跟读练习: God is a Delusion | Oxford Union Speech - Alex O'Connor - 通过视频学习英语口语
选择练习模式
每种模式都会打开全屏练习室。
122 句
如果句子过短或过长，请点击 Edit 进行调整。
1
Madame President, it's good to see you again.
2
Deesra and I met about a month or so ago on a boat by sheer coincidence on the River Thames somewhere,
3
and I was told that there was an upcoming debate at this union
4
that Michael Shermer had pulled out of that was on, essentially, the existence of God or whether it was a delusion and that they were in need of a replacement speaker.
5
Now, I won't go as far, especially given the circumstances, is to call this providence.
6
However, it does leave you with a slight sense
7
that there might have been more than chance at play in bringing me to this chamber tonight.
8
But it is exactly that kind of thinking, the seeking of agency and design, where there is, in fact, none, that I've traveled here in an attempt to dispel.
9
We've heard a lot about arguments.
10
But as a psychological phenomenon, I wonder how relevant these really are to God's belief.
11
That is, when you hear somebody recounting a conversion story, how often does it really begin with premise one you're more likely to hear a narrative
12
or a story some kind of account of an experience indeed
13
the most high profile conversion perhaps of this millennium happened just a few weeks ago
14
when the fifth horsewoman of new atheism iyan hersey ali announced in a long
15
and celebrated essay that she had embraced christianity
16
i was far from the first reviewer to notice something rather peculiar about this publication That is,
17
its somewhat conspicuous lack of arguments for the existence of God or for the truth of Christianity.
18
Instead, she devoted the entire thing to talking about culture.
19
She talked about the looming threats of Russia and China, of global Islamism, of wokeism.
20
I think that an essay which mentions Osama bin Laden, Vladimir Putin, and indeed Professor Richard Dawkins,
21
exactly as many times as it mentions Jesus Christ might tell us
22
that we're looking at a conversion
23
that is at best insensitive to the truth claims of religious belief and instead an attempt to escape or a result,
24
I should say, of a desire to escape certain unfortunate social realities.
25
That is where God appeared in a dream to Joseph or to Zachariah.
26
It seems that the president of Russia appeared in a nightmare to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and also endowed her with a skill that I'm unable of,
27
which is to adopt a belief simply because of its political or existential convenience.
28
And again, perhaps my desire for my philosophical convictions to be, you know, true is just too high a margin to demand.
29
What I really want to ask is whether this should be any kind of surprise, this approach, I mean.
30
There is some recognition, even amongst the religious, that this is at least in part what religion does, what religion is.
31
It provides some kind of unifying ethic to suppress the more depraved elements of our human nature.
32
Evelyn Waugh was once asked how he reconciled his private hedonism and gluttony.
33
He was accused of being rude and self -indulgent, how he reconciles this with his professed Christianity.
34
He accepted the charge and simply said, can you imagine how much worse I would be if I wasn't a Catholic.
35
Fair enough.
36
I think that I'm far from the first to suggest that religion is,
37
in essence, nothing more than a mimetic entity that serves some kind of social purpose like this.
38
That's what it's for, but isn't actually true.
39
And I'm glad to hear that at least one member of the opposition this evening seems to agree with me.
40
I'm not sure if you'll see it that way too, ladies and gentlemen.
41
But I won't say that I know this is the case, of course, I can't do so.
42
I will simply ask a question of you.
43
What would you expect to see if God existed?
44
And all of this was being supervised.
45
What would you expect the world to look like?
46
How would you expect life to have evolved?
47
And if we assume the alternative hypothesis, that is atheism, materialism, that is
48
that the world we find ourselves in is just an amoral
49
arena of accidentally existing organisms competing in an endless struggle for survival, what would we expect to find?
50
And what do we find?
51
A system of natural selection which explains the origin of species on planet Earth
52
that does not just cause or bring about but relies upon suffering and death.
