Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Simplified on Superphysics

Pamphilus To Hermippus

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ancient philosophers conveyed most of their instruction in the form of dialogue. But dialogues have been little practised in later ages and have seldom succeeded when attempted.

Skepticism amd Stoicism

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I joined the company sitting in CLEANTHES’s library.

DEMEA gave compliments to CLEANTHES on:

the great care which he took of my education
his unwearied perseverance and constancy in all his friendships.

He said that the father of PAMPHILUS was your intimate friend. The son is your pupil which can even be regarded as your adopted son.

Atheism and Francis Bacon

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Cleanthes

You and all speculative sceptics have a doctrine that are at variance in:

Father Malebranche

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Demea

I imagine that you Cleanthes were:

The Importance of Experience

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Demea

Good God! Where are we?

Cleanthes' 2 Suppositions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Cleanthes

It became necessary for Copernicus and his first disciples to prove the similarity of the terrestrial and celestial matter.

Demea Versus Cleanthes

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Cleanthes

DEMEA, you are so sincere in the cause of religion. But I find it strange that you still maintain the mysterious, incomprehensible nature of the Deity, and insist that he has no resemblance to human creatures.

Scientific Discoveries

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Philo

But to show you still more inconveniences in your Anthropomorphism, please review your principles.

Like effects arise from like causes

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Demea

It must be a slight fabric which can be erected on so tottering a foundation. While we are uncertain whether there is one deity or many; whether the deity or deities, to whom we owe our existence, be perfect or imperfect, subordinate or supreme, dead or alive, what trust or confidence can we repose in them? What devotion or worship address to them? What veneration or obedience pay them? To all the purposes of life the theory of religion becomes altogether useless: and even with regard to speculative consequences, its uncertainty, according to you, must render it totally precarious and unsatisfactory.

Philo

To render it still more unsatisfactory, there occurs to me another hypothesis, which must acquire an air of probability from the method of reasoning so much insisted on by CLEANTHES.

Philo's Cosmology

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Philo

In examining the ancient system of the soul of the world, I am suddenly struck by a new idea that subverts all your reasoning

Physics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Philo

What you ascribe to the fertility of my invention is entirely owing to the nature of the subject.

The Nature of the Deity

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Demea

But if so many difficulties attend the argument a posteriori, had we not better adhere to that simple and sublime argument a priori, which, by offering to us infallible demonstration, cuts off at once all doubt and difficulty?

The Misery of Life

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Demea

I think that each man feels the truth of religion within his own breast from a consciousness of his imbecility and misery, rather than from any reasoning,

The Universe

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Cleanthes

I suspect that the frequent repetition of the word ‘infinite’, which we meet with in all theological writers, are more for flattery than philosophy.

Galen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

After DEMEA left, CLEANTHES and PHILO continued the conversation.

Philo

I am less cautious on the subject of Natural Religion than on any other because:

Why is Religion Bad?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Philo

If vulgar superstition is so salutary to society, then why does it have pernicious consequences on public affairs?