The Religious,the Secular,and the Natural Sciences: Nietzsche and the Death of God

When, in The Gay Science, Nietzsche poses the question of how the natural sciences are possible, he insists that they depend not on a principle that is natural but on the will to truth, the will not to deceive even oneself, with which, he holds, “we stand on moral ground.” Yet, that the natural sciences stand on ground that is moral also means, for Nietzsche, that their origin is to be located in “a faith that is thousands of years old,” a faith that, in the Genealogy of Morals, he develops as presupposing what he calls the ascetic ideals of Judaism and Christianity. Further, in holding that the natural sciences have their origin in principles that are biblical, Nietzsche goes on to indicate that, like the natural sciences, his own critical position, unconditionally honest atheism, is, in forbidding itself “the lie involved in belief in God,” not opposed to, but is rather an expression of, Judaism and Christianity's ascetic ideals. In addressing the interrelationships among the religious, the secular, and the natural sciences in light of Nietzsche, I argue that the natural sciences have their origin in principles that are not natural but that are no less religious than secular.     

The Soul of the Luba: W.F.P. Burton,Missionary Ethnography and Belgian Colonial Science

This article examines the motivations, institutions and processes involved in colonial knowledge formation through a study of the missionary William Burton. It considers Burton’s work on the Luba of Katanga in relation to the practices of Belgian colonial science and Anglo‐Saxon social anthropology. The essay discusses why missionaries engaged in ethnographic research when they were so intent on changing the customs and beliefs they described and why Burton in particular did not get the recognition he deserved as an authority on his subject. The article charts Burton’s shifting attitude toward the Luba, showing how he moved from an aggressive intrusive mode of research to a position of greater sympathy as he came to consider their cultural riches through study of language, proverb and folklore. Consideration of the second phase of Burton’s research opens up discussion of the missionary origins of the disciplines of African theology and African religious studies.     

Young,Ernest P.Ecclesiastical Colony: China's Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate

China's relationship with and experiences under imperialism have been a consistent topic among scholars of modem Chinese history.Ernest Young's new book,Ecclesiastical Colony:China's Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate,is an important contribution to this effort by examining the nature of this relationship as concerns the Catholic missions in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century China.In Young's study,Christianity is seen through its political as well as religious commitments.     

祭天与“天人合一”思想

在中国古代礼制中,十分看重祭礼,而祭天,则是祭礼中最重要的一种,只有天子才有资格祭天。祭天礼中包含有丰富的文化含义,其中之一就是报本思