"上帝的证据在哪里？伊斯兰教真理的证据在哪里？证据是有的，而且很多。但什么算作证据，取决于许多因素。这是关于理性与推理运作方式的一个基本事实，宗教主张与科学（或数学）主张都是如此。 设想你是一名科学家，生活在一个极度反科学的世界里。民众从很小的时候起就被教导要不信任科学，轻视科学家，把科学本身看作至少是骗术、至多是暴力的邪教。在这个世界里，当然不存在制度化的科学教育。绝大多数人在成长过程中在课堂上几乎接触不到科学，这导致普通民众的科学素养严重缺乏。但这种无知还更深一层，因为连大学也反科学。全世界绝大多数大学教授和知识精英都以嘲讽的轻蔑态度看待科学。研习科学的唯一途径，是散布于世界各地、规模小、资金不足、人手紧缺的独立学校。要在这些学校学习，学生需要付出巨大的个人牺牲与经济代价，因此，相对于人口规模而言，受过正规训练的科学家寥寥无几。"

Where is the evidence for God? Where is the evidence for the truth of Islam? There is evidence, lots of evidence. But what counts as evidence depends on a lot of factors. This is a basic truth about the way reason and rationality work and it is just as true about religious claims as it is about scientific (or mathematical) claims. Imagine you are a scientist living in a world that is bitterly anti-science. The masses are taught from a very young age to distrust science, to look down on scientists, and to view science itself as charlatanism at best, a violent death cult at worst. In this world, of course, there is no institutionalized science education. The vast majority of people have zero exposure to science in the classroom growing up. This results in a severe lack of scientific literacy in the general population. But the ignorance runs deeper than that because even universities are anti-science. The vast majority of university professors and the cognoscenti worldwide view science with snarky contempt. The only way to study science is in small, underfunded, understaffed independent schools scattered around the world. To study at those schools requires great personal and financial sacrifice on the part of students, which means that very few legitimate scientists are trained relative to the size of the population.

现在，世界上不知为何有一种公众观点认为焚烧森林对全球气候有益。作为一名科学家，你比他们更清楚。你告诉人们，焚烧世界上的森林实际上会引发环境灾难。大多数人笑话你，认为你只是个古怪的科学家，于是对你所说的一切置之不理。也有一些人态度更尊重，告诉你，只要你不试图把自己的信念强加给别人，比如坚持说那些信念是正确的，你有权相信任何你想相信的东西。但也有一些喜欢戏弄科学家的科学怀疑论者，他们会主动与你展开对话，并要求你拿出证据。他们问：你怎么知道焚烧森林会导致灾难？证据在哪里？

Now, for some reason in this world, the public believes that burning forests is great for the world’s climate. As a scientist, you know better. You tell people that actually burning the world’s forests will cause environmental disaster. Most people laugh at you and ignore everything you have to say given that you are just a kooky scientist. Others are more respectful and tell you that you have the right to believe whatever you want as long as you don’t try to impose your beliefs on others by, for example, insisting that they are true beliefs. But there are also some science skeptics who enjoy trolling scientists. So they start a dialogue with you. And they demand evidence. How do you know burning forests will lead to disaster? Where’s the evidence?

现在，你可能会想向他们解释温室气体的问题。但是，这些人对化学、物理或生物学一无所知。你可以试着向他们解释二氧化碳如何锁住热量，但他们连什么是化学元素都不知道，更不用说二氧化碳了。你可以告诉他们树木如何吸收二氧化碳并释放氧气，以及人类等生物为何需要氧气，但接着他们就会要求你拿出所有这些说法的证据。于是你可能会尝试讲解一些基础化学，但这远远不够，因为归根结底，化学作为一门经验知识体系，依赖于分子物理学。那么你就必须解释并论证它为何在认识论上是可靠的。而要理解分子物理学，又需要具备核物理学乃至量子力学的实际知识，如此层层推进，没有尽头。

Now, you might be inclined to explain to them about greenhouse gases. But, of course, these people know absolutely nothing about chemistry or physics or biology. You could try to explain to them how CO2 traps heat, but they have no idea what chemical elements are, let alone CO2. You could tell them about how trees trap CO2 and give off oxygen and how living things like humans need oxygen, but then they would ask you for the evidence of all that. So you might try to explain some basic chemistry, but of course, that is not enough because ultimately chemistry as a body of empirical knowledge relies on molecular physics. So you would have to explain and justify why that is epistemically reliable. And when it comes to understanding molecular physics, a working knowledge of nuclear physics and even quantum mechanics is required, and on and on.

