Hume weakened analogical arguments for God.

[Cyberman]

Is that from a Treatise on Human Understanding or whatever his major work is called?

I have no idea, but I do know that David Hume could out-consume Schopenhaur and Hegel.

[Mudhammam]

I have no idea, but I do know that David Hume could out-consume Schopenhaur and Hegel.

I haven't read Hegel (nor do I ever wish to) but I dig old Schope. What do you mean "out-consume"?

[Crossless2.0]

I have no idea, but I do know that David Hume could out-consume Schopenhaur and Hegel.

I haven't read Hegel (nor do I ever wish to) but I dig old Schope. What do you mean "out-consume"?

Do a search on Monty Python's "Philosophers' Drinking Song". I can't remember if that's actually the title, but you'll find it.

[Pizza]

Ah, stupid me. I should have recognized them had I did more than skim through the quotes. I think I underlined all those when I read that masterpiece---the last one you posted is especially good.

It's the part that stayed with me the most. Hume had a really novel way of framing the atheist vs theist debate that most people don't go with. His tactic could be used to undercut the cosmological arguments; atheists can say the first cause isn't the universe or multiverse but it "probably bears some remote analogy" to the universe or multiverse. Why not? The analogy is just as good as theirs. If the first cause can be like a human, then it can be like a universe or other natural processes in the universe.

I should add, I mean it undercuts the "first cause, formal cause, and final cause" of the universe can't be this universe or multiverse because that could lead to an infinite regress or similar criticisms. Atheists don't have to claim the "Ultimate" explanation is the creation or that the creating thing is the creation; All an atheist has to say is the creating thing is analogous to the creation and not identical.

[Esquilax]

Yes I see the world as a metaphor for God, I don't believe in a personal god, but the world is something we will never fully realize, so its a mystery in many ways, instead of arrogantly believing we know all about it, I humble myself before it.

You do realize there's more possibilities than either being arrogant or "humbling yourself" in a way analogous to god worship, right?

[Mudhammam]

It's the part that stayed with me the most. Hume had a really novel way of framing the atheist vs theist debate that most people don't go with. His tactic could be used to undercut the cosmological arguments; atheists can say the first cause isn't the universe or multiverse but it "probably bears some remote analogy" to the universe or multiverse. Why not? The analogy is just as good as theirs. If the first cause can be like a human, then it can be like a universe or other natural processes in the universe.

A few additional comments on the Dialogues,which I rated #5 on my list of favorite books that I read in 2014. I have a much greater appreciation for it now that I'm reading the Socratic dialogues, though even when I first read Hume I knew it was a literary masterpiece. It is also one the best formulations of the antimonies and really draws out both sides of the debate on an entertaining, humorous, yet deeply philosophical level. More quotes that stuck out:

Our ideas reach no farther than our experience.

Why go so far? Why not stop at the material world?

The Brahmins assert... the world arose from an infinite spider, who spun the this whole complicated mass from his bowels, and annihilates afterwards the whole or any part of it...Why an orderly system may not be spun from the belly as well as from the brain, it will be difficult for him to give a satisfactory reason.

What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call ‘thought’, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favor does indeed present it on all occasions, but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.

[Pizza]

"Our ideas reach no farther than our experience."

I'm probably an odd duck of an atheist, since I'm not a strict empiricist and strict evidentialist. I'm okay with going beyond evidence if and only if all the evidence we have is ambiguous, imprecise, and weak on all sides and going beyond evidence and reason doesn't lead us to run counter to reason and evidence. I think it's okay to believe "I'm not a brain in a vat," "inductive reasoning is reliable," and etc. It's not okay to believe in Young Earth creationism, flat-earth theory and etc.

[Mudhammam]

"Our ideas reach no farther than our experience."

