Iconic quotations of Zhongjing Liu, translated (3)
Foreword: The Auntology Fandom has a collection of quotes which summarizes the thoughts of Zhongjing Liu, a dissident Chinese historian and the founding father of the Republic of Basuria. Since the collection is in Chinese, I have translated the 3rd chapter of it into English. You can find the 1st chapter and the 2nd chapter here.
A Christian should do as Christ does. However, some Christians follow only Christ's submissiveness, and submit to the Anti-Christ in every matter, believing that they can be Christ. Their behavior is but a transgression against Christ.
1. A nation consists of only fellaheen cannot possibly understand conscience or penitence in Christian cultures, just like how they mock Duke Xiang of Song's knightly mercy and his code of honor. Henceforth, the fellaheen have been living in a prison forged by the judgment that they gave to themselves.
2. Those who deny the canon are bound to be consumed by the void. It is as theologians have warned: Your hands will wither in less than a moment if God suspends His grace that keeps your hands alive.
3. The chain of contempt matters because every man is wicked, and there is not a single righteous man in the world. Therefore, it is the most practical to find out which man is an inch more wicked than the rest.
Deceits like the claim that all crows are equitably black with no inherent difference are only there to hook you on to serve a lie. Who would want equity between an illegitimate child and a first-born son? It has to be the mistress.
4. God has made His judgment clear with the collapse of Babel -- that the grand unified empire must dissolve. The fall of Babylonian Empire in the Mesopotamian history can be compared to the birth of Cathaysia in China's future. A dying civilization's final delusion is to build the Babel through grand unification, and to turn the dead seeds into specimens.
The all-wise and great loving God destroyed the Babel to rescue the infant nations from a dying empire. An empire can never become a nation-state, just as a specimen can never grow into a tree. If you devote yourself into the delusional cause of building a Babel, do not be surprised when God forsakes you.
5. China is but ashes from a civilization that burnt in the past. The raw fuel needed to form a new civilization is still unsettled. She has been an importer of civilizational order, and has not been a producer. Currently, she does not have the morality or ability to humbly learn, and has not shown any signs that she can give birth to a new civilization in the future.
Those who seek the rise of China in the sense of political realism will only find a quick path which leads to self-destruction.
6. A Christian should do as Christ does. However, some Christians follow only Christ's submissiveness, and submit to the Anti-Christ in every matter, believing that they can be Christ. Their behavior is but a transgression against Christ.
7. In front of the guillotine, Marie Antoinette apologized to her executioner for stepping on his feet. In fact, that was the same as you would feel uncomfortable going into bed without brushing your teeth beforehand. Those who are born into a lower class family with no hygiene habits would not have felt the same discomfort like a second nature.
A priest on the RMS Titanic gave his piece of floating wood to another man, because he believes that whether he dies sooner or later would not have made a difference. But if an atheist has missed his final chance of wakening, it would make the difference between heaven and hell. If it were Tartuffe, he would be fighting hard for a lifeboat.
8. Science requires normative conditions: There are principles behind the world. The principles exist in unity. And men cannot alter the principles.
All three of these conditions are a part of faith system, and cannot be proven. Those who have no faith cannot discover the operational rationality later. Modern people often accept these conditions as self-evident. In fact, these conditions came from Christian theology in the early middle ages.
Most primitive cultures think like sorcerers. They believe that principles are only local, and can be altered with sorcery. Even the Greek proto-science was built on metaphysics, which was quite similar to Chinese medicine and astrology. It believes that the principles are sympathetic.
9. Trust and valor are the source of all political virtues. Under the protection of religion and customs, they provide the fuel for a civilization. An overfilled tub will overflow. A civilization is born once the accumulated fuel is lit.
10. The United States of America and the world has never been a binary pair of adversaries like in the Manichean model. The Manichean model assumes that good and evil are equal in force, and that good and evil themselves are fundamental elements.
The City upon a Hill theory, however, believes that good and evil are on the different levels (of the great chain of being). Coming from Augustinian-Calvinist traditions, it believes that the good and evil are neither equal nor entirely opposite. Good is completion and the collection of concepts on the highest level. Meanwhile, evil is incompletion and the concepts on various lower levels. Good includes evil. And evil is inferior to good.