显然，这些怀疑论者对你所解释的内容几乎无法理解，更不用说假定你所说的是真的了。毕竟，这些人在你作为科学家提出最初的主张时就已经心存疑虑。对于你不得不提出的、用以支撑那一最初主张的其他科学论断，没有任何东西能让他们减少这种怀疑。

Obviously, these skeptics are going to understand very little of anything you might explain, let alone assume that what you are saying is true. After all, these people had doubts about your initial claim as a scientist. There is nothing that would make them less doubtful about any of the other claims you would have to make about the supporting science that justifies that initial claim.

现在你可以告诉他们：听着，如果你想确切地知道我为什么知道焚烧森林是件坏事，你就需要接受系统的科学教育，然后做一些基础实验，再进行深入的研究，诸如此类，这样你就会拥有所需的证据。对此，那些持怀疑态度的人会放声大笑。

Now you might tell them: Look, if you want to know with certainty how I know burning forests is a bad idea, you need to get a thorough science education and then do some basic experiments and then go onto advanced studies, etc., etc., and then you will have the evidence you need. To which the skeptics laugh uproariously.

这里的教训是：什么算作证据，即足以证成信念的有力证据，需要以大量的背景知识为前提。在有关科学的讨论中，这一大片背景知识往往基于科学权威而被默认接受。人们信任科学家懂得自己在说什么，因此不会步步紧逼，要求对每一件事都提供证明。但当这些人谈论真主时，怀疑的程度就完全不同了，因为在我们所生活的世俗世界里，宗教不具有智识或认识论上的权威。关于真主的证据其实很多，而且比经验科学中的任何证据都更有说服力、更加一致，也更加"客观"。然而，有两件事阻碍人们认识到这一点。

The lesson here is that what counts as evidence, i.e., compelling evidence that justifies belief, requires a gigantic body of contextual knowledge. In discussions about science, that body of contextual knowledge is simply assumed on the basis of scientific authority. People trust scientists to know what they are talking about, so they won’t press them too far to justify every single thing. But when those same people talk about God, the skepticism is turned up to a whole different level because religion has no intellectual or epistemic authority in the secular world we live in. There is plenty of evidence for God, evidence far more compelling, consistent, and “objective” than anything in empirical science. But two things impede people from recognizing this.

首先，背景知识严重缺失。在世界上大多数地区，包括穆斯林在内，伊斯兰教育几乎不存在。相反，全球穆斯林大多通过世俗化的教育模式接受教育。这显然会影响穆斯林在理智上确立对安拉存在和伊斯兰教真理的信念。更糟糕的是，第二个阻碍因素是一股非常活跃的反宗教、反伊斯兰的思潮，它渗透于文化、媒体、学术界等各个领域。世界各地穆斯林的伊玛尼和信念状态，正受到这两个因素的严重影响。

First, the contextual knowledge is not there. Islamic education is nonexistent for most of the world, including Muslims. Instead, Muslims worldwide are educated through secular models of learning. Obviously, that will impact Muslims’ ability to intellectually arrive at conviction in the existence of Allah and the truth of Islam. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the second impeding factor is a very active anti-religion, anti-Islamic current that permeates the culture, the media, the academy, etc. The state of iman and conviction of Muslims around the world is severely impacted by these two factors.

伊斯兰信仰的真实性以及安拉的存在，其证据来自不同的来源，这些来源相互印证、彼此加强。任何知识体系都是如此，包括科学知识，前面的例子正是为了说明这一点。怀疑者可以质疑某一具体的知识点，但他之所以能够这样做，只是因为他对更大的语境、范式、认识型、合理性结构或信念之网（或者你可以使用的其他哲学或社会学术语）缺乏了解。

The evidence for Allah and the truth of Islam comes from different sources that mutually reinforce each other. This is the way any body of knowledge works, including scientific knowledge, as the example above was meant to show. A skeptic can undermine any specific point of knowledge, but he can do this only in virtue of an ignorance of the larger context or paradigm or episteme or plausibility structure or web of belief (or whatever other philosophical/sociological term you want to use).