The sentiment is heresy to the mad scientist, but I reblog all the same because these pairings of naughty images with intellectually serious texts done by the blogger who wrote at Seduction of the Innocent were among the funniest things I encountered on tumblr. Also, I’m a big fan of David Hume. Original post here.
Original text:
It is likely that Hume was skeptical both about religious belief (at least as demanded by the religious organisations of his time) and of the complete atheism promoted by such contemporaries as Baron d’Holbach.
Paul Russell suggests that perhaps Hume’s position is best characterized by the term “irreligion”.
O’Connor (2001, p19) writes that Hume “did not believe in the God of standard theism. … but he did not rule out all concepts of deity”.
Also, “ambiguity suited his purposes, and this creates difficulty in definitively pinning down his final position on religion”. When asked if he was an atheist, Hume would say he did not have enough faith to believe there was no god.
I have read Paul Russell’s The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise which discusses the point made here in great detail. It was a worthy way to spend time.