Satan is but a part of God's plan, and he is not God's opponent. The Kingdom of Heaven is perfection, the world is imperfection, and the inferno is void.
Betraying the evil one and returning to the Good One means forsaking the imperfection and embracing the perfection. It is about moving from somewhere faraway from God to a place close to God.
Betraying the Good one to serve the evil one means losing God's grace, and the inferno is a place where God's grace does not reach.
11. If the Protestant Reformation did not happen, the New World as we know would not have existed. The entire Europe would have been ruled by the Habsburg family as well as the Latin-speaking bishops and intellectuals. That Europe would continue down the path of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming increasingly similar to the pagan civilizations in the past. It is the kind of civilization that would be imprisoned by the Old World.
If Britain didn't have the Protestant Reformation, she would still be ruled by those Latin-speaking, well-learned, serving perhaps as a bishop but do not have much faith in God. Those are the same men behind the Renaissance. What would Britain be under them? She would be nothing more than a province that rests in the frontier of the Holy Roman Empire. That Britain today, would have the future possibilities quite similar to those of Catalonia.
12. The linear history is not an invention by the Puritans. In fact, it has been a fundamental character of Christianity.
A key belief in Christianity is that the progress of time leaves a history, and it cannot be reverted. It is just as Christ has died for us once, and His sacrifice does not need to be repeated. The ancient Greeks and Indians, however, believed that the time and history goes in circles.
13. Abstinence, since ancient Greece and India, has left an impression that it means self-harm, compulsion, and distortion. The Puritans are not advocating for those, but something similar to lawfulness. Lawfulness is not about asceticism, but about the norm of life. Lawfulness normalizes daily life.
To understand the world that the Puritans live in, consider that they are the ones that can sense the omnipresent war in the spiritual realm in every moment. It is like, "in my every thought, every action, and every choice, if I forget that I must do to honor God, I would give the Devil a chance to enter my soul."
The Puritans are not waiting to ask God occasionally about what is right when in doubt. Instead, they can concretely sense the existence of God's will. God's will must be followed in every moment of life. Therefore, even the trivial decisions in life can become consequential in the spiritual war.
14. Puritanism has fueled you with order and energy. That order and energy will inevitably destroy something in you. However, if a proto-star does not receive fuel, and it is instead repeatedly lit by an ignition spark, it will walk into the same fate as every other star system that has stopped burning. The proto-star would first shrink, and then slowly shed away its mass. Through mixing with the rest of the system like a chaotic paste, the system will eventually reach heat death as entropy increases.
How can order be rebuilt? How can negentropy be re-introduced? You will have to fuel the system which is approaching the equilibrium of heat death with disequilibrium. This disequilibrium, as we speak, is a Protestant-like reformation.
15. Organized religion has always been the largest non-governmental organization. Primitive polytheism can be highly abundant in morality, but has the shortcoming that it cannot precisely reproduce the moral information. Therefore, once polytheism has taken the reign of an empire, it will slowly give in to the temptations.
The primitive polytheism has its strength lying in customs and nativism. But such strength also makes expansion difficult. In a tiny area like a city-state or the lands of a tribe, polytheism can effectively prevent the would-be tyrants from gaining control. However, when facing an international or ecumenical tyranny, a lone city-state with her nativist polytheism will surely fall.
A rational bureaucracy can easily gain the super-national political power, and suppress every nativist force. In such a situation, all native small mutualities can be crushed and forcefully disintegrated. The only remaining force that can resist the rational bureaucracy would be symmetrically powerful Christianity.
16. It is rather easy to cut down a forest, and create a farmland on the organic-rich soil. That would be something reasonable and easy to achieve.
You cannot, however, rebuild a civilization upon an already collapsed society with rampant corruption and flagrant authoritarianism. This would be something more than difficult to achieve. This is like a once-fertile farmland, after generations of soil erosion, has become an infertile desert. Turning a desert into a farmland is orders of magnitude more difficult than doing the opposite.
Learning from the histories that I have read, forests on every continent of the world can be turned into farmlands. This is not a difficult thing to do. However, in a cultural desert, only Christianity can give birth to a sequence of events that will create a new spring of civilization.
