Miracles shouldn’t be necessary to prove God and I think for contemporary religion “miracles” is one of the greatest barriers for people to believe. How hard it is to believe some of these completely zany stories that defy logic and natural phenomenon.
Now how hard is it to just allow the natural (not the supernatural freak show) to be evidence for a supreme being?
It is like we have to havethe circus in town in order to get people to but tickets. Really, it is nothing short of that in my opinion. People gather together and celebrate these “miracles” in spite of all the natural occurences that we take for granted. People are striving for supernatural phenomenon through faith when the natural should certainly be enough.
As was mentioned before, why can’t the natural and the norm be a “miracle” in itself. This isn’t what is commonly celebrated. All the emphasis goes into the supernatural miracles or the super duper power. This, to me, is nonsense and this is what occultism is all about.
Occultism, in my opinion, is boredom with the natural and attention-seeking. My goodness, the natural universe IS the miracle and the only miracle. Nothing more is neccesary. Do we really need people walking on water, rising from the dead, turning H2O into a divine Bordeaux? That, again to me, is myth for entertainment (boredom with the natural) and attention seeking. The natural speaks for itself … at least what we understand of it. The supernatural miracles are really quite unnecessary. Even for “God” whose natural creations are complex enough.
This argument is kind of backwards. From a Christian perspective, the miracle stories were not invented as a tool to convince people God exists (though you are welcome to think otherwise). They are simply an account of what happened. The power of those stories to convince people of the reality of God is of secondary importance.
Now, I don't personally refer to the Miracles of the Bible when someone asks me for evidence of the existence of God. That would be a silly thing to do, since a skeptic about God obviously isn't going to see the Bible as a reliable source of information. But at the same time, you can't get rid of the notion of the miraculous either, because it's (allegedly) a part of the historical account of the events that led to the rise of Christianity in the first place.
Thanks for the input and I see where you are coming from.
However, didn’t Christ allegedly fulfill prophecy? How does one fulfill prophecy unless they have supernatural miracle power?
If Jesus didn’t do the “amazing” things he did, would people worship him? That’s the point I am getting at. It’s not really Jesus message as it is the “amazing” supernatural things Jesus did. What set Jesus apart from everyone else wasn’t Jesus’ message, it was the super duper power he had. He was superman. The amazing powers he had was of primary interest over his message. Take aways his powers and the message is lost; take away the message and the supernatural power is still of interest. The message is only a revelation due to the supernatural happenings. If the message was all that was necessary, then the “miracles” would not be needed.
I think it is a circus act myself, but to each their own.
Certainly they would not, I should think. A person who claimed to be deity and such wouldn’t be remembered fo 2000 years if He didn’t perform any miracles, and didn’t fulfill prophecy, and didn’t rise from the dead. His miraculous deeds were certainly the proof that got Christianity going.
That’s an interesting take, and to an extent I have to agree. A lot of people throughout history have said a lot of profound things, and what sets Jesus apart was who He claimed to be, as evidenced by the miracles.
Yes, I know what you mean. Perhaps you’re younger than me and have your life before you. But life has more facets than we can presage, each year we come to know it better, each decade is a great pool of experience. You get to think you know what life is all about and suddenly you’re relearning everything again. You get used to the routine and suddenly everything changes. You are happy about reaching a goal - and suddenly you realise that you have no laurels to rest on.
Why should you be someone who misses the show? I get the feeling that people think that revelation always was something special - when in fact it is what should be normal. We are human beings with the ability to comprehend what the maker has created. We are able to reason things out, get behind complicated coherent phenomenon. We can even aspire to travel to our moon and neighbouring planets.
But when it comes to comprehending our own existence, the stone-age guy was further. He fathomed out what he knew by himself, not by using a library or the internet. He didn’t have a school or television. And we call him primitive!!?? So what that he thought that gods caused the lightening to strike. Man made progress, realised the mistake, but gave the forefathers credit for building the platform on which we stand. I think that people today could show the same kind of reverence - and I think that if we don’t, we won’t have that platform for long.
Miracles are an expression of man’s amazement at what a fellow human-being can achieve when he is in unison with the creator. By becoming an exception, that one person rises above the rest. I don’t know how Jesus performed the things people say of him. I don’t know whether he actually did what people thought he had done. But whatever he did, it made him special and gave other people hope. Apparently this special gift was passed on to a few of his disciples - although it didn’t last long. We discuss the things that we see on the surface, but can we fathom out what went on in the depths?
I can’t honestly say that miracles are assistance. I believe they are signs that another kind of reality is somehow evading us. We’re missing something on a large scale. They are evidence that man has a potential for good things in the same scale that he has a potential for bad. The frustrating thing is that the bad prevails. Miracles just show the other end of the scale.
