Single Idea 2378

[catalogued under 29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality]

Full Idea

Knowledge of man's estate after death, and its rewards, is a belief grounded upon other men's sayings that they knew it supernaturally, or they knew those, that knew those, that knew others, that knew it supernaturally.

Gist of Idea

Belief in an afterlife is based on poorly founded gossip

Source

Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15)

Book Reference

Hobbes,Thomas: 'Leviathan', ed/tr. Macpherson,C.B. [Penguin 1981], p.206