17. There has been few successful instances where a new civilization is born on severely desertified cultural soil. However, Christianity did save [Europe] from the end of the [Western] Roman Empire. If that was not the only instance where Christianity has successfully performed [a miracle], it would still be a rarely happening event. I am also certain, that among all the instances where a new civilization is practically born in a cultural desert, that was a successful [a miracle] which has left us with the greatest legacy.
Even if one treats [the history of Europe] with complete objectivity, neutralism, and rationality, he would still have to accept the distinctiveness of that instance.
I can roughly summarize the possible causes of that instance into two. First, Christianity is proficient in creating small mutualities with high levels of trust. Second, The small mutualities created by Christianity have rather low requirements of their environs to survive. In other words, such small mutualities can survive some of the most hostile environments.
18. In the past, I have never trusted the historical theories promoted by the communist officials. However, I believed in the historical theories drafted by the Enlightenment thinkers.
Nowadays, nevertheless, I have found that the Enlightenment historical theories have severe shortcomings or, shall we say, severe flaws. If the history truly develops as the Enlightenment thinkers have envisioned, then, as religious forces lose their grounds in modern times and as the society embraces progressivism, the center of order should be in the most progressivist France. Just as the Enlightenment thinkers have strived to turn France [into the paradigm of freedom and democracy].
However, from multiple perspectives, I am witnessing that the continental Europe as represented by France versus Britain and the United States of America are becoming obviously different in how their societies are developing.
In the British and American societies, I cannot fail to notice that the intellectuals considered progressivists and humanists are but a tiny minority here. That is, even if you include deists like President Thomas Jefferson. The foundation of the British and American societies is still comprised of Christians. Also, most social work is done by priests and parishes.
The Enlightenment thinkers usually tell us that the people [most driven and kindhearted to devote themselves into social work] should be intellectuals; that they should be the secular humanists who have been liberated from Christianity.
However, the United States of America, the nation which is considered as the paradigm of freedom and democracy by most, still depends on the people like the preacher Jonathan Edwards. They have done a lot more to make what America is today than the elites like President Jefferson.
19. I am thinking that most of the progressive intellectuals will favor a secular nation like those in Europe or an arrangement like the European Union. However, it is impossible to deny in front of countless clues and countless pieces of evidence that the United States of America has the truly vigorous society.
The reason that NATO was able to overcome the Soviet Union against all historical odds was because it has people like President Ronald Reagan. The spiritual conviction of President Reagan does not come from the beliefs of liberalism or constitutionalism, as the enlightened intellectuals like us would have imagined. President Reagan's spiritual conviction comes from nothing but his Christian faith. And the Christian faith is exactly what we the intellectuals are mocking and trying to erase.
If the enlightened intellectuals like us are correct, then President Reagan's Christian faith would be nothing more than a roadblock to good governance and social progress, just like in the stories that [Marxists] Hu Qiaomu and Guo Songmin have been pushing to make Chinese children believe. In their attempt, [the Marxists] claim that we the enlightened intellectuals should cleanse Christianity from the world.
Looking back, [the Marxists'] historical theories are severely flawed.
20. What we presently consider to be progress and good governance are not truly progress or good governance. They are but the residual assets from a highly mature Christian civilization.
We, unfortunately, have taken these residual assets and utilized them to corrupt and to destroy the fundamental source of civilization. And, in all epochs of the past and the present, the fundamental source of civilization has always been Christianity and the Christian churches.
If we remove the core values and core religious organizations from the Western civilization, she may not even exist as we know her today.
效法基督，但若基督徒認為只是效法基督的不反抗，而對敵基督的一味順服，則是認為可以，以行為把自己擺放在與基督同等的位置上，這是對基督的僭越。
A Christian should do as Christ does. However, some Christians follow only Christ's submissiveness, and submit to the Anti-Christ in every matter, believing that they can be Christ. Their behavior is but a transgression against Christ.
1，費拉民族不可能理解基督教文化的良心和懺悔，正如他們只會嘲笑宋襄公的騎士文化和榮譽法典。 so，費拉一直生活在自己給自己鑄造的判決中。
1. A nation consists of only fellaheen cannot possibly understand conscience or penitence in Christian cultures, just like how they mock Duke Xiang of Song's knightly mercy and his code of honor. Henceforth, the fellaheen have been living in a prison forged by the judgment that they gave to themselves.
