Philosopher David Hume's View On God

1096 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How does religion affect our lives

Harry Sukhannnnnnnn God, a simple 3 letter word. For some of us, we immediately put a face or a name to this simple word. However, for others, much like myself, I place no weight upon the word. There is no meaning in my eyes. As an atheist, I do not believe in a higher being. In order to properly asses this, you must first question: What is god? Where did the concept come from? Philosophers have been in a very heated argument over religion for centuries now, and to today, there still has not been a conclusion. Philosopher David Hume is said to have been undecided as either an atheist or an agnostic. However, another philosopher, Saint Thomas Aquinas, is on a completely different platform. He believed that God is real, and that humans MUST believe in him. For this, I’ll let you be the judge, as the facts speak for themselves. In all honesty, I view religion as a business. You have to buy the candles, and flowers, and then on top of that, it’s a competition at the house of worship over who will donate the most, as they’ll get a plaque of recognition or something of that sort. Not only that, but upon having a wedding ceremony or a function, paying the priest seems to be one of the highest expenses. It has been said that Hume is an agnostic philosopher. Many think that he was an atheist, and others wanted to charge him with infidelity. In my opinion, religion is up to those who would like to follow it. However, I see no point in it. It’s a sense of security and hope for humans, but it’s all false security and false hope. Hume states that “We are naturally constituted to share the emotions of our fellow human beings. The closer our relationship, and the more we resemble each other, the stronger the communication of emotion will... ... middle of paper ... ...erience, many people have attempted to convert me to other religions, each of which I rejected. With that rejection, came the questioning of my morals and ethics. My counterargument for that would be that without religion it doesn’t ruin me as a person. It also doesn’t make me any different and I don’t need religion to have morals. To find have morals, I don’t need religion; I would need common sense and a conscience. Although I do not agree with Aquinas, I cannot denounce him for his beliefs. I believe that each person has their right to what they believe in, not matter what they’re worshipping, however, it is wrong to force your beliefs on another person. Forcing someone who is “religion-less” to believe in your god and your faith is wrong morally. We each have the right to happiness and fulfillment and will reach that in our own ways, without pushing from others.

Show More
Related

  • David Hume's Argument Against Belief in the Existence of Miracles

    1988 Words  | 4 Pages

    Beuchamp, Tom (ed), David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ( Oxford University Press 1999).

    Read More

  • The Arguement for God's Existance in Hume’s essay, Why Does God Let People Suffer

    1643 Words  | 4 Pages

    In David Hume’s essay, Why Does God Let People Suffer, he allows the reader to question if God exists in the world we live in with all the pain and suffering that goes on. Hume suggests that an all powerful God, such as the one most believe in, would not allow a world to exist with this much pain and suffering that goes on daily. Moreover, Hume basically argues that the existence of God is something that cannot be proven in the way in which scientists look for and gather proof about other scientific issues. In the following essay, I will demonstrate how David Hume feels that there is a God despite all the suffering and pain that exists in our world. “Is the World, considered in general, and as it appears to us in this life, different from what a Man or such a limited being would, beforehand, expect from a very powerful, wise, and benevolent Deity?” Additionally, Hume argues for the existence of an omnipotent God. According to the author, a world with this much evil in it, one can’t logically assume that there exists an all powerful God that knows everything. Interestingly, Hume simply argues that we can’t infer that there is a God that exists who is all knowing and all powerful with the tremendous amounts of evil that exists in the world. More importantly, Hume speculates on the creation of the universe. One hypothesis contends that the universe was created without good or malice. In other words, according to Hume, our universe was more likely created by something other than a God with good intentions. However, throughout the essay Hume presents arguments for the existence of God and against the existence of God. Hume further argues that humans would be able to comprehend an omniscient G...

