เอามาให้ลองแปลดูครับ หากแปลไม่ได้ทุกประโยค ก็ให้ทดสอบดูว่าตัวเองรู้คำศัพท์กี่คำ โดยห้ามดูคำศัพท์ภาษาอังกฤษจาก ดิคชันนารี่
All modern scientists believe that there is an order to the universe. That is, that physical thing obey certain laws. If I hit a ball in a certain way, for example, then it will start to move in a certain direction with a certain speed.
We say that the ball obeys the laws of motion.
Although an ordered universe in necessary for scientific thinking, the idea of an ordered universe is much older than science.
(1) The ancient Sumerians, who lived in what is today called Iraq, did not believe in an ordered universe. They believed the universe was ruled by gods, who did whatever they wanted to do without any reason.
The Sumerians probably believed this because unpredictable natural changes occurred in their land, such as floods, that they could not control. Perhaps because they found the universe unpredictable, they tried to make up for it in their society. They had a strong sense of order and justice in the affairs of men, which they called me.
The Sumerians and their successors, the Babylonians, had sets of laws to deal with many different situations. The name of one of the Babylonian lawgivers, Hammurabi, is famous to this day.
(2) Unlike the Sumerians, the ancient Egyptians had a strong feeling that the universe was ordered. This was probably due to the regularly with which the Nile River flooded every year, bringing water to the fields and crops. The sun also was extremely important to them, and it was even more regular in its movements than the Nile.
The Egyptians also believed in an orderly society, in which people acted as they were expected to.
They viewed an orderly society as an extension of the order in the universe.
They called this orderliness in the universe ma’at. At the end of any ceremony involving their gods, they held up a little statue of ma’at facing the statue of the god.
(3) The Egyptians believed in a last judgment when they died, which decided whether they would die forever or live forever in a sort of hereafter.
In this judgment, the god Osiris, judge of the dead, weighed the heart of the person who had just died against a feather representing ma’at.
The heart had to weigh exactly what the feather did in order for the person to live forever.
(4) The ancient people of India also believed in an order to the universe, which they called rita, Rita was protected by the god Varuna.
Rita referred both to natural order and to order in society.
Order in society was preserved by dharma, or duty.
Everyone was supposed to follow dharma, that is, to do whatever was their duty.
The Indians had an elaborate system of caste, in which your birth determined the occupation you could follow person’s duty depended on which caste he or she belonged to.
(5) The great Indian epic called the Mahabharata has an interesting story about dharma.
One of the heroes in the epic has followed a long difficult path towards heaven and is finally very near.
His faithful dog has accompanied him on his entire journey, after everyone else has dropped by the wayside.
A supernatural being appears to the hero of the story and tells him that he can go to heaven but that his dog cannot.
The hero refuses to abandon his dog, even if it means he will not go to heaven.
The dog then reveals himself to be the god Dharma.
By not abandoning his duty to his dog, the hero has passed the last test and is able to go to heaven.
(6) in ancient times, there were two great philosophies in China One, Confucianism, was founded by a real historical person called Confucius. The other, Taoism, was believed to have been founded by a probably mythical figure called Lao Tzu, a name that means “old master.” Both these philosophies believed in an order to the universe, which they called the tao, usually translated as “the way,” For the Confucians, the tao was something created by people, the order of society. For the Taoists, the tao was something that was impossible to describe, but that was at the heart of the universe.
คำศัพท์ภาษาอังกฤษบ้างคำ
judgment
วิจารณญาณ
ดุลพินิจ
การตัดสิน
การพิจารณา
การวินิจฉัย
ประมาณการ
philosophy
(ฟิลอส’ ซะฟี) n. ปรัชญา, ระบบหลังการปรัชญา,
หลักปรัชญา, ระบบหลักการ, สาขาวิชาทั้งหมด (ยกเว้นเพทยศาสตร์,
วิชากฎหมายและ ศาสนศาสตร์), ธรรมะ, วิทยาศาสตร์ธรรมชาติ, จริยศาสตร์,
ความรัก วิชาอย่างคลั่งไคล้ -Ex. *the philosophy of the plains Indians*,
*a philosphy of education* (แบบ 21, 23 ) -Syn., n. laws, knowledge,
wisdom, thought, learning, theory, principles, metaphysics, science,
ideology, ism, doctrine, system, life, style, rationale