individual development of character and augment integration of personality, it must not be standardized. If it is to stimulate evaluation of experience and serve as a value-lure, it must not be stereotyped. If religion is to promote supreme loyalties, it must not be formalized.
99:4.4 (1089.12) 无论伴随文明的社会和经济成长会有什么剧变，只要宗教在个体身上培养一种真、美、善之美好事物会获胜的体验，那它就是真正有价值的，因为这便是至高实相的真正灵性概念。通过爱与崇拜，这一切作为与人的同胞关系以及与神的亲子关系而变得富有意涵。		99:4.4 (1089.12) No matter what upheavals may attend the social and economic growth of civilization, religion is genuine and worth while if it fosters in the individual an experience in which the sovereignty of truth, beauty, and goodness prevails, for such is the true spiritual concept of supreme reality. And through love and worship this becomes meaningful as fellowship with man and sonship with God.
99:4.5 (1090.1) 归根到底，是一个人的所信而非一个人的所知决定其行为并主导其个人表现。纯粹事实性的知识对普通人鲜有影响，除非它在情感上被激活了。但宗教的激活却是超情感的，它通过凡世生活中与灵性能量的接触以及释放，而将整个人的体验统一到了诸个超越性层次。		99:4.5 (1090.1) After all, it is what one believes rather than what one knows that determines conduct and dominates personal performances. Purely factual knowledge exerts very little influence upon the average man unless it becomes emotionally activated. But the activation of religion is superemotional, unifying the entire human experience on transcendent levels through contact with, and release of, spiritual energies in the mortal life.
99:4.6 (1090.2) 在二十世纪精神躁动不安的时期中，在经济剧变、道德逆流以及科学时代飓风般转变的社会激流中，成千上万的男女从人性角度来说变得脱位了；他们焦虑、不安、恐惧、迟疑、不定；他们前所未有地需要可靠宗教的慰藉与镇定。在史无前例的科学成就和机械发展面前，却存在着灵性的停滞和哲学的混乱。		99:4.6 (1090.2) During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century, amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip tides of the cyclonic transitions of a scientific era, thousands upon thousands of men and women have become humanly dislocated; they are anxious, restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled; as never before in the world’s history they need the consolation and stabilization of sound religion. In the face of unprecedented scientific achievement and mechanical development there is spiritual stagnation and philosophic chaos.
99:4.7 (1090.3) 宗教变得越来越成为一种私人事务 -- 即一种个人体验，这并没有什么危险，只要它并未失去其无私忠诚社会服务的动机。宗教遭受了许多从属性影响：文化的突然混合，信条的相互混杂，教会权威的减弱，家庭生活的改变加上城市化和机械化。		99:4.7 (1090.3) There is no danger in religion’s becoming more and more of a private matter—a personal experience—provided it does not lose its motivation for unselfish and loving social service. Religion has suffered from many secondary influences: sudden mixing of cultures, intermingling of creeds, diminution of ecclesiastical authority, changing of family life, together with urbanization and mechanization.
99:4.8 (1090.4) 人类的最大灵性危境在于局部的进展，即未竟成长的困境：抛弃了源自恐惧的进化类宗教，却未立即掌握源自爱的启示类宗教。现代科学，尤其是心理学，仅仅削弱了那些在很大程度上依赖于恐惧、迷信和情感的宗教。		99:4.8 (1090.4) Man’s greatest spiritual jeopardy consists in partial progress, the predicament of unfinished growth: forsaking the evolutionary religions of fear without immediately grasping the revelatory religion of love. Modern science, particularly psychology, has weakened only those religions which are so largely dependent upon fear, superstition, and emotion.
99:4.9 (1090.5) 过渡总是会伴随着混乱，在以下三大相争的宗教哲学之间的巨大斗争结束之前，在宗教世界将不会有安宁：		99:4.9 (1090.5) Transition is always accompanied by confusion, and there will be little tranquillity in the religious world until the great struggle between the three contending philosophies of religion is ended:
99:4.10 (1090.6) 1. 众多宗教（对某位天神）的唯心论信仰。		99:4.10 (1090.6) 1. The spiritistic belief (in a providential Deity) of many religions.
99:4.11 (1090.7) 2. 众多哲学的人道主义的和理想主义信仰。		99:4.11 (1090.7) 2. The humanistic and idealistic belief of many philosophies.
99:4.12 (1090.8) 3. 众多科学的机械主义和自然主义观念。		99:4.12 (1090.8) 3. The mechanistic and naturalistic conceptions of many sciences.
