Now, this was a first for me. And since this is the first time I have introduced that loaded word—GOD—into my book, and since this is a word which will appear many times again throughout these pages, it seems only fair that I pause here for a moment to explain exactly what I mean when I say that word, just so people can decide right away how offended they need to get.

这对我来说可是头一遭。既然我首次把这个沉重的字眼——神——引进本书，既然这个字眼将在本书中重复出现多次，请容我在此停顿片刻，原原本本地解说我提及这个字眼时意指为何，以便让大家能立刻决定自己会被触怒的程度。

Saving for later the argument about whether God exists at all (no—here's a better idea: let's skip that argument completely), let me first explain why I use the word God, when I could just as easily use the words Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu or Zeus. Alternatively, I could call God "That," which is how the ancient Sanskrit scriptures say it, and which I think comes close to the all-inclusive and unspeakable entity I have sometimes experienced. But that "That" feels impersonal to me—a thing, not a being—and I myself cannot pray to a That. I need a proper name, in order to fully sense a personal attendance. For this same reason, when I pray, I do not address my prayers to The Universe, The Great Void, The Force, The Supreme Self, The Whole, The Creator, The Light, The Higher Power, or even the most poet-ic manifestation of God’s name, taken, I believe, from the Gnostic gospels: "The Shadow of the Turning."

把神是否存在的论点留待稍后（不 ——我有个更好的主意：干脆跳过这一点 ），容我先行说明使用“神”这个字的原因，而我原本是可以使用“耶和华”“阿拉”“湿婆”“梵天”“毗湿奴 ”或“宙斯”等这些名称的。或者我可以把神称为“那东西 ”，在古梵语经文中正是如此称呼，而我认为这很接近自己时而体验到的那种无所不包、不可名状的实体。然而“那东西”让我觉得没有人味——一种非人的东西——而就我个人而言 ，我是无法对一个“东西”祈祷的。我需要一个确切的名称，以便能完全感觉到一种随侍在侧、属人的气质。同理，在我祈祷时，祷词的对象并非“宇宙”“太虚”“原力”“至高者”“全灵”“造物主”“灵光”“大能”，或选自诺斯底福音书（Gnosticgospels）、我认为最富诗意的神名：“峰回路转的阴影”。

I have nothing against any of these terms. I feel they are all equal because they are all equally adequate and inadequate descriptions of the indescribable. But we each do need a functional name for this indescribability, and "God" is the name that feels the most warm to me, so that’s what I use. I should also confess that I generally refer to God as "Him," which doesn't bother me because, to my mind, it's just a convenient personalizing pronoun, not a precise anatomical description or a cause for revolution. Of course, I don’t mind if people call God "Her," and I understand the urge to do so. Again—to me, these are both equal terms, equally adequate and inadequate. Though I do think the capitalization of either pronoun is a nice touch, a small politeness in the presence of the divine.

我并不反对使用这些词。我觉得它们一律平等，因为其既适用、亦不适用于描述无可名状的东西。不过我们每个人都需要一个功能性的名称，来指称这无可名状之对象。而“神 ”这个名称，让我觉得最温暖，于是我用它。我也得承认，基本上我把神称作“他”（Him），这对我并不费事，在我脑海里，这只是一种方便的个人化代词，并非某种确切的解剖学描述或革命的理由。当然，若有人称作“她”Her，我也不介意，我能了解想这么称呼的冲动。我还是要说，这两者对我来说都是平等的词儿，既恰当，也不恰当。不过，我认为两个代词大写是不错的表示，是对神的存在略表敬意。