（申26）认谁为神（Deuteronomy 26）Recognizing Who is God
(ChatGPT translation from Chinese, edited by Mijiale, 中文在后面）
Deuteronomy 26:17-19 states, “Today you have declared the Lord to be your God… Today, the Lord has declared that you are His people… to set you high above all nations He has made, in praise, fame, and honor…”
Recognizing who is God leads to different outcomes. Superstitious ancient people believed that floods were caused by the anger of the river god, so they would marry off innocent girls to him by drowning them in vain, when in fact, by digging channels and diverting water the problem could be solved. Superstitious people also worshipped Guan Gong, thinking he would protect them in battles, or worshipped Mazu, believing she would ensure safe sea voyages. But superstition keeps people backward and prevents them from discovering the law of mass-energy conversion to create atomic bombs, or discovering the law of gravity to launch satellites and build navigation systems.
Recognizing Buddha as a god is also a form of superstition. The original meaning of Buddha is “the awakened one,” and in Chinese, the character for Buddha includes the character-part for “person.” Buddha is a person, not a god who governs all things. Believing that a person, through self-cultivation, can bring about healing for the sick or wealth for the poor is also superstition, and it causes people to fall behind. Unfortunately, this kind of superstition has delayed and influenced the entire modern civilization of the East. The essence of Buddhism lies in the belief that through self-cultivation and effort, one can solve all problems. Broadly speaking, Buddhism superstitiously believes in self-effort, thinking that everyone can become a Buddha. Even the monkey in Journey to the West can become the “Great Sage Equal to Heaven” or the “Fighting Buddha” with special powers. Many main characters in the martial arts novels of Jin Yong also, through constant training and fortuitous encounters, acquire the ability to defeat dozens or hundreds of people, which they can use to save the country and its people. This Buddhist philosophy of self-improvement has caused countries most influenced by Buddhism to contribute the least to modern science. We now see that the path of constantly challenging one’s limits through self-cultivation has completely lost to the challenge of Western civilization. No matter how skilled a martial artist is, no Iron Shirt or Golden Bell Shield can withstand guns and cannons, let alone the atomic bomb that appeared during World War II. The master Go players who undergo years of self-training also cannot defeat AlphaGo, which uses machine learning.
Looking closely at AlphaGo’s machine learning, we can see that the driving force of Western civilization lies in the biblical faith of recognizing the Lord as God. The original Hebrew name for the Lord has many meanings, but for now, let’s understand the meaning as the Creator. The Bible’s Genesis teaches that humanity and the world they live in, along with everything in it, were created by the Creator. To use an imperfect analogy, it’s like artificial intelligence and other various programs in a computer, all created by mankind outside of the computer. Artificial intelligence is special because it is created in the “image” of mankind; it has neural networks and can learn and train. Mankind empowers AI to call upon other programs and data in the computer to complete tasks. Similarly, mankind is created in the “image” of the Creator, with creativity, the ability to feel, emotions of love and hate, and they live in the world to fulfill the Creator’s mission. Everything else in the world was created by the Creator for the needs of humanity. Therefore, mankind must use all things to accomplish the mission given by the Creator. To do so, they must explore the laws of nature and use them, along with material conditions. AlphaGo, created through machine learning, follows this path—not by relying on the personal cultivation of the Go player but by using the high-speed computing power hidden by the Creator in semiconductor materials. Similarly, no matter how much a martial artist challenges human limits, how can they compare to the atomic energy hidden by the Creator in radioactive elements?
Groups that recognize Buddha as god often lack cohesion, because Buddhism emphasizes self-improvement. In the eyes of Buddhism, a group in this life is temporary—some people may be reincarnated as dogs, some as pigs, and some may become immortals after this life. Those who recognize the Creator as God know that all of humanity, across time and space, is one whole because the Bible teaches that people from all nations and generations come from the same person created by the Creator. The Go master Lee Sedol is one of the top players after years of diligent self-training, but when he played against AlphaGo, he was actually facing a whole research team from Google, along with numerous Go masters who contributed to the game records used for training, the computer scientists who studied machine learning for decades, and the physicists behind the semiconductor technology, and even earlier quantum physicists. Lee Sedol’s brainpower alone was pitted against the collective wisdom of many people from different countries and eras. The path of self-improvement cannot compare to the path that integrates the efforts of different people across regions and times.
Compared to Buddhism, which emphasizes individual cultivation, Christianity stresses the concept of unity in Christ, which is repeatedly emphasized in the New Testament. The many individual believers are likened to different parts of a body, such as hands, feet, eyes, and ears, working together (1 Corinthians 12). Each individual finds his meaning within the whole.
Through these reflections, I think Deuteronomy 26:17-19 is reasonable even from a common-sense perspective: recognizing who is God leads to different outcomes. Recognizing the Creator as God prevents the superstition of personal cultivation, allowing all created things to fulfill their roles and achieve their purposes. Additionally, it fosters a sense of unity. If the Creator wills, the people who first recognize the Creator as God may indeed be “set high above all nations He has made.”