99:4.13 (1090.9) 这三种通向宇宙实相的局部方法，最终必定会因包含了宗教、哲学和宇宙学的启示陈述而变得和谐，它描绘了自天堂三位一体出发、并在至高者神灵身内达至时空合一的属灵、心智和能量的三位联合性存在。		99:4.13 (1090.9) And these three partial approaches to the reality of the cosmos must eventually become harmonized by the revelatory presentation of religion, philosophy, and cosmology which portrays the triune existence of spirit, mind, and energy proceeding from the Trinity of Paradise and attaining time-space unification within the Deity of the Supreme.
5. 宗教的社会方面 ^top		5. Social Aspects of Religion ^top
99:5.1 (1090.10) 尽管宗教仅是一种个人灵性体验 -- 即知晓神为父亲 -- 这种体验的必然结果 -- 即知晓人为兄弟 -- 需要将自我与其他自我相调适，那包含了宗教生活的社会方面或群体方面。宗教首先是一种内在或个人的调适，之后它变成了一种涉及社会服务或群体调适的事务。人类的群居性这一事实，必然决定了宗教群体将会开始存在。发生在这些宗教群体上的事，在很大程度上取决于智性的领导阶层。在原始社会，宗教群体并非总是与经济和政治群体不同。宗教总是道德的保管者、社会的稳定者。而这一切至今仍真实，尽管有许多现代社会学家和人文学者的相反教导。		99:5.1 (1090.10) While religion is exclusively a personal spiritual experience—knowing God as a Father—the corollary of this experience—knowing man as a brother—entails the adjustment of the self to other selves, and that involves the social or group aspect of religious life. Religion is first an inner or personal adjustment, and then it becomes a matter of social service or group adjustment. The fact of man’s gregariousness perforce determines that religious groups will come into existence. What happens to these religious groups depends very much on intelligent leadership. In primitive society the religious group is not always very different from economic or political groups. Religion has always been a conservator of morals and a stabilizer of society. And this is still true, notwithstanding the contrary teaching of many modern socialists and humanists.
99:5.2 (1091.1) 始终要记住：真正的宗教是要知晓神为你的父亲，人为你的兄弟。宗教并非奴性信仰惩罚之威胁，或是来世神秘赏赐之魔法应许。		99:5.2 (1091.1) Always keep in mind: True religion is to know God as your Father and man as your brother. Religion is not a slavish belief in threats of punishment or magical promises of future mystical rewards.
99:5.3 (1091.2) 耶稣的宗教无疑是激活人类的最动态影响。耶稣打破了传统，摧毁了教条，号召人类实现其时间和永恒中的最高理想 -- 即要完美，一如天父那样完美。		99:5.3 (1091.2) The religion of Jesus is the most dynamic influence ever to activate the human race. Jesus shattered tradition, destroyed dogma, and called mankind to the achievement of its highest ideals in time and eternity—to be perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect.
99:5.4 (1091.3) 直到宗教群体从所有其他群体 -- 即天国灵性成员身份的社会关联中分离出来，宗教才会有机会发挥作用。		99:5.4 (1091.3) Religion has little chance to function until the religious group becomes separated from all other groups—the social association of the spiritual membership of the kingdom of heaven.
99:5.5 (1091.4) 人类整体堕落的教义，摧毁了宗教引发具有振奋本质和具有励志价值之社会反响的大多潜力。耶稣在宣称所有人都是神的子女时，他曾试图去恢复人的尊严。		99:5.5 (1091.4) The doctrine of the total depravity of man destroyed much of the potential of religion for effecting social repercussions of an uplifting nature and of inspirational value. Jesus sought to restore man’s dignity when he declared that all men are the children of God.
99:5.6 (1091.5) 在使信徒灵性化方面有效的任何宗教信仰，都一定会在这样一个笃信宗教者的社会生活中产生强力的反响。宗教体验无疑会在受灵性引导之凡人的日常生活中结出“灵性的果实”。		99:5.6 (1091.5) Any religious belief which is effective in spiritualizing the believer is certain to have powerful repercussions in the social life of such a religionist. Religious experience unfailingly yields the “fruits of the spirit” in the daily life of the spirit-led mortal.
99:5.7 (1091.6) 正如人们必然共享其宗教信仰一样，他们也会创造出某种最终会创造出共同目标的宗教群体。终有一日，笃信宗教者们将会聚集起来，在理想和目标统一的基础上实际引发合作，而非试图在心理学观点和神学信仰的基础上那样做。是目标而不是教条，会使笃信宗教者们团结起来。由于真正的宗教是一件涉及个人灵性体验的事务，所以不可避免地，每一个体笃信宗教者必定拥有他自己对那一灵性体验认知的个人诠释。让“信仰”这个词代表个人与神的关系，而非代表某个凡人群体作为一种共同宗教态度所能一致同意的信条表达。“你有信仰吗？那就将它持守到自身。”		99:5.7 (1091.6) Just as certainly as men share their religious beliefs, they create a religious group of some sort which eventually creates common goals. Someday religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience. Let the term “faith” stand for the individual’s relation to God rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. “Have you faith? Then have it to yourself.”