I'm probably an odd duck of an atheist, since I'm not a strict empiricist and strict evidentialist. I'm okay with going beyond evidence if and only if all the evidence we have is ambiguous, imprecise, and weak on all sides and going beyond evidence and reason doesn't lead us to run counter to reason and evidence. I think it's okay to believe "I'm not a brain in a vat," "inductive reasoning is reliable," and etc. It's not okay to believe in Young Earth creationism, flat-earth theory and etc.

I am not sure if I would consider myself a strict empiricist though I certainly align myself with empiricism, which is consistent with how I read that statement. I see Hume basically saying what Kant did, though with far greater sophistication in his vivisection of knowledge in the CPR, that the content of our conceptions is limited by the data of sense perception. That is, you can't imagine an object that isn't derived from the experience of touch (using touch as a synonym for perception that includes all of the senses, since it is through touch that light particles meet the eyes and illuminate vision, the touch of sound waves that rush into our ears, etc.). It would be like asking a person totally blind from birth to think of a rainbow.

The apparent exception to this rule, I suppose, is mathematics and in some sense, ethics. We can conceive of numbers in relation to objects when conjecturing how our minds first discovered reason and then complex abstract formulations, imagining some nomadic hunter-gatherers learning to differentiate between one finger, two fingers, three fingers, etc. But unlike anything else that I can think of, with numbers we can eliminate any object of sense from view, such as five fingers, and just analyze numbers themselves in arithmetic. And the amazing thing is its utility in creating a framework by which all nature appears intelligible. Still, I can't see that numbers don't belong in the same category of being that concepts such as justice do, in that without perception they have no content. What is justice or the number one if it is not of something?

[Pyrrho]

I'm quoting a small large chunks of it; I could quote the whole chunk, but that would be crazy. Hume writes huge paragraphs. So many semicolons..
What Hume shows is that theism rests on imprecise analogy.

That the works of Nature bear a great analogy to the productions of art, is evident; and according to all the rules of good reasoning, we ought to infer, if we argue at all concerning them, that their causes have a proportional analogy. But as there are also considerable differences, we have reason to suppose a proportional difference in the causes

But there is a species of controversy, which, from the very nature of language and of human ideas, is involved in perpetual ambiguity, and can never, by any precaution or any definitions, be able to reach a reasonable certainty or precision. These are the controversies concerning the degrees of any quality or circumstance.

Where then, cry I to both these antagonists, is the subject of your dispute? The Theist allows, that the original intelligence is very different from human reason: The Atheist allows, that the original principle of order bears some remote analogy to it. Will you quarrel, Gentlemen, about the degrees, and enter into a controversy, which admits not of any precise meaning, nor consequently of any determination? If you should be so obstinate, I should not be surprised to find you insensibly change sides; while the Theist, on the one hand, exaggerates the dissimilarity between the Supreme Being, and frail, imperfect, variable, fleeting, and mortal creatures; and the Atheist, on the other, magnifies the analogy among all the operations of Nature, in every period, every situation, and every position. Consider then, where the real point of controversy lies; and if you cannot lay aside your disputes, endeavour, at least, to cure yourselves of your animosity.

---

Oh, I forget to say that I think! Hume has pointed out the weak, inconclusive nature of these analogies and of the analogy based premises in other arguments for god. Therefore, the case for theism and religion is very underwhelming and inconclusive.

Two things. First, you are quoting a book that is a dialogue, in which characters say various, incompatible things. So it would be a big mistake to suppose that everything everyone says represents what Hume thought. I could stop at this, as it is, by far, the most important point.

The second thing is, Hume wrote in a time and place where it was illegal to be an atheist or say certain sorts of irreligious things. So there are some things that he could not say without serious consequences. So when he has something in one of his other writings, that is not a dialog, about god and religion, you need to keep this fact in mind when trying to understand his meaning and real position.


But yes, Hume observed that the argument from design is pure crap, and shows it to anyone paying attention in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Hume is one of the several sources for demonstrating the complete imbecility of the arguments that have been used for the purpose of proving the existence of god. All of the traditional arguments, in all of their forms, are pure crap.