I know that real “faith and prayer” does a lot of good in all instances! And I’m not talking about the childrens reciting at mealtimes, or the pleas for help when everything has fallen down. I’m talking about the trust that God inspires and the cleansing that prayer can effectively cause, making us free to concentrate on other things.
I believe it was Martin Luther who said that all prayer was an appeal to God, a supplicatory pleading for entrance into the “realm of God” which is in fact the better end of the scale. It is the deep wish that ones eyes be opened to see the things that they can’t presently see. It isn’t that God and his realm are “invisible” - it is the fact that we are missing them. Our blind spot is preventing us from seeing the things that matter. We can’t see the star that illuminates our mind, it’s clouded over by our tears, by our fear, by our prejudices, by our peering at short-termed advantages and by our greed.
Miracles are the contrast to the dark and misty reality that we experience. They are a sign that life is more than we realise. And miracles occur whenever a human-being discovers that God is just as close up as he is far away.
I think it is interesting that Thomas didn’t even believe the resurrection until he saw it for himself.
Now if Thomas was demanding proof and didn’t buy it until he received it, is it so much to ask for everyone else to be skeptical until they are granted the evident?
I think Hume makes a pretty good argument on miracles as well from “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”:
Well, I dont think the “Miracles of Jesus” do the arguments for “God” any justice.
Jesus’ following was based primarly on the idea of salvation for all who repent and seek it. Sounded pretty good for some, who were unsatisfied with life.
But to me, no miracle will make me believe in Jesus the supernatural being, or to worship him as a God. It reminds me too much of worship out of fear as practiced by early man (Worship of the sea, or of storms e.t al.)
I myself can’t believe in any “loving” deity who would condemn anyone to eternal punishment. Just seems a bit extreme to writhe in pain forever, dont ya think?
You know that even as an Atheist i have a profound respect for myth and how it has aided man. I sometimes inadvertently forget the attitude of reverance, though. Easily done once one has lost the last strands of myth in one’s life.
Bob also said:
I was thinking more in the lines of the subconscious communicating with the conscious (perhaps after fasting for days) or mantras, that repeated over and over eventually fulfill themselves. I too was not alluding to prayers done for show such as those performed at public functions.
Enigma stated:
This is precisely what i was referring to when i said earlier in this post:
(Italics mine and not in the original)
Telesis brings up a good point:
Can miracles be construed as an argument from intimidation in that those who espouse them think that we should fear a God who can do these things? And it does put one in the mindset of an earlier, now gone, epoch.
What Hume is saying is that if someone comes up to you and tells you they witnessed a supernatural miracle (which you personally did not witness), then you are left with two options in response:
This person was either deceived or trying to deceive due to natural evidence.
or
This person actually witnessed this “miracle” and it did happen.
Now when deciding between #1 or #2, we have to consider which one is most probable since we did not actually witness the “miracle.” For #2 to be more probable, then we have to claim that #1 (which is based on the laws of nature that are quite obvious) is more of a miracle (or LESS probable) than #2. Now think about that; to believe in any miracle you did not actually witness, you have to claim the natural phenomenon that we all witness regularly is LESS probable than the miracle itself. In other words, we have to ignore the consistency of natural law that is obvious and empirical in favor of a supernatural event that was not witnessed and defies witnessable natural phenomenon that is extremely improbable.
The natural is much, much, much more probable than the supernatural; but when evaluating miracles we have to completely ignore that the natural has a higher probability in order to accept a miracle. We completely ignore highly probable empirical fact which is found in the natural to embrace low-probable nonempirical (and non-witnessed) opinion of a miracle.
To believe in unobserved miracles, you have to admit that what naturally happens obviously right in front of us through nature is not really all that probable.
But that amounts to saying "Whether miracles can happen or not, it is always irrational to believe them if you didn't witness them yourself." Granting at least the [i]possibility[/i] of miracles, the using the system Hume describes makes it impossible to investigate individual claims, because they must be discarded out of hat. I'm not usually a utilitarian, but it seems to me if a system makes it impossible to investigate the credibility of logically possible events, the system ought to be thrown out for something else. The only purpose Hume's idea seems to have here is to give justification to someone who has already made up their mind to disregard all miracle claims.
Besides, in what way exactly does a miracle defy obvious natural law? Sure, I experience water [i]not[/i] turning into wine every day. How do I turn that observation into an statement about what is and isn't possible, especially when considering matters of devine intervention?
But I think the “possibility” of miracles is what Hume is pointing out quite clearly.
Hume is just pointing out that there is a significantly greater probability in natural occurances when compared to supernatural miracles. Can anyone deny this?
Take for example I tell you I can lift up a large truck with one arm over my head. Now that would certainly be miraculous and supernatural.
