第10章 結論 n.2 - 科学技術の直接的影響
科学とキリスト教神学との戦い(warfare 交戦状態)は、時々前哨地で(on the outposts)小競り合い(skirmish )は生じているにもかかわらず、今日ではほとんど終っており,そして、ほとんどのキリスト教徒が、それ(科学とキリスト教神学との戦い)によって自分たちの宗教がよりよくなっていることを認めるだろう,と私は考える(their religion is the better for it,)。キリスト教は、野蛮時代から受け継いだ枝葉末節の不必要なもの(inessentials)を純化し、迫害をしようという欲求をほとんど取り除いている(cure of 治癒する,悪いところをとりのぞく)。そうして、よりリベラルなキリスト教徒の間には、価値のある一つの倫理説がいまだ残っている。即ち、'隣人を愛すべし’というキリストの教えが残るとともに、たとえもはや魂とは呼ばれないとしても,全ての個人の中に尊敬に値するものがあるという信念が,残っている。また、キリスト教会には、キリスト教徒は戦争に反対すべきであるという,成長しつつある信念が存在している。
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Chapter 10: Conclusion, n.2The direct effects of scientific technique, also, have been by no means wholly beneficial. On the one hand, they have increased the destructiveness of weapons of war, and the proportion of the population that can be spared from peaceful industry for fighting and the manufacture of munitions. On the other hand, by increasing the productivity of labour they have made the old economic system, which depended upon scarcity, very difficult to work, and by the violent impact of new ideas they have thrown ancient civilizations off their balance, driving China into chaos and Japan into ruthless imperialism on the Western model, Russia into a violent attempt to establish a new economic system, and Germany into a violent attempt to maintain the old one. These evils of our time are all due in part to scientific technique, and therefore ultimately to science.The warfare between science and Christian theology, in spite of an occasional skirmish on the outposts, is nearly ended, and I think most Christians would admit that their religion is the better for it. Christianity has been purified of inessentials inherited from a barbarous age, and nearly cured of the desire to persecute. There remains, among the more liberal Christians, an ethical doctrine which is valuable : acceptance of Christ's teaching that we should love our neighbours, and a belief that in each individual there is something deserving of respect, even if it is no longer to be called a soul. There is also, in the Churches, a growing belief that Christians should oppose war. But while the older religion has thus become purified and in many ways beneficial, new religions have arisen, with all the persecuting zeal of vigorous youth, and with as great a readiness to oppose science as characterized the Inquisition in the time of Galileo. If you maintain in Germany that Christ was a Jew, or in Russia that the atom has lost its substantiality and become a mere series of events, you are liable to very severe punishment - perhaps nominally economic rather than legal, but none the milder on that account. The persecution of intellectuals in Germany and Russia has surpassed, in severity, anything perpetrated by the Churches during the last two hundred and fifty years. |