Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Of Miracles 1
In section 10, Hume discusses miracles and says that we really have no reason to believe in miracles or to consider them foundational to religion. He says that all knowledge we have of miracle comes from the account of others and what they say they have seen, which should make us more skeptical of them. He goes on to say that there is no evidence that miracles exist and we should not believe something that we do not have evidence for. He says that the only evidence we have for miracles is the testimony of others, but the laws of nature show evidence of against miracles. Since we have observed and have evidence that the laws of nature are true and a miracle is, by definition, a violation of these laws, it leads us to believe that miracles cannot be true.
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3 comments:
I sort of agree with Hume about how there is no evidence of miracle excpet for the testimony of others and how sure can we be of the testimony of others. Hume doesn't go into it but how am i sure of other peoples exitence so how can i be sure what they tell me or what i hear to be true in any aspect without percieving it myself and even then how do i make sure i am not being decieced by someone or something
I think the problem with Hume's argument against miracles is that, as skeptical as he is with the existence of necessary connections between things, he uses the idea of natural laws in an attempt to debunk miracles. So at first Hume says that we have no reason(other than custom or habit) to believe in the existence of physical laws, but for some reason HUme now argues that we can be sure that miracles cannot happen because of a newfound certainty concerning the fixity of physical laws. Inconsistency here?
does hume argue, that we should not listen to others talk about miracles they have witnessed, or not listen to people talk about what they have witnessed. if a person tells me a crazy story then says it was a miracle, i can still believe the story happened, even if i dont believe in miracles. i am a christian, and i believe in the resurrection. i have only read the Bible, and never witnessed anything "miracles", but i dont understand why life has to end after death, even if no sentient God exists
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