（申26）认谁为神
申命记26:17-19 “你 今 日 认 耶 和 华 为 你 的 神 ， …
耶 和 华 今 日 照 他 所 应 许 你 的 ， 也 认 你 为 他 的 子 民 ， …
又 使 你 得 称 赞 ， 美 名 ， 尊 荣 ， 超 乎 他 所 造 的 万 民 之 上 ， …”
认谁为神，是有不同的后果的。迷信的古人认为水灾是河里的河伯发怒，需要娶新娘，
https://baike.baidu.com/item/河伯娶妻/6987717
就把无辜的女孩们放在河里白白淹死了，其实凿渠引水以后才能解决问题。
迷信的人还拜关公，觉得他会保佑打仗胜利，或者拜妈祖，觉得她会保佑航海平安。
其实迷信使人落后，使得他们不可能发现质能转化规律造出原子弹，使得他们不可能发现万有引力定律发射卫星建立定位导航系统。
认佛为神，也是一种迷信。佛本来的意思是觉悟者的意思，你看中文的佛字是人字旁，佛是一个人，而不是掌管万有的神，相信一个人可以通过修炼，自我提高，以至于可以使病人痊愈，穷人发财，这也是迷信，也使人落后。可惜的是，这种迷信影响和耽误了整个近代的东方文明，佛家的本质，在于迷信可以通过修炼，自我提高解决一切问题。从广泛的意义来说，佛家迷信的，是自我的努力，认为人人可以修炼成佛，连西游记里的猴子都可以变成有特殊能力的“齐天大圣”、“斗战胜佛”。金庸小说里推崇的很多主角，也是通过不断地练武功，又有奇遇，才拥有一个人可以打败几十上百人的能力，可以用来救国救民。 这种迷信自我努力的佛家思想，使得受佛教最多的国家，往往成为对现代科学贡献最少的国家。我们现在已经看到，不断挑战自我极限的自我修练途径，在西方文明的挑战下已经完败。武功练得再好，金钟罩铁布衫也挡不住枪炮，更不要说是二战中出现的原子弹了。围棋上卧薪尝胆不断超越自我的国手，也下不过使用机器学习的阿尔法狗。
仔细分析机器学习的阿尔法狗，我们可以看出，西方文明的原动力，是认耶和华为神的圣经信仰。“耶和华”有很多意思，我们暂且理解为造物主。圣经的创世纪教导，人类和他们所居住的世界和世界里的万物，都是造物主造的。打个不完美的比方，就像是电脑里的人工智能和其他各种应用程序，包括它们所居住的电脑本身，都是电脑以外的人造的。而人工智能最特殊，它是人类按自己的“形象”所造的，有神经网络，会学习，训练， …，人类付予人工智能权力，可以调用各种其他的电脑程序和数据，以完成它的任务。同样，人类是造物主按祂的“形象”所造的，有创造力，有感受能力，有爱憎情感，…，在祂所造的世界生活，以完成造物主的使命。世界上的其他万物是造物主为人类的需要而造的。所以，人类要使用万物来完成造物主所赋予的使命。为此，人类要探索自然规律，使用自然规律和物质条件。机器学习的阿尔法狗，就是走这条路造出来的：不是通过棋手个人的自我修炼，而是发掘使用造物主储存在大自然里的半导体材料的高速计算能力。同样，练武功的人可以挑战人力的极限，但怎么能与造物主藏在放射性元素里的原子能相比呢？
认佛为神的群体，也往往缺乏凝聚力，因为佛学重视的是自我的提高，一个今世的群体，在佛教看是临时的，可能转世以后就有的变狗，有的变猪，有的成仙了。认造物主为神，就知道所有的人类，跨越时空，都是一个整体，因为圣经教导历世历代各国各地的人类都来自造物主所造的同一个人。东亚的围棋高手们各自刻苦训练，李世石成了其中的顶尖高手之一。但与他对阵的阿尔法狗，其实背后有谷歌的一整个研发团队，加上练棋所用棋谱背后的很多围棋高手，加上背后计算机理论和机器学习几十年来的研究人员，加上与造芯片有关的半导体物理学家，加上半导体技术背后的更早的量子物理学家…。李世石一个人的脑力，是在与各国各代的多人的智慧拼搏。走自我提高的途径，与整合不同地域和时代的人类努力的途径，是难以相比的。与佛教注重个人修行相对比， 在基督里合一的整体观念，是基督教所反复强调的，新约里把众多的个体信徒比喻成同一个人身上的不同器官，如手脚眼耳，相互配合（林前12），每一个个体只有在整体里才能实现它的意义。
通过这些思考，我觉得申命记26:17-19即使是从常识看也是有道理的：认谁为神，是有不同的后果的。认造物主为神，就不至于迷信个人的修炼，而使所有被造物发挥它们的作用，实现它们被造的目的，也更有整体的观念；率先认造物主为神的民族，如果造物主愿意，就可以“超 乎 他 所 造 的 万 民 之 上”。