"David Hume and the Logical Case Against Miracles" is Excellent!
This is an excellent video! I highly recommend it on David Hume’s Part 1 argument against miracles. It looks like my arguments on behalf of the outsider test for faith are included. It cuts to the chase.
Now consider my discussion below. I think I came up with a new take on miracles!
Consider first my essay at the Secular Web, Questioning Miracles: In Defense of David Hume.
Also consider Laws, Darkness, and Resurrection: Exceptions and Violations in Hume’s Account of Miracles by C. M. Lorkowski.
Neither of these two articles are dealt with by Timothy McGrew in his entry on Miracles at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Will he?
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Let's say this: The more that a given miracle has no natural explanation then the more that objective evidence is needed to confirm it. Or perhaps this: To the degree a given miracle claim has no natural explanation then to that same degree more objective evidence is needed to confirm it.
There is clearly a line between two alleged miraculous events A & B, where one of them A, has a natural explanation and the other one B, doesn't.
To the degree then that one's faith depends on A miracles then to that same degree one's faith has no solid foundation.
When it comes to B miracles there is a woeful lack of relevant objective evidence for the reports of them in the Bible.
If believers won't require objective evidence for B, then they should require objective evidence for the existence of the particular god who is claimed to have done B.
Just look at the Christian cases for the big three Christian miracles: 1) Creation, 2) a virgin conceived incarnate god, and 3) a resurrection of the alleged Messiah Jesus. They provide a huge problem for reasonable Christian belief. For any alleged evidence for 1 points to any creator god, not the Christian one, while it's pretty clear there is no objective evidence for 2 or 3.
So anyone defending B miracles--that have no natural explanation--is being unreasonable since reasonable people require objective evidence for any OTHER miracles than the ones they were culturally indoctrinated to believe, including all the religions they reject. Treating miracles by different standards is a sure sign they're being unreasonable.
Now consider my discussion below. I think I came up with a new take on miracles!
Consider first my essay at the Secular Web, Questioning Miracles: In Defense of David Hume.
Also consider Laws, Darkness, and Resurrection: Exceptions and Violations in Hume’s Account of Miracles by C. M. Lorkowski.
Neither of these two articles are dealt with by Timothy McGrew in his entry on Miracles at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Will he?
---------------------------
Let's say this: The more that a given miracle has no natural explanation then the more that objective evidence is needed to confirm it. Or perhaps this: To the degree a given miracle claim has no natural explanation then to that same degree more objective evidence is needed to confirm it.
There is clearly a line between two alleged miraculous events A & B, where one of them A, has a natural explanation and the other one B, doesn't.
To the degree then that one's faith depends on A miracles then to that same degree one's faith has no solid foundation.
When it comes to B miracles there is a woeful lack of relevant objective evidence for the reports of them in the Bible.
If believers won't require objective evidence for B, then they should require objective evidence for the existence of the particular god who is claimed to have done B.
Just look at the Christian cases for the big three Christian miracles: 1) Creation, 2) a virgin conceived incarnate god, and 3) a resurrection of the alleged Messiah Jesus. They provide a huge problem for reasonable Christian belief. For any alleged evidence for 1 points to any creator god, not the Christian one, while it's pretty clear there is no objective evidence for 2 or 3.
So anyone defending B miracles--that have no natural explanation--is being unreasonable since reasonable people require objective evidence for any OTHER miracles than the ones they were culturally indoctrinated to believe, including all the religions they reject. Treating miracles by different standards is a sure sign they're being unreasonable.
Apologist David Pallmann responded: I'm not treating miracles by an inconsistent standard. I am rejecting the standard that you put forward in the first place.
Loftus: So based solely on a young woman's claim that her baby was conceived as a virgin you believe her, no worse yet, you believe others who say so, who also tell us about a star no one had ever seen pointing down to his birth-place, with prophecies taken out of context, yada yada, without any corroborating objective evidence, and without any chance to interrogate them? See my paper Hail Mary!
David Pallmann: Well I don't think it is based solely on that. It's also based on the evidence for that divinity of the person to whom she gave birth. It would be one thing if Mary gave birth to just another average Joe and then claimed that this child was conceived in her while she was a virgin. The situation is very different here. We have independent reasons, in my view, to think that there was something special about the person to whom she gave birth.
Loftus: Which comes first, A) the belief in a trinitarian redeeming miracle-working god who became incarnate, or B) believing the TESTIMONY in Matthew and Luke for a trinitarian redeeming miracle-working god who became incarnate? If it's B then you have no outside considerations to assess the claim of Mary, since it is why you believe in A. No wonder Bill Craig is forced to punt to Psychic Epistemology: Psychic Epistemology: The Special Pleading of William Lane Craig » Internet Infidels
Furthermore, we might have an even bigger problem Houston, with regard Luke's rejection of Matthew: Debunking Christianity: Luke's Gospel Rejects Matthew's Previous Gospel!!
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