Forwarded on behalf of Julian Perlmutter, Divinity:
Dr Arif Ahmed will be giving a talk entitled "Hume and religious belief" on Thursday 12th March in the Graham Storey Room, Trinity Hall. We'll start at 6pm with drinks and canapés, with the talk beginning at 6.30. There'll then be time for questions, and we'll end at around 7.45. Here is the abstract: The talk introduces two of the most brilliant amongst Hume's many distinguished contributions to the subject. (1) Almost nobody has directly experienced a religious miracle. Our only grounds for believing in any one is via testimony. Hume's essay on miracles gives strong reasons against ever believing testimony and so undermines almost everyone's reasons for religious belief. (2) Even if such beliefs lack all reason you may still ask after their causes. 'The natural history of religion' accounts for the origins of polytheistic religious belief in the first place and then for the subsequent rise of monotheism in terms that are hardly flattering to either. _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