    Read More

  • David Hume Anti Theodicy

    684 Words  | 2 Pages

    Anti theodicy is the argument that it is wrong to seek theodicies, that is, it is wrong to seek answers to the problem of evil. Anti theodicy is prompted by the religious effects of theodicizing. Theodicizing has been accused of risking our faith in God by questioning Him, wasting time, reducing divine mystery in case we succeed in understanding the problem of evil, and increasing self-satisfaction when we realize that there are reasons behind the evil and we stop fighting against it. It says we should not try to seek the hidden ways of God but rather try to find the path that we shall walk on when evil attacks. What anti theodicies fail

    Read More

  • Hume's View

    739 Words  | 2 Pages

    I start with analysing the mechanism of sympathy. Hume’s notion of ‘sympathy’ is rather different with the word ‘sympathy’ we are using today. Its meaning is more similar to the word ‘empathy’. When we witness and perceive the emotions or feelings of other people, we form an idea in our minds of their emotions. This idea naturally induces us to resonate and go along with their emotions, and generate a ‘fellow-feeling’ in our minds. For instance, when I see a smile on my friend’s face, I infer that she is happy and I have a tendency to become happy as well. Note that, through sympathy, the sentiments we generate do not necessarily have to be exactly the same as the sentiments that the person we are observing. Usually, they are of a weaker degree and are a harmonised version, in the sense that the emotions we generated are consistent with the original ones. Negative passions ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of David Hume's Dialogues Of Natural Religion

    1190 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Part II of David Hume’s Dialogues of Natural Religion, Demea remarks that the debate is not about whether or not God exists, but what the essence of God is. (pg.51) Despite this conclusion in Part II, in his introduction to the Dialogues Martin Bell remarks that the question of why something operates the way it does is quite different from the question why do people believe that it operates the way it does. (pg. 11) This question, the question of where a belief originates and is it a valid argument, is much of the debate between Hume’s three characters in the Dialogues. (pg. ***)

    Read More

  • David Hume on Sentiments and Reason

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Appendix I., Concerning Moral Sentiment, David Hume looks to find a place in morality for reason, and sentiment. Through, five principles he ultimately concludes that reason has no place within the concept of morality, but rather is something that can only assist sentiment in matters concerning morality. And while reason can be true or false, those truths or falsities apply to facts, not to morality. He then argues morals are the direct result of sentiment, or the inner feeling within a human being. These sentiments are what intrinsically drive and thus create morality within a being.

    Read More

  • Commentary of Evil in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part X

    685 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part X, Philo have questioned how it is possible to reconcile God's infinite benevolence, wisdom, and power with the presence of evil in the world. “His power we allow is infinite: whatever he wills is executed: but neither man nor any other animal is happy: therefore he does not will their happiness. His wisdom is infinite: he is never mistaken in choosing the means to any end: but the course of Nature tends not to human or animal felicity: therefore it is not established for that purpose.” (Hume, 87) Given the presence of evil, we must either conclude that God wishes to prevent needless suffering, but cannot, in which case God is not all-powerful, or we may admit that he does not wish to prevent evil in which case we may conclude that God is not infinitely benevolent. Or, alternatively, we can conclude that he both wishes and can prevent evil, but that he is not wise enough to know how to arrange the world so that there is no evil, in which case he is not infinitely wise.

    Read More

  • David Hume: Vices and Virtues

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems such as those regarding existence, reality, knowledge, values, the human mind and language. “I think, therefore I am” is a famous quotation that attempts to define this study very simply, and the philosopher quoted was Rene Descartes, a 17th century Frenchman who is widely regarded as the Father of Modern Philosophy. David Hume was an 18th century Scotsman who is considered by many to be the most important philosopher ever to write in English. The intention here is to explain Hume’s theory of virtue and vice in the light of his views about practical rationality, which is the use of reason to help one decide how to act.

    Read More

  • David Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    505 Words  | 2 Pages

    David Hume, in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, claims that a reasonable person should not believe in miracles, especially if they are informed of a miracle through testimony; his argument concerning why people should be unable to believe a miracle is cogent, but he fails to adequately explain why people do believe in miracles even though they should not be able to. His theory about miracles is based on a previously outlined idea which Hume calls “constant conjunction”; people use the constant conjunction of events to determine the likelihood of a cause yielding a particular effect. He goes on to argue that miracles, or events that break natural law, are the least likely effect possible from a particular cause and should not be believed. Hume argues against miracles in order to “silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition and free us from their impertinent solicitations”, he has strong contempt towards religion and his ideas concerning miracles, and those who believe in miracles, may be biased as a result (577).

