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Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
#1
Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
I just finished reading Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and I don't know what to make of the conclusion. The work, which Hume began in 1750, was not completed until Hume realized he was dying in 1776, and at the close of the work, he has the main antagonist Philo seem to concede the entire argument that he has up to this point been forcefully objecting to: that there is a mind or intelligence analogous to the human mind behind the order in the Universe. This completely contradicts not only Philo's earlier sentiments but Hume's life work as well, at least I assume from my limited knowledge of it. What do you make of this?
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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#2
RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
I pulled out Dan Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea (a book every free thinker should read in my opinion) because I remembered he discussed Hume's Dialogues briefly in the first chapter. Here's what Dennett states:

"Philo is surely Hume's mouthpiece in the Dialogues. Why did Hume cave in? Out of fear of reprisal from the establishment? No. Hume knew he had shown that the the Argument from Design was an irreparably flawed bridge between science and religion, and he arranged to have his Dialogues published after his death in 1776 precisely in order to save himself from persecution. He caved in because he just couldn't imagine any other explanation of the origin of the manifest design in nature." (Dennett's italics).

That pretty much answers it I guess.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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#3
RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
I always took it to mean that Hume was a deist and considered god as a placeholder for things yet unexplained. In no way does this admission invalidate his previous arguments and resulting conclusions that god is unprovable and unknowable.
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#4
RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
(June 24, 2014 at 1:36 pm)Cato Wrote: I always took it to mean that Hume was a deist and considered god as a placeholder for things yet unexplained. In no way does this admission invalidate his previous arguments and resulting conclusions that god is unprovable and unknowable.

Yeah, though I've read elsewhere that in his earlier works such as a Natural History of Religion, Hume was pretty clear in his stated disbelief in God, and usually is considered during his lifetime and in times past to have have been an atheist or agnostic. This is the first work of his that I've read so I'm only basing those points of view off Wiki and other things I've read on him.

In Part XII, Philo still points out the difference between "vulgar religion," derived from superstition, and "true" or "natural religion" derived from philosophy and logic. In the Introduction to the Dialogues I own, the editor Richard H. Popkin also notes that: "His friend James Boswell tried to find some evidence that Hume had some Christian sentiments--and failed. Boswell, who visited Hume on his deathbed, found him as negative as ever about Christianity."
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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#5
RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
Hume was careful not to run afoul of the church while alive leaving his arguments such that the reader would have to draw the obvious conclusion.

Even the concession you mention is later qualified by Philo suggesting that the universe's designer had a very remote resemblance to human intelligence. I believe Hume tried to signify how remote by comparing the sun to a candle. There's certainly enough in Hume's work to state he was an atheist. At most one can argue he was a deist of the watchmaker variety, on minimal evidence. For our understanding today this is very fine cutting. He was most certainly considered atheist in his day.
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#6
RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
I'd say he was most likely what we today would call an atheist.
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
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#7
RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
(June 24, 2014 at 2:21 pm)Cato Wrote: Hume was careful not to run afoul of the church while alive leaving his arguments such that the reader would have to draw the obvious conclusion.

Which made him smarter (or at least cagier) that either Galileo or Bruno. Gadflies tended to get swatted.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#8
RE: Is Dialogues Part XII Hume's "death bed conversion moment" to theism?
One could hardly find something objectionable with his tone or stated intent with such careful attention to his words as in the closing of "Of Miracles":

"I am the better pleased with the method of reasoning here delivered, as I think it may serve to confound those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the Christian Religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason. Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is, by no means, fitted to endure. To make this more evident, let us examine those miracles, related in scripture; and not to lose ourselves in too wide a field, let us confine ourselves to such as we find in the Pentateuch, which we shall examine, according to the principles of these pretended Christians, not as the word or testimony of God himself, but as the production of a mere human writer and historian. Here then we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin. Upon reading this book, we find it full of prodigies and miracles. It gives an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely different from the present: of our fall from that state: of the age of man, extended to near a thousand years: of the destruction of the world by a deluge: of the arbitrary choice of one people, as the favourites of heaven; and that people the countrymen of the author: of their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing imaginable: I desire any one to lay his hand upon his heart, and after a serious consideration declare, whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however, necessary to make it be received, according to the measures of probability above established.
What we have said of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and
indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. If it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it would be absurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from heaven. So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience."


Nicely played, Hume!
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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