David Hume

I'd be more interested in hearing what you think of this essay assignment.

I think a lot of things that I can't seem to put into an answer. I agree with Hume. It does not seem to me that a philosopher would come to the conclusion that a God exists, especially since it's something that we've never experienced. To quote "there is no empirical or rational evidence for God or traditional metaphysics and we have no good reason to believe in the laws of science that are used to organize, explain, and predict events in our world. "

It's hard to get into a philosophical state of mind.

Drew, for the benefit of us not so literate you might briefly explain his reasoning. For what it's worth, probably not much, I don't see the connection. My immediate reaction is, if there's a God who can do practically anything, maybe She's simply putting something over on us

Again, what knowledge and how

…...I ask because determinism v freewill might figure into the discussion, in which case the extent of our threads on the subject suggest Hume is right

http://able2know.org/topic/196759-1

I'm not sure what his concept of the principle or whether it would satisfy him, but the following observation seems to support the idea: Given any simple experiment, the more carefully one controls its conditions, the more likely to achieve the same result



Tautology aside it seems impossible to have certain knowledge, according to the general principle that nothing is entirely anything…. Still for the benefit of us not having studied Hume…..

Forgive me Drew but reviewing the OP, Her existence or non- doesn't seem to be the issue

And yet quite a few respected philosophers have come to this conclusion. Perhaps the problem is in defining 'god.' See what Baruch Spinoza had to say about that a couple of hundred years before Hume. Or the Arab philosopher alKindi a couple of hundred years before Spinoza. [Hint: Spinoza used the words 'God' and 'Nature' virtually interchangeably.]

Drew, Andy, I'm still confused:

But is Her existence the issue. ie,

This q doesn't seem to ask about Hume's belief in God but instead seems to say, let's assume there's a God; now does Her existence increase the likelihood that the World is real (as contrasted, I suppose, with the notion that it's some sort of dream)

Okay then let's make that assumption

Very interesting to your Average Clod (me) to learn how the viewpoint of a pantheist (me, my No. 2 Son and perhaps three other a2k participants) agrees with that of these two philos

That is, She is indeed a natural phenom. Her body for instance being the Universe and Her mind all the activity therein

However that's OT so I am hoping someone might rephrase the OP so we might better address the intended subject