    Read More

  • David Hume's View On Free Will

    1773 Words  | 4 Pages

    The second proposition is that liberty where he retaliated that there is a distinction between necessity and liberty and that our own will leads to free actions while external forces cause things that we experience against our will. On his part, liberty is freedom to act without influence and that a difference exists between free and unfree actions (Paul). According to him, free actions are caused by personal will, while unfree actions are caused by external forces. He reasons that ideas of necessity and causation are more influenced by our experience and the resulting inferences we make. According to Hume, there are two classifications of liberty, including spontaneity and indifference.

    Read More

  • David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume reasons that until we know the “necessary connection” or cause of things then all knowledge is uncertain, “merely a habit of thinking based upon repeated observation” (induction), and which depends on the future being like the past. Ultimately, he concludes that matters of fact can only be known through experience therefore matters of fact are only justified by recourse to experience, but any attempt to do this ends up being “circular”, “we have no good reason to believe almost everything we believe about the world, but that this is not such a bad thing. Nature helps us to get by where reason lets us down.”

    Read More

  • David Hume Sympathy Essay

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sympathy is the common feeling of understanding others’ suffering, of caring about others’ trouble and grief, and of supporting others in the form of shared feelings. The origin of the word sympathy, however, is not comprised to the compassionate perception of the calamities of others. It used to convey a broader concept than the feeling of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. The Greek word sympatheia (συμπάθεια) covers the general meaning of fellow-feelings, where pathos (πάθος) refers to any kind of emotion or passion, including pleasure and pain. In harmony with the etymological origins of the word, the 18th-century Scottish philosophers, David Hume (1711 - 1776) applied the technical term sympathy in a more extended meaning than today’s common usage

    Read More

  • David Hume's Theory of Knowledge

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    Knowledge is gained only through experience, and experiences only exist in the mind as individual units of thought. This theory of knowledge belonged to David Hume, a Scottish philosopher. Hume was born on April 26, 1711, as his family’s second son. His father died when he was an infant and left his mother to care for him, his older brother, and his sister. David Hume passed through ordinary classes with great success, and found an early love for literature. He lived on his family’s estate, Ninewells, near Edinburgh. Throughout his life, literature consumed his thoughts, and his life is little more than his works. By the age of 40, David Hume had been employed twice and had failed at the family careers, business and law. Occasionally, he served on diplomatic missions in France and other countries.

    Read More

  • David Hume Research Paper

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    Though I am a mere infant in the world of philosophy, I know one thing for certain: Identifying the self is a battle that has yet to be won. Many a philosopher have gone to war with the issue but without concrete evidence of this mystic being, there can be no victor. Nonetheless, of the many beautiful attempts at putting words to this indescribable entity we call our soul, one stands out bold in my eyes. “That individual person, of whose actions and sentiments each of us is intimately conscious.” (Lorenzo) I will argue for David Hume’s definition of the self.

    Read More

  • Who Is God To Me- Personal Narrative

    357 Words  | 1 Pages

    "Who Is God To Me" God means many different things to many different people. There are a lot of people who believe that there is no such thing as a God. There are people who believe that there is no God because no one has ever seen him. I personally believe that there is a God because of my faith. I have faith in God and I feel that God is real. I have many reasons why I believe in God and who God is to me. But I have three reasons that stand out for me about who God is to me. They are the following: God is always there for me, God is my friend, and God is my creator. These are my three most important reasons of who God is and what God means to me. God has never let me down in my life. Sometimes I feel that God has let me down or that He did not answer my prayers in times that I most needed Him. But I have to realize that everything that God does is for a reason. God has taken a few friends of mine from this Earth at a very young age. I have prayed to God and asked Him why? But I have never seemed to fully understand why. I have come to the conclusion that God works in mysterious ways. I do not think that anyone can fully understand why God does what He does. So for this, I do not feel that God has ever let me down. He just does these things for a reason and if you believe in Him, He will never let you down either. God is the longest lasting friend I have ever had in my life. He was there for me before I was born and He will be there for me after I leave this Earth. God is the best listener also. I can talk to God anywhere at anytime. Every time I want to talk to Him or ask Him a question, He is there for me. Most of my other friends are at least a phone call away, but not God. He has always been there in time of need, even though sometimes I feel like He is not. Even when I do something wrong, He is there to forgive me and set me straight.

    Read More

More about Philosopher David Hume's View On God

Open Document