Superstition is a biased word. Look up almost any dictionary definition and you will see that it implies that every religion no

admin2013-01-12  38

问题    Superstition is a biased word.  Look up almost any dictionary definition and you will see that it implies that every religion not based on reason or knowledge is called a superstition. Even the word knowledge is a two-faced word. Presumably, it is used as a synonym for reason.  What it all comes down to is that people designate as superstitious what they do not think reasonable in someone else’s religion.
   It is true that a person’s religion must be based on some kind of knowledge.  But what kind of knowledge is meant? Scientific, experimental, rational? Such knowledge is natural and maybe ethical and then it is natural religious knowledge.  A person may quite easily conclude from observing the universe that only God could have produced it. That knowledge is not religion, not even if a person is bound to recognize a creator of the universe. It is natural knowledge such as Confucius, Socrates or Zoroaster possessed.  Natural religious knowledge, as is evident in the history of the human race, although it helps to make a malt good, hardly, suffices to keep him good, especially in times of crisis. Will such natural knowledge, for instance, sustain a man when he has suddenly lost all his money and even his wife and children? Will it offer the hope of ever seeing them again? Will it influence him gladly to sacrifice his life for his family, his country, his religion? Only a strong sense of supernatural religion, a reliance upon God, will provide the necessary courage for right action.
   All the great religions of the world--Christianity, Hinduism, Chinese Buddhism and Islam--have shown men the way to such courage and its resulting peace of mind and heart and peace with all men.  They point to a better sort of life, mostly a life somewhere else, or, at least, an end to the troubles of this life.
   Christianity and Islam direct men to look up, hope for and strive after an eternal life of happiness in the possession of God.  Hinduism also encourages its adherents to achieve successively higher incarnations until they achieve unity, become one with Brahman-God. The agnostic or the atheist thinks of all of these creeds as religious superstition. Are the agnostic and the atheist free of superstition? Hardly. Every thinking man has a natural bent for religion, for ideals above and beyond earthly ones. If he crushes his natural inclination, which is God-inspired ideals, he most likely will substitute a series of self-inspired ideals or some fad like astrology, which will become a religion for him.  There is a line between religion and superstition which everyone must learn to identify, of forfeit a true direction in his life.
The second paragraph tells us that natural religious knowledge can hardly keep a person good because ______.

选项 A、he is not always willing to sacrifice himself
B、he does not rely upon God
C、he may sometimes die for right action
D、he may suffer crisis in his career

答案D

解析 第2段在叙述自然宗教知识的作用时指出“although it helps to make a man good, hardly suffices to keep him good, especially in tunes of crisis”(尤其在面临危机时,它远远不能keep him good),故选项D正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/EY9O777K
0

最新回复(0)