2，否定正典，必定遭到虛無的吞噬。神學家所謂：上帝的恩澤片刻離開你的手，你的手就會焦枯。
2. Those who deny the canon are bound to be consumed by the void. It is as theologians have warned: Your hands will wither in less than a moment if God suspends His grace that keeps your hands alive.
3，歧視鏈之所以重要，就是因為大家都壞，世界上沒有一個義人，所以分清誰更壞一點點才是最實用的。天下烏鴉一般黑，有什麼區別，那都是哄你上鉤的，誰希望私生子和繼承人平等？肯定是小三。
3. The chain of contempt matters because every man is wicked, and there is not a single righteous man in the world. Therefore, it is the most practical to find out which man is an inch more wicked than the rest.
Deceits like the claim that all crows are equitably black with no inherent difference are only there to hook you on to serve a lie. Who would want equity between an illegitimate child and a first-born son? It has to be the mistress.
4，上帝早已通過巴別塔的倒塌表明做出裁決，大一統帝國必須解散。巴比倫帝國與兩河文明的關係就相當於諸夏與中國的關係，沒落文明的最後的妄想就是通過巴別塔的大一統將死去的種子做成標本。上帝以其大智大愛毀滅了巴別塔，將新一代民族救出了垂死的帝國。帝國永遠不能成為民族，正如種子標本永遠不會發芽。如果你投入了建築巴別塔的大業，就不要奇怪上帝為什麼遺棄你。
4. God has made His judgment clear with the collapse of Babel -- that the grand unified empire must dissolve. The fall of Babylonian Empire in the Mesopotamian history can be compared to the birth of Cathaysia in China's future. A dying civilization's final delusion is to build the Babel through grand unification, and to turn the dead seeds into specimens.
The all-wise and great loving God destroyed the Babel to rescue the infant nations from a dying empire. An empire can never become a nation-state, just as a specimen can never grow into a tree. If you devote yourself into the delusional cause of building a Babel, do not be surprised when God forsakes you.
5，中國是文明耗盡以後的灰燼，能否構成新文明的原材料尚在未定之中。她是文明的輸入者，不是生產者。她目前沒有足夠的德性和能力誠實地學習，沒有表現出將來可能生產文明的任何跡象。至於現實政治意義上的崛起，那是一條自取滅亡的捷徑。
5. China is but ashes from a civilization that burnt in the past. The raw fuel needed to form a new civilization is still unsettled. She has been an importer of civilizational order, and has not been a producer. Currently, she does not have the morality or ability to humbly learn, and has not shown any signs that she can give birth to a new civilization in the future.
Those who seek the rise of China in the sense of political realism will only find a quick path which leads to self-destruction.
6，效法基督，但若基督徒認為只是效法基督的不反抗，而對敵基督的一味順服，則是認為可以，以行為把自己擺放在與基督同等的位置上，這是對基督的僭越。
6. A Christian should do as Christ does. However, some Christians follow only Christ's submissiveness, and submit to the Anti-Christ in every matter, believing that they can be Christ. Their behavior is but a transgression against Christ.
7，瑪麗安多尼特在斷頭台上踩了劊子手的腳還要道歉，其實就是你不刷牙直接睡覺會很不舒服一個道理。如果你出生在沒有衛生習慣的無產者家庭，就不會有本能的不舒服感覺。鐵達尼號有位牧師把木板讓給別人，因為自己早死晚死關係不大，無神論者失去最後醒悟機會，那就關係大了。達爾丟夫肯定會搶救生艇的。
7. In front of the guillotine, Marie Antoinette apologized to her executioner for stepping on his feet. In fact, that was the same as you would feel uncomfortable going into bed without brushing your teeth beforehand. Those who are born into a lower class family with no hygiene habits would not have felt the same discomfort like a second nature.
A priest on the RMS Titanic gave his piece of floating wood to another man, because he believes that whether he dies sooner or later would not have made a difference. But if an atheist has missed his final chance of wakening, it would make the difference between heaven and hell. If it were Tartuffe, he would be fighting hard for a lifeboat.
