Well a sermon wants to change your life and a lecture wants to give you a bit of information.
宗教里的传教想改变你的生活,而一个演讲只是给你一些信息资料
And I think we need to get back to that sermon tradition.
我觉得我们有必要找回传教的习俗
The tradition of sermonizing is hugely valuable,
这个习俗是非常有用的
because we are in need of guidance, morality and consolation -- and religions know that.
因为我们都需要指引,道德,和慰藉,而宗教都知道如何帮助我们
Another point about education:
关于教育,还有一点
we tend to believe in the modern secular world that if you tell someone something once, they'll remember it.
在非宗教世界里,我们开始相信,我们告诉别人某件事情一遍,他们就可以完全记住
Sit them in a classroom, tell them about Plato at the age of 20,
让他们坐在教室里,在20岁时教他们柏拉图的哲学
send them out for a career in management consultancy for 40 years, and that lesson will stick with them.
然后让他们去当管理顾问当40年,而他们也不会忘记柏拉图的哲学
Religions go, "Nonsense. You need to keep repeating the lesson 10 times a day.
而宗教会说:"胡说,那道理必须一天重复10次才可以
So get on your knees and repeat it."
所以现在你就跪下好好复习"
That's what all religions tell us: "Get on you knees and repeat it 10 or 20 or 15 times a day."
这是宗教告诉我们的道理,"跪下然后每天复习10遍 20遍 15遍"
Otherwise our minds are like sieves.
不然我们很快就会忘记
So religions are cultures of repetition.
所以宗教培养我们重复、温习的美德
They circle the great truths again and again and again.
宗教重复伟大的真理一遍又一遍
We associate repetition with boredom.
我们会觉得重复就是无聊
"Give us the new," we're always saying. "The new is better than the old."
我们一直说:"说点新鲜的。新的总是比旧的好"
If I said to you, "Okay, we're not going to have new TED.
如果我对你说 "好吧 TED视频都不会更新了"
We're just going to run through all the old ones and watch them five times because they're so true.
"我们就看那些旧的视频。每天看五次,因为那些视频是在是太棒了"
We're going to watch Elizabeth Gilbert five times because what she says is so clever," you'd feel cheated.
"我们每天看伊莉莎白·吉尔伯托五次,因为她的想法实在太聪明了" 你会觉得你被骗了
Not so if you're adopting a religious mindset.
但如果你信仰宗教,你就不会这样想
The other things that religions do is to arrange time.
宗教还会帮助你安排时间
All the major religions give us calendars. What is a calendar?
所有主流宗教都会有特定的日历。什么是日历?
A calendar is a way of making sure that across the year you will bump into certain very important ideas.
日历确保你在整一年里你会遭遇一些的重大想法
In the Catholic chronology, Catholic calendar,
在天主教日历中
at the end of March you will think about St. Jerome and his qualities of humility and goodness and his generosity to the poor.
在三月月底你会想到圣杰罗姆,想到他的谦卑和善良和他对穷人的慷慨
You won't do that by accident; you will do that because you are guided to do that.
你不会碰巧想到他,你想到他因为你被引导了
Now we don't think that way.
现在我们不这样想