Now you have to decide which is more probable:
A. Miracle actually occured
or
B. Natural law prevents that from occuring
In order for you to accept A you have to admit that B is less probable. You have to admit that natural law which is something we witness regularly is less probable than supernatural phenomenon that virtually never happens when compared to natural law. So therefore for A to occur you have to admit that B (the natural) is even MORE miraculous because it is even less probable than A (the supernatural).
That's certainly true, but by that reasoning we should disbelieve any news report about someone winning the lottery, someone being struck by lightning, and so forth. If the likelyhood of natural occurances is the only thing to take into consideration, both of these things are statistically close to impossible.
Why can’t I simply believe that a fairly improbable thing happened? Improbable things happen all the time. In many cases, we believe these things happened without any direct evidence- we simply heard it from what we consider to be a credible source. Other than the examples I gave above, ought we also disregard any unlikely seeming “You’ll never guess what happened to me on the way home from work” type story we hear from a loved one, simply because the situation they discribe is improbable?
Perhaps miracles are a special case, though. If that’s what you mean, then you’ll have to explain in what sense miracles can be taken to be a special case, without an assumption that they don’t or can’t happen.
There is nothing supernatural about winning the lottery or being struck by lightening. Those things are very natural even though the probability is low for it to happen to ONE person, the probability isn’t virtually impossible with many people because we have EVIDENCE and can actually witness them.
Odds of being struck by lighteing are one in 600,00.
Odds of winning the lottery are …
What’s the probability of walking on water? Snapping your fingers and turning water into wine? Parting the sea?
And of course we have NO evidence outside of hearsay.
Do you believe that I can lift a full-sized truck over my head with one arm? Or does probability just come into play … this time?
I saw a show on the History channel where they talked about the parallels between the stories in the bible and speculation of alien life present here on earth.
It was quite entertaining. At one point in the show, they discussed how alien ships used antigravitational forces to part the Red sea to allow John and his crew to escape the oncomming attack of the Isrealites, I think it was.
Remember the part in the bible about the “pillars of light?” Well, those were alien ships directly overhead providing the light necessary for John to recieve the Ten-Commandments as they teleported the stone tablet from the ship.
Didn’t you know this, pal. My God, where have you been all this time?
Wait until the dragons come after the fourth plague, which will be planted here by the Grays(a species of alien) to kill off 75% of the planets human population(downsizing) so the Grays may occupy the earth and enslave the remaining 25% of the human population. We’ll make great pets.
You tell me. If your answer is 'zero', then you're assuming that miracles are impossible. If you need to assume miracles are impossible for the purposes of your argument, then why propose this argument for not believing miracle accounts in the first place? Simply say "You shouldn't believe in miracles because they are impossible" and be done with it. The argument you present is redundant at best, circular at worst.
If your answer is 'non-zero', then the case exactly the same as people being struck by lightning or winning the lottery. We have a case of a very rare (and therefore improbable) event, which ought to be approached with some level of initial skepticism, but not outright disregard.
If your answer is "inscrutable", then I still say that's not cause to disregard miracle claims. I would say that the probability of the occurance of any act caused by a free agency (like God, or a person) is inscrutable, but that doesn't mean we should assume [i]nobody[/i] does [i]anything[/i] unless we see it ourselves. Or does it? Hume was a hardcore skeptic, after all. :slight_smile:
I'd also like to point out that religious believers are not simply a group of people that believe impossible stuff. I don't see religious people as being any more or less credulous than anyone else. Approach 100 Christians and 100 atheists, and tell them both that you lifted a car with one hand (perhaps telling the Christians that Jesus helped you, and telling the atheists that adrenaline and your own will to self-determination helped you), and I think the number of believers would be about the same. Religious believers don't believe that impossible stuff happens, they simply believe in an agency in which atheists do not, and [i]because of that agency[/i] certain things are not actually impossible which may appear to be so to others.
You presented it as a delibrate example of something absurd and false, so no, or course I don’t believe it.
I’m not assuming that miracles are impossible. It is just a case of what is most probable. I find it interesting that you claim that in regards to biblical miracles, then YOU assume that miracles have to be considered probable, but in the case of my ability to lift a truck over my head … then we have to REJECT the probability of this miracle.
I don’t think you are being consistent at all. But of course if someone can rationalize that it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to lift a truck over my head, but it is quite probable for someone to part the sea (even more probable than not); then how can I argue against that? Do I “need” to argue against that? It refutes itself.
The argument Hume presents is very sound and consistent. For someone to accept that a miracle occured, they have to accept that the natural is MORE of a miracle. To accept that Jesus turned water into wine, you have to completely reject that it was more probable that it may have been wine the whole time or water the whole time. You, in essence, are claiming that for water to remain water or wine to remain wine is a MORE miraculous than turning water into wine.
Look, I will now turn this water into … drumroll … water! Amazing.
The only assumption being made with miracles is that natural law is even more of a miracle. That’s pretty silly in my opinion, but to each their own.