99:5.8 (1091.7) 那种信仰只涉及到对新约定义所展示的理想价值之把握，该定义宣称信仰是所希望事物之实质，是所未见事物之证据。		99:5.8 (1091.7) That faith is concerned only with the grasp of ideal values is shown by the New Testament definition which declares that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
99:5.9 (1091.8) 原始人很少做出努力去将他的宗教信念付诸文字。他的宗教是舞出来的，而非想出来的。现代人想出了许多信条，并创造出了许多对宗教信仰的测试。未来的笃信宗教者必须要活出他们的宗教，将自身奉献给人类兄弟情谊的全心服务中。该是时候人类拥有一种崇高的个人宗教体验了，以致它仅可通过“难以言表的深刻感受”而得以实现和表达。		99:5.9 (1091.8) Primitive man made little effort to put his religious convictions into words. His religion was danced out rather than thought out. Modern men have thought out many creeds and created many tests of religious faith. Future religionists must live out their religion, dedicate themselves to the wholehearted service of the brotherhood of man. It is high time that man had a religious experience so personal and so sublime that it could be realized and expressed only by “feelings that lie too deep for words.”
99:5.10 (1091.9) 耶稣并未要求其追随者他们应定期集会来吟诵一种表明其共同信仰形式的文字。他只是吩咐他们应当聚在一起去实际做点事——如共进公共晚餐以纪念他在玉苒厦(Urantia)的赠与生涯。		99:5.10 (1091.9) Jesus did not require of his followers that they should periodically assemble and recite a form of words indicative of their common beliefs. He only ordained that they should gather together to actually do something—partake of the communal supper of the remembrance of his bestowal life on Urantia.
99:5.11 (1091.10) 在基督徒们将基督展示为具有灵性领导能力的至高典范时，他们竟敢要求知神男女拒绝历史上知神人们的领导能力，后者在过去时代里曾对其特定国家或种族的启蒙贡献颇多，这是一个多么大的错误啊！		99:5.11 (1091.10) What a mistake for Christians to make when, in presenting Christ as the supreme ideal of spiritual leadership, they dare to require God-conscious men and women to reject the historic leadership of the God-knowing men who have contributed to their particular national or racial illumination during past ages.
6. 制度性宗教 ^top		6. Institutional Religion ^top
99:6.1 (1092.1) 宗派主义是制度性宗教的一种痼疾，而教条主义则是灵性本质的一种束缚。拥有一个没有教会的宗教，远比一个没有宗教的教会要好得多。二十世纪的宗教混乱，就其本身而言并不预示着灵性的衰颓。混乱既发生在成长之前，也发生在毁灭之前。		99:6.1 (1092.1) Sectarianism is a disease of institutional religion, and dogmatism is an enslavement of the spiritual nature. It is far better to have a religion without a church than a church without religion. The religious turmoil of the twentieth century does not, in and of itself, betoken spiritual decadence. Confusion goes before growth as well as before destruction.
99:6.2 (1092.2) 宗教的社会化存有一个真正的目的。群体宗教活动的目的，正是要将对宗教的虔诚生动地表现出来；增强真、美、善的引诱力；培植至高价值的吸引力；改善无私团体的侍奉；美化家庭生活的潜能；提升宗教教育；提供智性建议和灵性指引；鼓励群体崇拜。所有充满活力的宗教都鼓励人的友谊，保留道德，提升邻里福祉，并促进其各自永恒救赎讯息之基本福音的传播。		99:6.2 (1092.2) There is a real purpose in the socialization of religion. It is the purpose of group religious activities to dramatize the loyalties of religion; to magnify the lures of truth, beauty, and goodness; to foster the attractions of supreme values; to enhance the service of unselfish fellowship; to glorify the potentials of family life; to promote religious education; to provide wise counsel and spiritual guidance; and to encourage group worship. And all live religions encourage human friendship, conserve morality, promote neighborhood welfare, and facilitate the spread of the essential gospel of their respective messages of eternal salvation.