8，科學必須先有規範性條件：世界存在規律，規律有統一性，人不能改變規律。這三者都是信仰，不可能證明。不首先信仰，就沒有後來的理性運作。近代人往往以為這些信念理所當然，其實全都來自中世紀初期基督教理論。大多數原始文化只有巫術思維，普遍認為規律只是地方性的，可以用法術改變。即使希臘前科學也不脫玄學底子，酷似中醫與占星術，相信規律有交感性。
8. Science requires normative conditions: There are principles behind the world. The principles exist in unity. And men cannot alter the principles.
All three of these conditions are a part of faith system, and cannot be proven. Those who have no faith cannot discover the operational rationality later. Modern people often accept these conditions as self-evident. In fact, these conditions came from Christian theology in the early middle ages.
Most primitive cultures think like sorcerers. They believe that principles are only local, and can be altered with sorcery. Even the Greek proto-science was built on metaphysics, which was quite similar to Chinese medicine and astrology. It believes that the principles are sympathetic.
9，信任和勇武構成一切政治德性的最初來源，在宗教和習俗的保護下積累文明的燃料。物滿則溢，文明是德性積累越過閾值的產物。
9. Trust and valor are the source of all political virtues. Under the protection of religion and customs, they provide the fuel for a civilization. An overfilled tub will overflow. A civilization is born once the accumulated fuel is lit.
10，美國和世界的對照從來不是摩尼教模式的二元對立。這種對立假定善惡是對等的力量，善惡本身又是絕對的元素。 “山巔之城”理論則是奧古斯丁 - 加爾文傳統的下游。在這種對照中，善惡是層次的差異。二者既不對等，也不絕然對立。善是完整和高級的概念，惡是殘缺和低級的概念。善包容了惡，惡低於善。撒旦是上帝計劃的一部分，不是上帝的對手。天國是完美，世界是殘缺，地獄是虛無。棄惡從善意味著從不完整走向完整，從遠離上帝的位置走向接近上帝的位置。棄善從惡意味著喪失上帝的恩寵，地獄就是上帝恩寵所不及的地方。
10. The United States of America and the world has never been a binary pair of adversaries like in the Manichean model. The Manichean model assumes that good and evil are equal in force, and that good and evil themselves are fundamental elements.
The City upon a Hill theory, however, believes that good and evil are on the different levels (of the great chain of being). Coming from Augustinian-Calvinist traditions, it believes that the good and evil are neither equal nor entirely opposite. Good is completion and the collection of concepts on the highest level. Meanwhile, evil is incompletion and the concepts on various lower levels. Good includes evil. And evil is inferior to good.
Satan is but a part of God's plan, and he is not God's opponent. The Kingdom of Heaven is perfection, the world is imperfection, and the inferno is void.
Betraying the evil one and returning to the Good One means forsaking the imperfection and embracing the perfection. It is about moving from somewhere faraway from God to a place close to God.
Betraying the Good one to serve the evil one means losing God's grace, and the inferno is a place where God's grace does not reach.
11，如果沒有新教改革的話，現在的新世界就不會存在了，整個歐洲就會在哈布斯堡家族之下、講拉丁文的主教知識分子領導之下，走神聖羅馬帝國的路線，漸漸的模仿古代的異教文明，這樣的一種文明是永遠走不出舊大陸的。如果英國沒有宗教改革，那麼英國還是由那些講拉丁文、博學多才、自己擔任主教卻不怎麼相信上帝的文藝復興的人統治的話，英國會變成什麼樣子？它也就會是神聖羅馬帝國的一個邊陲的附庸王國，它的前途不會比加泰羅尼亞好多少。
11. If the Protestant Reformation did not happen, the New World as we know would not have existed. The entire Europe would have been ruled by the Habsburg family as well as the Latin-speaking bishops and intellectuals. That Europe would continue down the path of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming increasingly similar to the pagan civilizations in the past. It is the kind of civilization that would be imprisoned by the Old World.
If Britain didn't have the Protestant Reformation, she would still be ruled by those Latin-speaking, well-learned, serving perhaps as a bishop but do not have much faith in God. Those are the same men behind the Renaissance. What would Britain be under them? She would be nothing more than a province that rests in the frontier of the Holy Roman Empire. That Britain today, would have the future possibilities quite similar to those of Catalonia.
12，線性史觀不是清教提出來的，它根本就是基督教的特點。基督教對歷史有一個重大特點就是，它是有歷史的，而且歷史是不可逆的，因為基督為我們衹死了一次，這是不可重複的概念，而希臘人和印度人都是循環史論。
12. The linear history is not an invention by the Puritans. In fact, it has been a fundamental character of Christianity.
