In
my last post I discussed David Hume’s morals, here I will discuss his religious
beliefs. David Hume was not convinced by the existence of God, mainly when
discussing “The Design Argument,” which consisted of the fact that the world
seems to be designed, and therefore it must be. This designing is assumed to be
done by God. This did not seem plausible to Hume though he believed that humans
try to create reasonable explanations for things, when these things may not be
true at all. Hume said, “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are
dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
This
discussion of a God was confusing to Hume, because God is said to be
all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good but everything on Earth was not
designed to be this way. Plenty of things have flaws and imperfections. On top
of this, even if there is a God, how can one be sure there is only one of them?
Hume questions that there could be a team of Gods working on Earth and everything
else together. Hume also was doubtful of miracles, why people jumped to things
they could not see was questionable to him. He believes that there are more
logical explanations to events then something that is completely defied by
nature. Yet, in our society people are quick to believe in a God for comfort,
or something supernatural in the event of something they don’t have the whole
picture. Hume believed that people need something that was available in the
beginning, something to trace every event back to. That everything that happens
has a reason and if you take all the reasons to the very beginning it was God.
Hume believed in actuality you could continue to find a cause for each thing in
an infinite cycle.
Hume
did not announce a specific religious belief, although his beliefs point to atheism.
Some of his shared opinions show a belief in a “divine intelligence” but one whose
qualities are unknown to mankind. He was unsure of what exactly death consisted
of, except that it was inevitable. On his death bed he told friends that he is
no more worried about what happens after his death than what when on before he was
born. Hume
analyzes why others believe in religion and he discusses three reasons why that
is. The first being, that people originally believed in polytheism then moved
to monotheism. Next, he believed that neither divine intervention nor rational
thinking lead to religion, but natural feelings such as fear of the unknown. Lastly, he explained that monotheism and polytheism really aren’t all that
different.
This video provides a brief summary of David Hume:
Sources:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/hume/#H6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3QZ2Ko-FOg
A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton
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