My inclination, replied Cleanthes, lies, I own, a contrary way. Religion, however corrupted, is still better than no religion at all. The doctrine of a future state is so strong and necessary a security to morals, that we never ought to abandon or neglect it. For if finite and temporary rewards and punishments have so great an effect, as we daily find; how much greater must be expected from such as are infinite and eternal?
How happens it then, said Philo, if vulgar superstition be so salutary to society, that all history abounds so much with accounts of its pernicious consequences on public affairs? Factions, civil wars, persecutions, subversions of government, oppression, slavery; these are the dismal consequences which always attend its prevalency over the minds of men. If the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend it. And no period of time can be happier or more prosperous, than those in which it is never regarded or heard of.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
DAVID HUME ON THE FUNDIES
This is from his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1776), part XII:
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We see the effect of cultism the past few days in Obama's sanctioned Zionist attack on Gaza.
That would be any form of Judaism which advocates and has advocated return to and conquest of Palestine, combined with Dispensationalism, aka "Christian Zionism." Acceded to by a cowardly and venal president.
But his ratings have improved-in Israel-while deteriorating even further in the Islamic world.
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