99:6.3 (1092.3) 但当宗教变得制度化时，其为善能力便被缩减了，而其作恶的可能性却极大增加了。形式化宗教的危险是：信仰的固化和情感的具化；渐增世俗化所伴既得利益的累积；使真理标准化和陈腐化的倾向；使宗教从对神的侍奉而转向对教会的侍奉；领导者们倾向于变成管理者而非侍奉者；易于形成宗派和竞争性支派；压迫性的教会权威的建立；贵族式“选民”态度的形成；对错误和夸大之神圣理念的培植；宗教的例行化和崇拜的僵化；尊崇过去而忽略当今需求的趋向；未能对宗教做出最新的诠释；与世俗功能的纠缠；它会产生宗教等级制度的邪恶歧视；它会变成偏狭的正统审判者；它未能留住富有冒险精神之年轻人的兴趣，并会渐渐失去永恒救赎之福音的拯救讯息。		99:6.3 (1092.3) But as religion becomes institutionalized, its power for good is curtailed, while the possibilities for evil are greatly multiplied. The dangers of formalized religion are: fixation of beliefs and crystallization of sentiments; accumulation of vested interests with increase of secularization; tendency to standardize and fossilize truth; diversion of religion from the service of God to the service of the church; inclination of leaders to become administrators instead of ministers; tendency to form sects and competitive divisions; establishment of oppressive ecclesiastical authority; creation of the aristocratic “chosen-people” attitude; fostering of false and exaggerated ideas of sacredness; the routinizing of religion and the petrification of worship; tendency to venerate the past while ignoring present demands; failure to make up-to-date interpretations of religion; entanglement with functions of secular institutions; it creates the evil discrimination of religious castes; it becomes an intolerant judge of orthodoxy; it fails to hold the interest of adventurous youth and gradually loses the saving message of the gospel of eternal salvation.
99:6.4 (1092.4) 正式的宗教限制人们进行其个人灵性活动，而非释出他们作为天国构建者去进行提升的服务。		99:6.4 (1092.4) Formal religion restrains men in their personal spiritual activities instead of releasing them for heightened service as kingdom builders.
7. 宗教的贡献 ^top		7. Religion’s Contribution ^top
99:7.1 (1092.5) 尽管教会及所有其他宗教群体都应避开所有世俗活动，但与此同时，宗教也切不可做任何阻碍和延滞人类机构社会协调的事。生命必须要在富有意义的过程中继续成长；人类必须要继续他对哲学的革新以及他对宗教的澄清。		99:7.1 (1092.5) Though churches and all other religious groups should stand aloof from all secular activities, at the same time religion must do nothing to hinder or retard the social co-ordination of human institutions. Life must continue to grow in meaningfulness; man must go on with his reformation of philosophy and his clarification of religion.
99:7.2 (1092.6) 政治科学必须要凭借它从社会科学中所学到的手段以及从宗教生活中所提供的洞见和动机，来引发经济和产业的重建。在所有社会重建中，宗教为一种超越性的目标提供了一种稳定的忠诚，这一目标即一种超乎当下世俗目的的稳固目标。在一个快速变化环境所产生的混乱之中，凡人需要一种广袤宇宙视角的支撑。		99:7.2 (1092.6) Political science must effect the reconstruction of economics and industry by the techniques it learns from the social sciences and by the insights and motives supplied by religious living. In all social reconstruction religion provides a stabilizing loyalty to a transcendent object, a steadying goal beyond and above the immediate and temporal objective. In the midst of the confusions of a rapidly changing environment mortal man needs the sustenance of a far-flung cosmic perspective.
99:7.3 (1093.1) 宗教激发人类勇敢而喜悦地活在世上；它将耐心与激情、洞见与热情、同情与力量以及理想与活力结合到了一起。		99:7.3 (1093.1) Religion inspires man to live courageously and joyfully on the face of the earth; it joins patience with passion, insight to zeal, sympathy with power, and ideals with energy.
99:7.4 (1093.2) 人类永远无法明智决定世俗问题或超越充满个人利益的自私，除非他会在神至高无上的临在中沉思，并料想到充满神性意涵和灵性价值的实相。		99:7.4 (1093.2) Man can never wisely decide temporal issues or transcend the selfishness of personal interests unless he meditates in the presence of the sovereignty of God and reckons with the realities of divine meanings and spiritual values.
99:7.5 (1093.3) 经济的依存和社会的友爱，最终将会有助于兄弟情谊。人类天生是梦想家，但科学正使他逐渐清醒起来，如此宗教不久便能激活他以避免陷入到狂热反应的危险中。经济必需品令人与现实密切相关，而个人宗教体验则将同一个人与具有不断扩展及进步之宇宙公民身份的诸多永恒实相面面相对。		99:7.5 (1093.3) Economic interdependence and social fraternity will ultimately conduce to brotherhood. Man is naturally a dreamer, but science is sobering him so that religion can presently activate him with far less danger of precipitating fanatical reactions. Economic necessities tie man up with reality, and personal religious experience brings this same man face to face with the eternal realities of an ever-expanding and progressing cosmic citizenship.
99:7.6 (1093.4) [由内巴顿(Nebadon)的一位麦基洗德所呈献。]		99:7.6 (1093.4) [Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]