David Hume on miracles

Por -
From 1748 David Hume's "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding", here's an awesome quote:

[Miracles] are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors

Even as early as the 18th century, reason was already making it's way into the world, starting to shatter superstition.

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas más populares de este blog

Una ilusión del alma

Por -
Spectus y Ferox han aprendido español. Ferox : Esto de la clonación es un tema interesante. ¿Creés que se pueda llegar a clonar un ser humano? Spectus : No veo por qué no. La oposición principal viene mas bien de cuestiones de ética. Hay gente que no duerme pensado que clonar un ser vivo es meterse con las cosas de Dios. Ferox : Bueno, pero es que en realidad te estás metiendo con cosas de Dios. Él es el único con poder para dar y quitar vida. Spectus : No es cierto. Un asesino quita la vida y un grupo de biólogos clonadores dan vida. En ese sentido ellos también tienen el mismo poder. Ferox : Pero es diferente. Lo que yo digo es que sólo Dios tiene el derecho sobre la vida. Spectus : Seguramente es uno de los pocos derechos que le quedan. En la antigüedad, Dios regía el movimiento de los planetas. Hoy, Dios nada tiene que ver en eso. Antes Dios traía las sequías como castigo, hoy se sabe cómo funciona el clima. Y así podríamos seguir mencionando ejemplos. A Dios le quedan cada vez men...
Leer más

Things happening for a reason?

Por -
Ferox : Spectus, have you wondered what is your purpose in life? Spectus : Yes. Ferox : And? What is it? Spectus : It's simple. There is no purpose. Ferox : No purpose! I cannot believe that. There must be a purpose behind the things that happen everyday. I think that everything happens for a reason. Spectus looks at Ferox for a moment, as if trying to peer into his soul to understand why is he saying such things. Spectus : Very well, here is what I think. First of all, you said "things happen for a reason". What does reason mean to you? Ferox : Reason is the cause, the purpose for which something is happening. Spectus : So you say that in order for something to happen there must be a reason. Otherwise, that event never occurs. Is that what you mean? Ferox : Essentially, yes. That's what I mean. Spectus : Well then, suppose that an average good guy has a car accident and that he dies as a consequence of it. Now I ask you, what was the purpose of the accident? Fero...
Leer más

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

Por -
Imagen
The God Delusion is a truly remarkable, inspirational and eye-opening book. Of course, that's my personal opinion, the opinion of a physicist. I'm not going to review this book. That has already been done hundreds of times all over the internet. What I am going to do is to post a few excerpts from the book. Some are quotations from Dawkins and some others are quotations from other people. ... Ambrose Bierce's witty definition of the verb 'to pray': 'to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy'. * * * ... It has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent. * * * Martin Luther was well aware that reason was religion's arch-...
Leer más