53
Survival of the fittest is the same thing as the death and destruction of the unfit.
54
99 % plus of all of the species, species, let alone animals, that have ever inhabited this planet have been brutally wiped from existence.
55
And for what? for our development, it seems that unimaginable, indescribable,
56
and seemingly inexplicable suffering is embedded into the very mechanism by which I'm told God decided to create human beings.
57
I'm not saying this can't be explained on theism.
58
Of course I can't say that.
59
You could say that this is all part of some grand plan of Jobian proportion in its unintelligibility.
60
Maybe there's some kind of compensation in the afterlife.
61
Maybe dogs do go to heaven after all, sure.
62
I'm just asking you what you would actually expect to be the case.
63
I think that we wouldn't expect to see anything like what I've just described
64
if we assume that there is a benevolent invigilator overseeing the process.
65
However, if we assume atheism, not only do we come to explain this phenomenon, but in my view, we also come to expect it.
66
If I'm wrong, however, if the truth of theism is indeed as plain
67
and graspable as many on the opposition would doubtless like to suggest this evening, then I must ask why religious belief has traditionally, if not essentially delusional in essence,
68
relied so heavily on, if you like, non -rational modes of convincing.
69
A sign as sure as they come of delusional belief is an inability to muster
70
and a resistance against rational defense of that belief, especially in the face of challenge and most evidence when the threat
71
or enforcement indeed of suppression or physical violence is substituted in its place
72
that is the place of rational argument
73
and this hardly needs explication just 600 feet from the door
74
of this chamber there's an easily missable cross on the floor of Broad Street
75
which marks the spot where three bishops of the Church of
76
England were burned at the stake not even for being the wrong religion
77
but so close the wrong denomination the wrong interpretation of the words doctrinal disputes like this have a long
78
and violent history within the religious tradition
79
and I think it's worth asking why that's the case oh you think
80
that the Sun you think that the Sun proceeds from the father alone not the father
81
and the Holy Spirit oh you're about to find out as
82
you meet your maker wherever religious authorities have had the political power to do
83
so I would say
84
and found the threat of otherworldly hell fire to have somewhat lost its efficacy on certain people then it provides
85
or they provide shall we say a corporeal simulacrum of this
86
bringing the flames into our own veil of tears providing a
87
very worldly inferno to ready the heretic for the inferno that's
88
to come in Hades reducing heretics to literal ashes in the
89
full view of anybody else who might have the temerity to question or to challenge the authority and compassion of the church.
90
Why might a religious tradition, which I'm told is balanced upon reason and provability, evolve such a knee -jerk mortal resistance to freedom of thought?
91
Of course, in our modern age, where the state is no longer the principal auxiliary of religious violence, I of course understand that that's the case.
92
This is something that happened hundreds of years ago.
93
Now that That ignoble mantle is taken up instead by individual religious fanatics who cannot
94
and will not be deterred by the morality of their fellow creatures
95
or indeed by the laws of their country
96
because there is no legislation written by any person of any time
97
that could even count one iota against the dictates of the supernatural creator of the universe.
98
Access to whose precise and exacting will is of course only a delusion when it's somebody else's God, when it's the wrong God.
99
If that's not the case, then not only is this belief in God and access to his will not delusionary, but now, I'm told, is actually a prerequisite for reason,
100
for science, for morality, all of the noble pursuits that humanity entertains.
101
This despite the fact
102
that most of the important developments historically in all of these
103
areas have regularly been made by dissidents who subverted the clerical authoritarianism of the very religious traditions
104
that now wish to claim these developments as their own.
105
Touch scandalous, I think you'll agree.
106
I hope you'll agree, I should say.
107
Again, I can simply ask you what best explains this psychological condition.
108
Might this suppressive and sensorial historical attitude, which seems essentially tied to the history of religious thought,
109
be compatible with the truth of religious claims? Of course.
110
Absolutely.