A key belief in Christianity is that the progress of time leaves a history, and it cannot be reverted. It is just as Christ has died for us once, and His sacrifice does not need to be repeated. The ancient Greeks and Indians, however, believed that the time and history goes in circles.
13，禁慾，自希臘和印度以來，給人的印象就是一種帶戕害性的、強制扭曲意義的東西。清教徒講究的不是那一套東西，他們是有律法主義的傾向。但律法主義跟苦行是完全兩碼事。律法主義實際上是生活的規範，它規範的是日常的生活。要理解清教徒的基本世界，他們是時時刻刻都感覺到，靈界的爭戰是無所不在的。可以說是，我在一念之中，我在生活中的一舉一動之間，如果我沒有隨時記住我要榮耀上帝的話，就可能給魔鬼提供一個乘虛而入的機會，我不是說偶爾有疑問再去找神，而是我實實在在的都能感覺到神意的存在，這個神意隨時體現在生活之中，所以生活中間的小事本身都有可能成為是靈界爭戰的一部分。
13. Abstinence, since ancient Greece and India, has left an impression that it means self-harm, compulsion, and distortion. The Puritans are not advocating for those, but something similar to lawfulness. Lawfulness is not about asceticism, but about the norm of life. Lawfulness normalizes daily life.
To understand the world that the Puritans live in, consider that they are the ones that can sense the omnipresent war in the spiritual realm in every moment. It is like, "in my every thought, every action, and every choice, if I forget that I must do to honor God, I would give the Devil a chance to enter my soul."
The Puritans are not waiting to ask God occasionally about what is right when in doubt. Instead, they can concretely sense the existence of God's will. God's will must be followed in every moment of life. Therefore, even the trivial decisions in life can become consequential in the spiritual war.
14，清教實際上給你輸入了秩序和能量，這種秩序和能量不可避免的要有摧毀性的效果，但是如果沒有能量的輸出的話，那麼所有的結構都要不斷的重新啟動的話，所有結構都不可避免的，先是腐敗，然後再模糊，通過混溶，最後達到一種漿糊一樣的混沌狀態，最後熵增而熱寂。秩序怎樣才能夠重新建立呢？負熵怎樣才能重新輸入呢？必須在已經熱寂、接近於平衡態的這個狀態中間，重新輸入新的不平衡。這個不平衡，一般來說就是宗教改革。
14. Puritanism has fueled you with order and energy. That order and energy will inevitably destroy something in you. However, if a proto-star does not receive fuel, and it is instead repeatedly lit by an ignition spark, it will walk into the same fate as every other star system that has stopped burning. The proto-star would first shrink, and then slowly shed away its mass. Through mixing with the rest of the system like a chaotic paste, the system will eventually reach heat death as entropy increases.
How can order be rebuilt? How can negentropy be re-introduced? You will have to fuel the system which is approaching the equilibrium of heat death with disequilibrium. This disequilibrium, as we speak, is a Protestant-like reformation.
15，宗教一直是最大的非政府組織。原始的多神教有高度的豐饒度，但它的弱點是信息複製的精度不高，因此它在帝國化以後，抵抗力就漸漸的削弱了。原始的多神教，它的力量在於習慣性、鄉土性，但是這個力量也是弱點所在，它的擴張性不強。在一個小小的城邦或者部落這樣的範圍內，它能夠有效的控制暴政的出現；但是當暴政國際化和普世化以後，單獨的城邦和小範圍的多神教是不足以抵抗它的。理性的官僚組織完全可以以超國際主義的力量壓制所有的地方性力量。在這種情況下，原有的小共同體嚴重的瓦解和散沙化了，這時唯一能夠對抗的力量就是同樣強勢的基督教。
15. Organized religion has always been the largest non-governmental organization. Primitive polytheism can be highly abundant in morality, but has the shortcoming that it cannot precisely reproduce the moral information. Therefore, once polytheism has taken the reign of an empire, it will slowly give in to the temptations.
The primitive polytheism has its strength lying in customs and nativism. But such strength also makes expansion difficult. In a tiny area like a city-state or the lands of a tribe, polytheism can effectively prevent the would-be tyrants from gaining control. However, when facing an international or ecumenical tyranny, a lone city-state with her nativist polytheism will surely fall.
