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Tom Milner-Gulland - Miracles (and Hume)
Hume's celebrated account of cause and effect in the _Enquiry_ entails the claim that 'all reasonings concerning matters of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect'. This should surely lead us to question the notion of reasoning. The caterpillar becomes metamorphosed into a butterfly, and if the precise set of processes involved can be so much as suggested by reason, then the premises must entail that, in the context of the function of an organism, some given outcome is due. How, then, can Hume justify his assumption that a cause must precede its effect? Perhaps, if it were shown that there were cases in which an effect precedes its cause, Hume would concede the reality of a miraculous component to natural process.
A.K.Farrar; Miracles
Considering the development of Protestantism in the USA the original differentiation of Catholic and Protestant treatment of the subject was fascinating.Thursdays are back to being thew best day of the week!
jane - a perspective
This perspective is obviously a product of my own nature and I apologize for being like a dog at a bone. Even in this splendid programme and moreover on the website, I am aware of what is either at best an inverted political correctness or at worst a dismissive arrogance. Anything which is not "of this earth" ie. detectable by our very limited senses or technology can't exist. We can't make sense (literally) of it therefore it's bunkum. I realize that there is the usual chaff from the wheat story and that is where the intellect can apply itself but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not viable. Throughout history many of our greatest thinkers and innovators have been, according to their own words, plugged into this deeper preternatural and often exquisitely elegant awareness. Even Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin belonged to secret mystical fraternities. Mozart said the music came through him, not from him. Einstein studied the writings of the amanuensis Helene Blavatsky and,I once read, kept 'The Secret Doctrine' on his desk. The list of these people would fill books but for some reason, the current intelligentsia like to whittle the whole thing down - separating out and obsessing about the fruits whilst ignoring the tree (if you'll forgive the naf analogy). Maybe it's because the ones who take up the story do not have the particular natural channels of awareness that those who create it have and can't begin to relate to them but they still shouldn't edit out the parts which don't suit their world view. There is obviously a big issue around street cred and humiliation etc which compounds the problem but it's really not excusable. The old adage stands firm "We see the universe as we are, not as it is". To use the wonderful intellect in this way is not creative. The programme is fantastic and many of the emails well worth reading but I really do want to make this point because I'm weary with this divide. When my nephew was about five years old he answered a question in school about the relatively strongest creature in the world. Not one other child in the class could understand, at that tender age, why the ant was, in this context, stronger than the elephant. Their young minds didn't have the format to grasp the concept but interestingly, in their incredulity, they indignantly decided the information must be wrong. Ah well,like Steve Jones said on a previous programme "Truth will out".
Paul Armstrong - Miracles
How can In Our Time be classed as a factual programme when Melvyn covers Miracles without challneging the their basic premise? They occur to a limited audience and cannot genrally be varified. If they happened in the scriptures then they were usually recorded many years after the event and would be categorised as hearsay in a court of law. People were illiterate and unsohpistiaced during these times and would have considered Paul Daniels a great witch.The tone of the programme was childish and reverential toward monothesim. Melvyn is moving closer to God the older he gets. Maybe he is trying to ingratiate himself just in case...
Dennis Apple: Miracles
Miracles are alleged events that cannot be explained due to the inadequacy of scientific understanding at the time. I find the concept slightly disturbing as it simply invokes the supernatural to explain something which undoubtedly has a rational basis. Also, to qualify, a miracle must have a beneficial element to one of two parties even though for the second party it might well be a disaster, as in the Red Sea incident. I would not regard a tsunami, which kills thousands of people as a miracle, nor the fact that my TV always turns on when I press a button. Miracles are the last resort of people who cannot, or will not, attempt to understand what is happening in the natural world around them. For them the very fact that this email has appeared might be regarded as a minor miracle!
Miracles and Saints
Janet Soskice was mistaken when she remarked that the veneration of the burial places of saints was unique to Christianity. Sufis venerate the burial places of wali in a very similar way. The burial places of wali are often places of pilgrimage where one would travel to receive blessings.
Trevor Hadfield
For me, this episode on miracles has been the best one for ages, and will go on the list of retained podcasts. But is there any possibility of transcribing the texts (eg of the lat two series) for publication? They would be a good source of material for further reading, and also make great christmas presents...
