Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Hume’s Dialogues continuation David Hume was a great thinker and philosopher of his era who influenced other well respected thinkers. According to Hume this era was called the Age of Reason because the writers of that time used reason in religion, political, social and moral issues. In 1779 Hume wrote a book called Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in where four characters discussed the nature of God by using reason. The following dialogue is a continuation of Hume’s book Dialogues Concerning Natural

The purpose of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is to determine whether we can come to understand the nature of God strictly through observations of the world and human reason. Unlike Christianity, Judaism, and other major organized religions, natural religion only entertains characteristics of God that are observable in this world; simply stating that God exists because of divine command and revelation seen in scriptures is inconclusive and insupportable, so therefore cannot be taken

David Hume in his work, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, reveals the reasoning for the cosmological argument through the character of Demea. Fundamentally, the main concept of the premises is the notion of causality. Demea argues that everything must have a cause since it is not possible for anything to produce itself. Therefore, in the nature of the universe, we either regress infinitely or conclude to an ultimate first cause. He further asserts that given the two options there must be an

An Analysis of Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ABSTRACT: Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) may be read in the way Cleanthes (and Philo as well) reads Nature, as analogous to human artifice and contrivance. The Dialogues and Nature then are both texts, with an intelligent author or Author, and analogies may be started from these five facts of Hume's text: the independence of Hume's characters; the non-straightforwardness of the characters' discourse; the way the

Reading of Religious Elements in the Iliad in Relation to the Ideologies of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion To the ancient Greeks, belief in a complex and charismatic pantheon of gods was fairly universal, and the importance of these gods is apparent in every aspect of that culture. Since classical times, however, the increased application of empirical thought to all aspects of life has generated a divisive dialogue on faith that continues to this day. The Iliad takes as given an interpretation

David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion entails a discussion between Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo on the existence and nature of God. Each individual possessed different beliefs on the topic of God’s nature; for most of the writing Demea and Philo argue against Cleanthes’ beliefs although their own beliefs do no match each other’s. In part two, all three men agree that the existence of God is not being debated but rather the nature of God. Cleanthes’ argument is that not only is there

Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion provide conflicting arguments about the nature of the universe, what humans can know about it, and how their knowledge can affect their religious beliefs. The most compelling situation relates to philosophical skepticism and religion; the empiricist character, Cleanthes, strongly defends his position that skepticism is beneficial to religious belief. Under fire from an agnostic skeptic and a rationalist, the empiricist view on skepticism and religion is

In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion we are introduced to three characters that serve the purpose to debate God and his nature, more specifically, what can mankind infer about God and his nature. The three characters; Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes all engage in a debate concerning this question and they all serve the purpose of supporting their views on the subject. It is the “argument from design” put forth by Cleanthes that is the focal point of the discussion, and it is Demea and Philo

Hume and I will argue that there is an Intelligent Designer for our universe. William Paley believes in the existence of God and that through his watchmaker analogy in “Natural Theology” he can prove that there is an Intelligent Designer. David Hume addresses William Paley’s argument in “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” and argues Paley’s analogy is weak since Hume believes we cannot analogize earthly things from things we cannot understand. In this paper, I will address these teleological

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume challenges the existence of God by presenting three different arguments from the perspectives of three philosophers. First is that of the fideist, Demea, who presents the weakest argument. The reader is quickly aware that this perspective is the least believable according to Hume. Although Hume quickly dismisses the idea of faith as a basis for the existence of God, he uses faith as a wedge in the attempt to break apart the argument of for intelligent