A rational bureaucracy can easily gain the super-national political power, and suppress every nativist force. In such a situation, all native small mutualities can be crushed and forcefully disintegrated. The only remaining force that can resist the rational bureaucracy would be symmetrically powerful Christianity.
16，你砍伐森林，把森林下面的黑土變成農田，這是順理成章、很容易的事情；但是反過來呢，在文明高度腐敗、高度專制、社會完全瓦解以後，再要重建文明，那就是非常困難的事情，這種情況就像是很好的農田經過長期水土流失以後漸漸都變成沙漠了，再要把沙漠重新變成農田，那比把森林變成農田要痛苦和困難很多倍。就我所知的歷史，世界各地的森林或者是蠻族，只要經過適當的培育都能變成文明，這個不難；但是已經沙漠化的地區重新啟動文明程序、開啟第二世代文明，那是只有基督教才能做到的事情。
16. It is rather easy to cut down a forest, and create a farmland on the organic-rich soil. That would be something reasonable and easy to achieve.
You cannot, however, rebuild a civilization upon an already collapsed society with rampant corruption and flagrant authoritarianism. This would be something more than difficult to achieve. This is like a once-fertile farmland, after generations of soil erosion, has become an infertile desert. Turning a desert into a farmland is orders of magnitude more difficult than doing the opposite.
Learning from the histories that I have read, forests on every continent of the world can be turned into farmlands. This is not a difficult thing to do. However, in a cultural desert, only Christianity can give birth to a sequence of events that will create a new spring of civilization.
17，在已經嚴重沙漠化的土壤上重新開啟文明，成功的先例是非常之少的。基督教在羅馬帝國末期發揮的作用，如果不是唯一成功的例子，至少也是很少見的成功例子，而且肯定是所有即使按最寬標準算的成功例子當中，成功效果最大的一次，即使純粹從客觀中立理性的角度來考慮的話，也不得不給予特殊的對待。可能存在的理由大概有兩方面：第一，基督教擅長於製造高信任度的小共同體；第二，它製造的小共同體對邊界條件的要求甚低，也就是說，能夠耐受極其惡劣的環境。
17. There has been few successful instances where a new civilization is born on severely desertified cultural soil. However, Christianity did save [Europe] from the end of the [Western] Roman Empire. If that was not the only instance where Christianity has successfully performed [a miracle], it would still be a rarely happening event. I am also certain, that among all the instances where a new civilization is practically born in a cultural desert, that was a successful [a miracle] which has left us with the greatest legacy.
Even if one treats [the history of Europe] with complete objectivity, neutralism, and rationality, he would still have to accept the distinctiveness of that instance.
I can roughly summarize the possible causes of that instance into two. First, Christianity is proficient in creating small mutualities with high levels of trust. Second, The small mutualities created by Christianity have rather low requirements of their environs to survive. In other words, such small mutualities can survive some of the most hostile environments.
18，我以前一直是不相信官方的歷史學說，但是我是相信啟蒙主義者勾畫的那種歷史學說，現在我發現這種歷史敘事當中仍然有著重大的缺陷或者說是重大的漏洞。如果按照他們的描繪的話，應該是近代以來隨著宗教勢力的退場，社會逐漸趨向進步，而這個進步的中心應該是在法國，主要是啟蒙者所做的事情。但是我各方面看到的情況就是，法國所代表的歐洲大陸和英美之間，社會發展出現了明顯的不同。在英美社會上我沒法注意不到，被稱為是進步的人文主義知識分子，包括哪怕是像杰斐遜總統這樣的自然神論者，在社會上只是一小撮，非常少的一小撮，社會的基層仍然是基督徒，而且大多數社會工作是由牧師和教區完成的。即使是知識分子當中，通常原先啟蒙者告訴我們，本來這些人應該是解除了基督教束縛的世俗人文主義者，但是在美國，一般人認為自由民主最先進最典範的國家，它實際上依靠的是愛德華茲牧師諸如此類的人，他們發揮的作用比杰斐遜總統這樣的人發揮的作用要大得多。
18. In the past, I have never trusted the historical theories promoted by the communist officials. However, I believed in the historical theories drafted by the Enlightenment thinkers.
