Here She Be — The Battlements

     We proportion our belief to our experience, sometimes relying on the testimony of others where our experience is lacking, and we compare testimonies to one another, as well as with our own experience, in determining their probability. In relating testimony to our experience we rely on conformability. Someone who is told that water freezes in the cold but has never seen it may appropriately not believe the testimony because water freezing does not conform with his experience. Miracles may be defined as a transgression against the laws of nature, presumably by the Deity or some invisible agent.
     Weighing the testimony of a miracle, we would have to suppose it more miraculous that the testifier would deceive or be deceived than the miracle he purports. Otherwise if it is more likely that the testifier is deceiving or being deceived, then I cannot conclude that the miracle happened. Of course, this also assumes that testimony alone, without experience, can act as a proof of something. Yet no miracle has been attested to by sufficient men of such renowned quality and learning that they would be above deceiving or beyond being deceived, nor has any such event occurred in a location under circumstances that would render any kind of pertinent deceit completely detectable. Often, people will disregard using past experience to judge testimony when they are caught up in the passion of wonder—folklore for example, are the feats of Hercules less attested than the resurrection of Lazarus?
     Often an eloquent speaker can also induce in the many a sense of belief—the passion of well-worded propaganda speaking. This sort of talk spreads fast because it is more interesting than the day to day conversation. We can also see that many prophecies and miracles are first given to people with fewer faculties for explaining situations less commonly experienced. A great orator or prophet, we presume, has experience that we do not, and so his testimony becomes considered more reliable than our experience, just as when we are children and do not question our teachers because they know much more than we do. And when one man can convince a large group of others, that large group becomes more testimony to something with tenuous origins. We maintain these things even as our cultures become more intelligent out of a sort of tradition, or belief in our forefathers, though they knew less about the world than we do now.
     Also, consider that there are many religions, each with many miracles. These miracles give support for the religion as being valid, which is motivation for supporters to spread them. Also, if someone believes in a miracle in one religion, then they disbelieve the miracles of all others, as the invisible agent(s) in question are different. This is similar to when a judge considers the testimony of two opposed witnesses in court. The miracles of each religion discredit the miracles of the others. If we tried to conceive of all miracles being from the same deity, we would find equal difficulty in reconciling Hercules with Lazarus. Events such as these occur and are refuted in any age, yet we continue the habit. Continued talk of a miracle becomes irrefutable because all testifiers and evidence is gone, save for historical writing; though, if two ancient armies declared that they won the same battle and described it thus, we could no more capably refute one testimony in place of the other. So, no miracle has amounted to being probable, much less a proof. And thus, no human testimony can provide such force as to prove a miracle and make it sufficient support for a religion.
     Saying that an Almighty being is responsible for a miracle makes it no more probable. We cannot know the actions of such a being except, again, by experience as to his creations, which work in the usual course of nature. Religion is founded on faith and not on reason, so using reason to defend it will prove impossible. This is because even in the Pentateuch, for example, it does not seem more miraculous that it should be a falsehood than the miracles actually happened, so we cannot reasonably conclude that they did. If faith alone causes someone to assent, then they are willing to allow all that concerns their understanding to be subverted, and for the most contrary of things to replace habit and custom that are established in experience.