111
Is it better explained by an inability to provide serious and conclusive rational defenses of those beliefs?
112
Maybe.
113
Might this also explain the characteristic taboo on the criticism of people's religious belief
114
that survives with us in many ways to this day?
115
Perhaps also, I'm not sure.
116
Might this also explain why faith, as we've already heard, that is belief without evidence, reflect on that for a moment.
117
The one I'd also explain why this is proposed as a virtue
118
and indeed the foundation of belief in God blessed after all are those who believe without saying without seeing I don't know.
119
It's not really for someone like myself who strictly speaking is an agnostic.
120
It's not really for me to say
121
but I can only leave it with you and I suppose the remainder of the opposition.
122
Thank you.
同频道
C11
Every Argument For Atheism
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C17
Why the Monarchy Should Have Died With the Queen
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
This is Why I Don't Believe in God
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B2Is Trump Using Christianity For His Own Benefit? - Rhett McLaughlin
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
FOR YOU
推荐视频
C12
98 句
Dr Maszlee Malik argues Islam is like democracy: it is not perfect - but they are compatible 6/8
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C12
207 句
Katie Hopkins | We Should NOT Support No Platforming (6/8) | Oxford Union
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C16
128 句
【世界情勢理解】2024年ハーバード大学首席の卒業式スピーチ『知らないことの力』【英語スピーチ】 リスニング 日本語字幕 世界情勢理解
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C110
221 句
ENGLISH SPEECH | AKASH BANERJEE: India’s Path (English Subtitles)
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C11
625 句
Richard Dawkins vs. Mehdi Hasan
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C1527
14 句
Tanya’s opinion on humans
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C11
183 句
Will the Good of the Other – Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C15
29 句
NT Wright on Jordan Peterson: "I have never met him, but..."
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C11
18 句
249. 世の中に存在する「2種類の愚か者」ON English｜言葉と物語
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C14
13 句
When Pleasure Becomes Your God - Jordan Peterson
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B21
92 句
Russell Crowe Faces the Vatican’s Dark Side | THE POPE'S EXORCIST
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
你能学到什么
这个视频能帮你提升两项实用口语技能：一是在长段发言中捕捉逻辑转折，比如演讲者从个人经历转向宗教心理分析时的衔接方式；二是模仿正式场合的表达节奏，像牛津联盟辩论这种正式场景中，如何用停顿和重音强调观点。此外，通过观察演讲者对实例（如Ayaan Hirsi Ali的皈依故事）的阐述，你还能学会如何用具体案例支撑论点，让表达更有说服力。
注意这些发音现象
视频中存在不少连读和弱读现象，比如“it's good to see you”中“to”弱读为/tə/，“and I was told”中“and”与“I”连读为/ən aɪ/。还有“a lot about arguments”里“about”的/t/浊化为/d/，这些细节能让你的口语更接近 native speaker。另外，演讲者在强调“none”“truth”等关键词时会加重语气，注意这些重音位置，能帮助你更好地传达情感。
像母语者一样表达
想要模仿演讲者的节奏，关键是抓住停顿的时机。比如在“However, it does leave you with a slight sense... ”前的停顿，既给听众思考空间，也突出了转折意味。此外，注意句子的轻重读分布，像“the seeking of agency and design”中，“agency”和“design”需要重读，而介词和冠词则轻轻带过。通过“看视频学英语”，结合shadowing练习（即影子跟读法），你可以逐句模仿这些细节。现在就打开视频，跟着演讲者的节奏开口说吧——好的口语技能，都是在不断“shadow speak”中练出来的。
视频中的语法
说话人最常用的结构，并附上视频中的原话：
| 结构 | 视频中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 被动语态 be + 过去分词 — 强调发生了什么，而不是谁做的 | was told · was accused · being supervised |
| 现在完成时 have/has + 过去分词 — 过去发生但与现在仍有关联的事 | I've traveled · We've heard · have ever inhabited |
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。