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The sceptics assert, though absurdly, that the origin of all religious worship was derived from the utility of inanimate objects,as the sun and moon, to the support and well-being of mankind.

David Hume

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David Hume
Age: 65 †
Born: 1711
Born: April 26
Died: 1776
Died: August 25
Economist
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Edinburgh
Scotland
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That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.
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Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.
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The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.
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To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
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To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.
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But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life because that has never been observed in any age or country.
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A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.
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Mohammed praises [instances of] tretchery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, and bigotry that are utterly incompatible with civilized society.
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When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?
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A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
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It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause.
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Reasoning from the common course of nature, and without supposing any new interposition of the Supreme Cause, which ought always to be excluded from philosophy what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth: And if the former existence noways concerned us, neither will the latter.
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Everything is sold to skill and labor and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute state, and fits them for human use and convenience.
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Men often act knowingly against their interest.
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Nothing is more favorable to the rise of politeness and learning, than a number of neighboring and independent states, connected together by commerce and policy.
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Riches are valuable at all times, and to all men, because they always purchase pleasures such as men are accustomed to and desire nor can anything restrain or regulate the love of money but a sense of honor and virtue, which, if it be not nearly equal at all times, will naturally abound most in ages of knowledge and refinement.
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That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.
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