《美食祈祷和恋爱》Chapter 57 (123):寻找神

The search for God is a reversal of the normal, mundane worldly order. In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult. You abandon your comforting and familiar habits with the hope (the mere hope!) that something greater will be offered you in return for what you've given up. Every religion in the world operates on the same common understandings of what it means to be a good disciple—get up early and pray to your God, hone your virtues, be a good neighbor, respect yourself and others, master your cravings. We all agree that it would be easier to sleep in, and many of us do, but for millennia there have been others who choose instead to get up before the sun and wash their faces and go to their prayers. And then fiercely try to hold on to their devotional convictions throughout the lunacy of another day.

对神的追求，与平凡的世界秩序背道而驰。在寻找神的时候，你撇下吸引自己的东西，游向困难的事情。你舍弃舒适熟悉的习惯，期待得到更大的报偿，抵偿你舍弃的东西。世上每一种宗教的运作，都是基于对所谓人生锻炼的相同共识——起个大早，向神祈祷，磨练自己的美德，敦亲睦邻，尊重自己并尊重他人，控制七情六欲。我们都同意睡懒觉比较容易，许多人也这么做，然而数千年来也有人选择日出前起身、洗脸、晨祷，极力把持自己的信仰，度过又一个狂乱的日子。

The devout of this world perform their rituals without guarantee that anything good will ever come of it. Of course there are plenty of scriptures and plenty of priests who make plenty of promises as to what your good works will yield (or threats as to the punishments awaiting you if you lapse), but to even believe all this is an act of faith, because nobody amongst us is shown the endgame. Devotion is diligence without assurance. Faith is a way of saying, "Yes, I pre-accept the terms of the universe and I embrace in advance what I am presently incapable of understanding." There's a reason we refer to "leaps of faith"—because the decision to con-sent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don't care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn't. If faith were rational, it wouldn't be—by definition—faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch.

世上的虔诚信徒履行他们的例行公事，却不保证从中得到任何好处。当然，许多经文著作、许多神职人员都许诺你的善行将取得何种报偿（或威胁你背离正道将受到何种惩罚），但去相信这一切也是一种信仰实践，因为我们也没见过最终的结局。虔诚是一种没有保证的勤奋之举。信仰的另一种说法是：“是的，我先行接受宇宙的条件，我事先接受目前无法了解的事情。”因此我们说“跨越信念”——因为决定认可神的概念，等于从理性跨向未知，不管哪种宗教的学者如何卖力地用他们的一堆堆经文著作向你证明其信仰合乎理性；事实却不然。信仰若合乎理性，就不称之为——根据定义——信仰。信仰是去相信你看不见、证明不了、摸不着的东西。

Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be . . . a prudent insurance policy.

信仰是勇往直前冲向黑暗。假如我们真能事先知道生命的意义、神的本质、灵魂的命运这些问题的答案，我们的信仰就不是跨越信念，也不是勇敢的人类行为；而只是……审慎的保险条款。

I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water. Eat, Pray, Love

我对保险业不感兴趣。我已厌倦做怀疑论者。我受够了心灵的审慎，实证之辩使我焦躁不耐。我不想再听。我不在乎证据、证明、保证。我只要神。我要我内心的神。我要神在我的血液中玩耍，像阳光在水面上自娱。