Obviously the attitude one takes to the ‘fideism’ that simply lets particular religious beliefs walk free from reason may depend heavily on what has recently been happening when they do so. Hume was born less than twenty years after the last legal religious executions in Britain, and himself suffered from the enthusiastic hostility of believers. If in our time and place all we see are church picnics and charities, we will not be so worried. But enough people come down the mountain carrying their own practical certainties to suggest that we ought to be. Maybe some day something will be found
...more

