Talk:David Hume

All popular theology has a kind of appetite for absurdity and contradiction...while their gloomy apprehensions make them ascribe to Him measures of conduct which in human creatures would be blamed, they must still affect to praise and admire that conduct in the object of their devotional addresses. Thus it may safely be affirmed that popular religions are really, in the conception of their more vulgar votaries, a species of daemonism. - David Hume, The Natural History of Religion

"Money is not, properly speaking, one of the subjects of commerce; but only the instrument which men have agreed upon to facilitate the exchange of one commodity for another. It is none of the wheels of trade: It is the oil which renders the motion of the wheels more smooth and easy."

Of Money by David Hume(1752)

A section is needed for the "Political Discourses", or else the essays should all be put together, but numbered according to the standard Miller edition.

http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hume/money.txt

Jewish minx quote?
I've been trying to locate a source for the quote attributed to Hume by Hitchens: "which is more likely, that the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?" (said in his debate with Sharpton) I haven't had any luck so far, but I thought I'd drop the request here, so there's at least a record of it. JesseW (talk) 05:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It's from his essay, 'On Miracles', which is included in most modern versions of the Enquiry I believe.
 * I can't find anything resembling that quote in Of Miracles (copy of the text from alhassanain.com). Could you clarify where exactly you saw it? JesseW (talk) 05:39, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hitchens was probably thinking of Thomas Paine's remark in The Age of Reason: "Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie?" ~ DanielTom (talk) 08:29, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment removed by author; see history if you happen to care -- JesseW (talk) 03:11, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe Hitchens reference is about this quote: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." It is not about quoting Hume so much as refering to his way of reasoning about miracles. Hitchens often referred to Hume in this way ut usually with something along the lines of "What is more likely, that the laws of nature has been suspended in your favor, or that you've made a mistake", not exactly an accurate quote either, but both captures the essence of Humes reasoning.

How on earth do you turn this quote into 'Hitchens is a sexist'? It is clear, very, very clear as to what Hitchens is suggesting, and to somehow suggest sexism is involved is simply ignorant at best, or intentionally misinterpreting for you own agenda, at worse. --
 * How on earth did you people (the commenter above, and the multiple IPs and accounts that have felt the need to modify my comment) wander across the David Hume talk page, and by what twisted line of logic did you convert an offhand comment thanking User:DanielTom for his research work into some kind of position statement on the gender politics of Christopher Hitchens? Since apparently reverting random alterations of said offhand comment is a (rather unnecessary) extra source of maintainence work for the recent change patrollers of Wikiquote (nevertheless, thank you User:IOHANNVSVERVS), I've removed it. Hopefully this will satisfy the defenders of ... whatever they think they are defending ... and the rest of us can get back to researching and sourcing obscure quotes. JesseW (talk) 00:59, 8 July 2016 (UTC)