Nowadays, nevertheless, I have found that the Enlightenment historical theories have severe shortcomings or, shall we say, severe flaws. If the history truly develops as the Enlightenment thinkers have envisioned, then, as religious forces lose their grounds in modern times and as the society embraces progressivism, the center of order should be in the most progressivist France. Just as the Enlightenment thinkers have strived to turn France [into the paradigm of freedom and democracy].
However, from multiple perspectives, I am witnessing that the continental Europe as represented by France versus Britain and the United States of America are becoming obviously different in how their societies are developing.
In the British and American societies, I cannot fail to notice that the intellectuals considered progressivists and humanists are but a tiny minority here. That is, even if you include deists like President Thomas Jefferson. The foundation of the British and American societies is still comprised of Christians. Also, most social work is done by priests and parishes.
The Enlightenment thinkers usually tell us that the people [most driven and kindhearted to devote themselves into social work] should be intellectuals; that they should be the secular humanists who have been liberated from Christianity.
However, the United States of America, the nation which is considered as the paradigm of freedom and democracy by most, still depends on the people like the preacher Jonathan Edwards. They have done a lot more to make what America is today than the elites like President Jefferson.
19，我想大多數進步知識分子都會更喜歡歐洲或者歐盟那種世俗國家的模式，但是無可否認，無數蛛絲馬跡都向我們顯示，美國才是真正有活力的社會。而北約之所以能夠戰勝蘇聯，扭轉世界歷史發展趨勢，靠的還是里根總統這樣的人。而里根總統的精神力量，它並不是來自於我們開明知識分子所想像那樣，自由、憲政諸如此類的東西，他靠的不是別的，就是基督教信仰，而這些東西恰好就是我們知識分子企圖嘲笑和抹去的東西。如果我們啟蒙知識分子的說法是正確的，那麼里根總統這些人所信仰的那些東西，恰好就是跟胡喬木和郭松民企圖讓中國兒童相信那些東西一樣的，都是開明和進步的障礙，都是我們這些啟蒙知識分子應該加以掃除的東西。所以他們的敘事體系一定是有很大的問題的。
19. I am thinking that most of the progressive intellectuals will favor a secular nation like those in Europe or an arrangement like the European Union. However, it is impossible to deny in front of countless clues and countless pieces of evidence that the United States of America has the truly vigorous society.
The reason that NATO was able to overcome the Soviet Union against all historical odds was because it has people like President Ronald Reagan. The spiritual conviction of President Reagan does not come from the beliefs of liberalism or constitutionalism, as the enlightened intellectuals like us would have imagined. President Reagan's spiritual conviction comes from nothing but his Christian faith. And the Christian faith is exactly what we the intellectuals are mocking and trying to erase.
If the enlightened intellectuals like us are correct, then President Reagan's Christian faith would be nothing more than a roadblock to good governance and social progress, just like in the stories that [Marxists] Hu Qiaomu and Guo Songmin have been pushing to make Chinese children believe. In their attempt, [the Marxists] claim that we the enlightened intellectuals should cleanse Christianity from the world.
Looking back, [the Marxists'] historical theories are severely flawed.
20，我們現在當作開明和進步的東西，與其說是真正開明和進步的東西，不如說是基督教文明在高度發展以後，產生出來的剩餘資產；而我們拿著這些剩餘資產實際上是發揮了，腐蝕和破壞原有這個產生文明資產的基本力量的作用；而這個文明資產的基本力量，過去和現在，仍然是基督教和基督教會，如果抽去了它的價值內核和組織內核的話，我們現在所知的西方文明不一定會存在。
20. What we presently consider to be progress and good governance are not truly progress or good governance. They are but the residual assets from a highly mature Christian civilization.
We, unfortunately, have taken these residual assets and utilized them to corrupt and to destroy the fundamental source of civilization. And, in all epochs of the past and the present, the fundamental source of civilization has always been Christianity and the Christian churches.
If we remove the core values and core religious organizations from the Western civilization, she may not even exist as we know her today.
2 个评论
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https://gab.com/groups/66317
https://gab.com/groups/66317
Nice job, I believe those of atheists who think themselves superior just by taking a glance at but not truly understanding the enlarged world of human intelligence, will be triggered by this and hate you more. 
