On Miracles, Hume and a Modern Atheist Called TMM

Why Miracles Can't Happen
TMM | 4 Aug. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2_kC-UaimE

Bradypus tridactylus

@bradypustridactylus488

There is something profoundly circular in this line of thinking.
How do you know that god rules the world? — Because god produces miracles.
How do know that god produces miracles? — Because god rules the world.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

No. Correcting the second one:

How do know that god produces miracles? — Because miracles are observed and only a god who rules the world can explain them.

"A miracle is a purported violation of a law of nature."

Defined so by whom?

"This is impossible by definition, because a law of nature is defined as a regularity that is never violated."

By whom?

"If you ever see a violation of a law of nature, that would just mean it wasn't really a law."

Only expands on previous.

"If somebody tells you anything about any subject, not just a miracle, there's always the possibility that said person is lying, mistaken, or delusional."

That's always a possibility to "weigh in" but not always a practical possibility. Breakfast with risen Jesus in John 21 doesn't match what any hallucination could look like, not just because it was collective, but because a breakfast of fried fish is not half as exciting as what hallucinations tend to be. And so on for other factors. In other words, the possibility to reckon with is in some cases a possibility to definitely reckon away, to definitely discard.

"... you should always estimate whether the truth of what they are saying is more probable than any of those potential fallibilities."

Which Christian apologetics have a tradition of making very precise evaluations of. Like reducing them to zero and being left with the truth of what they are saying.

"If you want to convince me that a guy rose from the dead, I'd have to see his brain in a state of necrosis with my own eyes and I'd have to directly witness him get up and walk around"

Because of the wrong reasoning blindly following the lead from Hume ... including his definition.

[Looking up, my comments have disappeared, including my answer to Bradypus tridactylus.]