Norman Bonney: Lets put our faith in a few home truths

During 2011, there are numerous celebrations in Edinburgh University and elsewhere of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Hume (1711-1776), who is widely regarded as the key figure of the Scottish enlightenment during the 18th century and the greatest philosopher in the English language.

Hume was controversial in his time and the arguments he proposed that were sceptical of religion continue to be controversial and of relevance today.

Despite his great stature, Edinburgh University, which is proud to claim that he studied there as a student from age 15, did not, however, appoint the most renowned philosopher of the day to a chair since his profound religious scepticism made it impossible. Nicholas Philipson, an Edinburgh University academic and expert on the two famous writers, argued recently that this was all to the good since it gave him more time to write and the position that he took as librarian in the Faculty of Advocates gave him the resources with which to pursue his research and writing.

Hume argued that we should only believe that for which we have first hand or reliable evidence. He elegantly and rationally pointed to the superstitions on which religions are based, the wide variety of them, lack of evidence for them and the cruelties that have been inflicted in the name of religion.

He doubted the alleged miracles that are the basis of Christianity. Hume wrote not long after Thomas Aikenhead, an Edinburgh University student, was executed in 1697, with the consent of the Church of Scotland, for the blasphemy of ridiculing the Bible. That Hume was able to keep his life despite such effrontery to the religious establishment was a measure of social advancement in mid-18th century Edinburgh.

This was a time when the religious wars were not long passed and, in the present day, when they again seem resurgent there is much to be said for his religious scepticism.

Despite advances in science, education and living standards, strange irrational religious beliefs that are increasingly dignified as "faiths" still play a very influential and not always commendable or justifiable role in modern life.

We divide our children into different types of state-funded schooling, we select our monarch and support our football teams because of arcane disputes between Christian denominations as to whether or not the body of a man purportedly born 2000 years ago makes a material appearance at a communion service.

Edinburgh itself recently ground to a halt because of a visit by a man who purportedly has some special role in mediating relations between devotees of a widely supported faith and "god".

We increasingly as a society expect women and men to have equal rights in UK. In Afghanistan, our troops fight, in part, to liberate women from oppression, but at home we grant special privileges to educate some of our children to a faith that excludes women from the priesthood.

In the Scotland of today, sectarian tensions, such as there are, persist since they are perpetuated by separating our children into state schools with different schemes of religious education and worship. Politicians seem unwilling to grasp the thistle to create a single state school system free of religious segregation and indoctrination.

Hume's scepticism of religion continues to have much to commend it. Just as Hume argued, more scepticism and less faith would make for a much improved nation and world.

The teachings of Adam Smith (1723-1790) are more well known. He is globally famous as an advocate of free markets, his ideas were heavily influenced by Hume and still have great weight in the world - for instance, in influencing the entry of China into the global economy. What is less well known is that before he wrote the Wealth of Nations he wrote the Theory of Moral Sentiments that, according to Philipson, provided for the first time, a non-Christian basis for university education, thus providing for secular universities and the subsequent growth of independent thinking, teaching and research.

Perhaps because he didn't want to risk losing his chair at Glasgow University, Adam Smith kept quiet about his views of religion, although he is suspected of being as sceptical as Hume.

• Norman Bonney is convener of the Edinburgh and Kirkcaldy Secular Society and a member of the Council of the National Secular Society (www.secularism.org.uk). For more on Hume, visit www.davidhume.org and www.humequotes.blogspot.com