Of Miracles by David Hume Essays -- Empiricists, Empiricism

"Of Miracles" by David Hume In David Hume?s paper ?Of Miracles,? Hume presents a various number of arguments concerning why people ought not to believe in any miracles. Hume does not think that miracles do not exist it is just that we should not believe in them because they have no rational background. One of his arguments is just by definition miracles are unbelievable. And have no rational means in believing miracles. Another argument is that most miracles tend to come from uncivilized countries and the witnesses typically have conflicts of interest and counterdict each others experiences. Both of these arguments are valid however they tend to be weak. I think that Hume?s strongest argument is that he claims there is no credibility to the testimony behind the miracles. In Hume?s argument he says ?that there is no testimony for any, even those which have not been expressly detected, that is not opposed by an infinite number of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of the testimony, but the testimony destroys itself.? To make this clear Hume uses religious matters. Many religions use miracles as a foundation. ?Every miracle, therefor, pretended to have been wrought in any of these religions as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which it is attributed; so has it the same force, though bore indirectly, to overthrow every other system.? If the miracles try to destroy a system, a religion, it destroys the credit of the miracles themselves, and the system in which they were established. Since most religions are based on miracles and try to destroy each other with contrary miracles and then we as humans have no reasoning on which miracle to believe in. Therefore what I ... ...may not be any rationality behind the miracles its just something mankind must do. I do not know what Hume?s reaction would be to this kind of an argument but I am sure he would find something wrong about it and lead us to believe that miracles are still something that people ought not believe in. Miracles do happen. They have happened in the past and will remain occurring in the future. The question is not whether or not miracles exist, but whether we should believe in them or not. Hume discusses, in ?Of Miracles,? many reasons why we should not believe in such miracles for various reasons. However I have made a counter argument of Hume?s in saying that we must believe in miracles and if we do not have any faith that they are true then society would fail and not develop. Miracles are something that exist and are something that we have to believe in.