a. David Hume is probably the most famous atheist who argues against the possibility of miracles. Hume argues that is impossible to prove that a miracle has occurred. He gives four reasons why miracles are false.
i. No miracle in history is attested by a sufficient number of educated and honest men, who are of social standing that they would have a great deal to lose by lying. In other words, the only people who claim to have witnessed a miracle are those who are poor, uneducated and stupid. These people need to draw attention to themselves and would stand to lose nothing if they were caught lieing.
ii. People crave the miraculous and will believe the most absurd stories, as the abundance of false tales of miracles proves.
iii. Miracles occur only among barbarous peoples.
iv. Miracles occur in all religions and thereby cancel each other out, since they support contradictory doctrines.
b. Each of these arguments are based on false information.
i. First and foremost, the miracles in Scripture had several witnesses by both abundant and qualified people. The fact, of the matter is historians of every culture could not argue with the idea that many people had seen Jesus do miracles. Even Muslims do not argue with the idea that Jesus was a miracle worker. Also, every apostle who claimed to witness the resurrection lost their life. Seems to me that they did have a lot to lose. Many of the disciples were called uneducated men because they were fisherman. But the gospel of Luke was written by a doctor, how much education do you want? The disciples also each died giving testimony of the resurrection.
ii. His argument here only proves that people don’t tend to believe miraculous stories without proper scrutiny. When you see a special on TBN about miracles happen, all you really do is question the veracity of the event.
iii. Jesus miracles occurred in Jerusalem, not amongst barbarous people.
iv. Hume argues that all religions have miracles. This is not true. Christianity is the only religion that claims to able to prove its teachings through miracles.
Finally, Here is three reasons why we can believe in an Intelligent Designer as opposed to a Big Bang theory.
1. The Origin of the Universe – The fact of the matter is that almost every scientist and rational thinker today believes that the universe had a beginning. Some would call it a big bang. But what was the cause of the Big Bang? You cannot take something from nothing and the universe beginning had to start from something. If we heard a big bang outside and then walked out and saw a tree. We would ask where did that come from. If I said It came from nothing and just fell from the sky. You would laugh at me, because no rational person would accept that answer. Something had to create the universe and it’s not beyond reason to believe in an Intelligent Designer.
Now the logical question to this would be, “If everything has to have a first cause then who created God or where did God come from? The answer to that is, God doesn’t have a beginning like the universe does. “The premise is that whatever begins to exist must have a cause. In other words, ‘being’ can’t come from nonbeing’. Since God never began to exist, he doesn’t require a cause. He never came into being.” Now the Big Bang theory says that cells were the things that were uncaused. So the faith is in a God or cells. Either way it is faith. This leads me to the second rational thought to the existence of God.
2. The Complexity of the Universe – If cells came together and created our complex universe over billions of years then you have more faith than I do. In fact, scientist today say that the Big Bang was not some chaotic, primordial event, but rather a highly ordered event that required an enormous amount of information. In fact, from the very moment of its inception, the universe had to be fine-tuned to an incomprehensible precision for the existence of life. In other words, this planet had to have the perfect amount of oxygen combined with hydrogen and other gases to sustain life. And this points to an Intelligent designer makes more sense then coincidence. If you just took the complexity of the human body, you would have to come to the conclusion of an Intelligent designer.
3. Our Morals point to a God – If God does not exist then neither do morals. Try asking an atheist who determines what is right and wrong in a society. For one religion says it is ok to kill anyone who is not a blue-eyed blonde and another person says it is wrong to kill. What is right and what is wrong? The truth is we all know deep down that there is a moral value system. We know it’s wrong to lie, steal, murder, and cheat. Why because God put those values in us. Next time you meet someone who doesn’t believe in God ask them what determines right and wrong. You will probably get the answer well its relative to each person. At that point, punch them in the nose. They will you can’t do that. And you say, "says who?" (btw, please don't punch anyone in the nose, we are just making a valid point here that we know it is wrong to just punch somebody in the nose.) We have a moral value system that points to a God.
If you like to study this subject more I would like to suggest two books.
1) The Reason for God by Tim Keller
2) Reasonable Faith by William Craig
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