Howard: on Miracles
So good to have IOT back on air, but in the day (25/09/2008) of this sceptical age, in this unequal world as we have made it, I was a bit surprised that you didn't get around to discussing the underlying wickedness of the Cern Large Hadron Collider (strange it should go down) in attempting to disprove God's fundamental miracle - Creation! Maybe you'll "make" time yet.
Jon Wainwright, London: Miracles
Welcome back IOT! Martin Palmer extolled the "ancient wisdom" surrounding, for example, miraculous healing by herbs and prayer while at the same time characterizing modern science as "reductionist". However, before you can say "gosh this works" you must ensure you're not falling for the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. In fact, as Ben Goldacre argues (another topic for IOT!), it is alternative medicine (including so-called spiritual healing) and not scientific medicine that is "reductionist"! Shakespeare would have understood the need to be careful - his dramatization of the Simpcox miracle is salutary indeed.
Eileen Noakes - Miracles
Miracles could simply be the application of natural laws which our tiny brains do not yet understand, such as the very real power of thought and belief. Richard Dawkins is in his own way as much a fundamentalist as fundamentalist Christians - two sides of the same coin. It is entirely possible to believe both in a Creator or Creative Force and evolution.
Jane - again
My brain just threw some more thoughts on miracles from its recesses. 1. According to a particular book I once read about the dead sea scrolls, "walking on water" was a ritual performed by ordained priests. Jesus "walked on water" though he wasn't officially supposed to and thus the record of it. 2. Placebo effect can account for a certain percentage of spontaneous healing though not all - (an unexpected sense of peace often accompanies healing). 3. Stigmata tend to appear on the hands which is where artists depict the nails but I believe that in reality, the nails were put through the wrists. If this is so, the phenomenon would appear to be one of the psyche somehow.That's all.
léo burton.....Our own God
Welcome back! Whether or not the parting of the Red (or Reed) Sea was a miracle for the Israelites, it was certainly not considered a miracle by the pursuing Egyptians....God always intecedes on "OUR" side, even if He is punishing "us".When God told "us" Thou shalt not Kill, He meant (I know what He means!))thou shalt not kill one of "us"...it's commendable to kill one of the others.Inexplicable events are miracles when our God shows His love for us. He never interferes with Nature on behalf of uncoperative others
Mike Vickers
I felt despite Melvyn's concern in his letter that he had overrun I felt this programme was as ride ranging as any for a long time and the Green Room debate afterwards appeared even more so. Good to have the programme back.
Sharman:Miracles
A god and yet a man,A maid and yet a mother,Wit wonders what wit can,Conceive this or the other.
David Derrington - Miracles - Faith and Scepticism
An informative programme throughout, but so little time left for post-Enlightenment issues. The tension between faith and scepticism in the Augustinian, and surprisingly in the Franciscan tradition, became a definite theme, which could have been fruitfully applied to David Hume in “Of Miracles”.His famous quote that “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature” has to be balanced against his exposing, in an earlier section of the First Enquiry (IV Pt ii), that the scientific Principle of the Uniformity of Nature is in fact a belief. He shows there that “the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past”. involves a circular argument, but omits to apply this crucial insight to “the laws of nature” when he invokes them in his critique of the miraculous.
Gaynor Brown : re Miracles
Dear Melvyn,I love your programmes but how can you have a programme on Miracles and not mention C S Lewis' book on 'Miracles'. He discusses at length various aspects of miracles including that miracles must be outside the Laws of Nature which therefore might show the existence of a supernatural being who intervenes.
Miracles
I was a little surprised to hear in today's topic about Miracles that Martin Palmer described the parting of the Red Sea without making mention of the fact that there is a well recognized debate over the interpretation of the location of this miracle. It is widely believed that it was in a marshy area, the "Reed Sea" near the Gulf of Aqaba that the crossing was made, and thus this story may not have a supernatural basis. C. Kelly, Tunbridge Wells.
Gwyn Leyshon
Hi,I always thought that the 'Red' sea in the context of the Israelites escape from Egypt was in fact the 'Reed' sea, i.e. the marshy, Nile Delta region of Egypt, and what actually happened was that Moses and the Israelites picked a path through the marshes easlily enough as they were all on foot, and the Egyptians could not follow because their chariots became bogged down in the marshes...juts a thought.
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