I am split between Judaism and Christianity

I thought a bar mitzvah is when you celebrate that you turned 13 (not sure if it is 13) what glass?

You may be surprised to hear that in rather modern philosophy, Hume's argument against miracles has been strongly challenged if not actually, successfully refuted.

He didn't have the tool 'inference to the best explanation' in his toolbox as it wasn't until a few centuries later that probability theory arose with Bayes. The recent change in impressions of Hume's argument actually started with Humean supporters, who were looking to use Bayes theorem to illustrate the strength of the argument - but it just couldn't work. Somewhat of a watershed came in 2000 when John Earman, who's an agnostic philosopher of science and an able user of Bayes theorem, demonstrated how it fails. To try and give accurate picture of the book in one sentence as I can - Hume's argument is very broad (people lie and blind people don't suddenly get their sight back against scientific reasoning) which only serves to make the prior probability of something happening very unlikely. But what Earman showed is that it is perfectly possible, and in some cases normal, for specific cases to be so unlikely that people lied that it neutralises the prior probability - which is Hume's whole argument down the pan.

If you are interested in the contemporary debate on Hume i can't strongly enough suggest giving Earman's book a read, aptly titled 'Hume's abject failure'


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Our forefathers fought and died to protect us from people who tell us what we can/cannot say.

So, the video description says, "God recovers sight of the blind woman."…

As David Hume said: "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish"

What is more likely, that we have been misled into believing that a blind woman was healed and now can see, or that a miracle has taken place?

I am not concerned I am not a male.

Why does it matter that you're not male? He was talking about philosophy, which isn't a male-only vocation.

It is an only male vocation please get your facts right.I looked it up in the internet.

For a while I feel like something is missing I feel like I can't speak to God anymore I feel so lost.For a while, Judaism has been fascinating me I kind of want to convert however maybe I just want a new beginning I feel like I can no longer speak sincerely to God.I do not know what to do I was raised Catholic, but I don't want to be Catholic because many are homophobic and sexist (not all but some) also the news keeps making the catholic church look bad.I am against smoking and alcohol, but I don't want to be Muslim because it is not a religion that interests me.Am I coming to an age where I have lost my identity and maybe religion will help me find myself again?Should I just look for a different type of Christianity or do what? I don't know whether I believe or not I believe in Jesus, I never thought about it.I guess being raised Catholic I just accepted it and did not think about it.

You may be surprised to hear that in rather modern philosophy, Hume's argument against miracles has been strongly challenged if not actually, successfully refuted.

He didn't have the tool 'inference to the best explanation' in his toolbox as it wasn't until a few centuries later that probability theory arose with Bayes. The recent change in impressions of Hume's argument actually started with Humean supporters, who were looking to use Bayes theorem to illustrate the strength of the argument - but it just couldn't work. Somewhat of a watershed came in 2000 when John Earman, who's an agnostic philosopher of science and an able user of Bayes theorem, demonstrated how it fails. To try and give accurate picture of the book in one sentence as I can - Hume's argument is very broad (people lie and blind people don't suddenly get their sight back against scientific reasoning) which only serves to make the prior probability of something happening very unlikely.

But what Earman showed is that it is perfectly possible, and in some cases normal, for specific cases to be so unlikely that people lied that it neutralises the prior probability - which is Hume's whole argument down the pan.

If you are interested in the contemporary debate on Hume i can't strongly enough suggest giving Earman's book a read, aptly titled 'Hume's abject failure'

It is an only male vocation please get your facts right.I looked it up in the internet.

Oh wow. Just wow. Do you know when this 'Lost Gospels' autograph is estimated to have been?


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LOL, what? I suggest you get your facts right -- there are plenty of women studying philosophy. I'd love to see which reliable website you got your information from.

Honestly struggling to compute the sheer ignorance of that comment...

Of course, until quite recently, the majority of males in the United States were routinely circumcised

Brit Milah: CircumcisionOf all of the commandments in Judaism, the brit milah (literally, Covenant of Circumcision) is probably the one most universally observed. It is commonly referred to as a bris (covenant, using the Ashkenazic pronunciation). