八月

伯兰特·罗素是一位伟大的哲学家，诺贝尔奖获得者，英国人，不可知论者。他不是一个基督徒，并且专门为此写了一篇论文《我为什么不是基督徒》来阐述其中的原因。在同名的一本书中，他有一段经常被引用的话，摘录如下（全文见A Free Man's Worship）：

1 Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief.

2 Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home.

3 That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins -- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.

4 Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

他上面的这段话，体现了一个不认识上帝的人，对于人生意义和目的的深刻的思索。他首先说，科学更加使人相信人生是没有目的、毫无意义的。然后他说，尽管如此，人的理想终究要找到一个安身之处，所谓“理得而心安”。第三句开始解释前面的话并感叹人生，引翻译如下：

人是原因的产物，不晓得末后的结局；人的出生、成长、希望与惧怕，爱与信念，只不过是原子的偶然排列组合；激情、英雄气概、深邃的思想与强烈的感受都不能留住生命使之逃离死亡；世世代代的劳苦，所有的热情，所有的灵感，所有辉煌的才华注定要在太阳系茫茫的死亡中消逝，人类成就的殿堂终归要埋在宇宙废墟的瓦砾中。所有这一切，即便不是无可非议，也是真实确凿，任何哲学都无法否认。

大师的这句话无需更多解释。如果没有神，人生没有永恒的意义。当然，若是不追问永恒，暂时的意义还是有的，吃喝玩乐，功成名就，诸如此类。

看到第四句话的时候，我想起来新东方的一句广告词，“在绝望中寻找希望，人生终将辉煌”。只是寻找希望的终究是那些背单词的学生，而辉煌的则是新东方的那些商人。