Trama
David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion had not yet been published when he died in 1776. Even though the manuscript was mostly written during the 1750s, it did not appear until 1779. The subject itself was too delicate and controversial, and Hume's dialectical examination of religious knowledge was especially provocative.
What should we teach young people about religion? The characters Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo passionately present and defend three sharply different answers to that question. Demea opens the dialogue with a position derived from René Descartes and Father Malebranche - God's nature is a mystery, but God's existence can be proved logically. Cleanthes attacks that view, both because it leads to mysticism and because it attempts the impossible task of trying to establish existence on the basis of pure reason, without appeal to sense experience. As an alternative, he offers a proof both God's existence and God's nature based on the same kind of scientific reasoning established by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.
Taking a skeptical approach, Philo presents a series of arguments that question any attempt to use reason as a basis for religious faith. He suggests that human beings might be better off without religion. The dialogue ends without agreement among the characters, justifying Hume's choice of dialogue as the literary style for this topic.
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chapter 41
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chapter 42
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chapter 43
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chapter 44
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chapter 45
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chapter 46
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chapter 47
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chapter 48
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chapter 49
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chapter 50
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chapter 51
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chapter 52
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chapter 53
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chapter 54
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chapter 55
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chapter 56
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chapter 57
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chapter 58
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chapter 59
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chapter 60
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