Devil Doc
When Death smiles, Corpsmen smile back
It's the birthday of the philosopher David Hume, born in Edinburgh, Scotland (1711). He was born at a time when Edinburgh was one of the poorest and most backward cities in Western Europe. Alcoholism was rampant. The religious climate was extremely strict. If you skipped church on the Sabbath, there was a volunteer group of religious police known as the Seizers who would grab you on the street and forcibly take you to church. Less than fifteen years before Hume was born, an eighteen-year-old college student was put on trial for saying openly among his friends that he thought Christianity was "ill-invented nonsense." He was convicted and hanged for blasphemy.
But then David Hume came along and became a leader of what is called the "Scottish Enlightenment." Among his circle of friends and associates was Adam Smith, who invented the study of economics; Adam Ferguson, who helped invent sociology; James Hutton; who invented geology; James Watt, who developed the steam engine; Sir Walter Scott, who wrote the first great English novel; and Hugh Blair, who was the first university professor to teach a course in English literature.
David Hume's great contribution to the Scottish Enlightenment was his philosophy, laid out in his first book, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), in which he argued that it may be impossible to know anything for certain about the world. We can experience the world, but we will never fully understand it.
In 1755, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland tried to prosecute and excommunicate Hume for his skepticism about religion. It was only sixty years after a college student was hanged to death for similar charges, but the case against David Hume was dismissed.
David Hume said, "Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness."
Doc.
But then David Hume came along and became a leader of what is called the "Scottish Enlightenment." Among his circle of friends and associates was Adam Smith, who invented the study of economics; Adam Ferguson, who helped invent sociology; James Hutton; who invented geology; James Watt, who developed the steam engine; Sir Walter Scott, who wrote the first great English novel; and Hugh Blair, who was the first university professor to teach a course in English literature.
David Hume's great contribution to the Scottish Enlightenment was his philosophy, laid out in his first book, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), in which he argued that it may be impossible to know anything for certain about the world. We can experience the world, but we will never fully understand it.
In 1755, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland tried to prosecute and excommunicate Hume for his skepticism about religion. It was only sixty years after a college student was hanged to death for similar charges, but the case against David Hume was dismissed.
David Hume said, "Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness."
Doc.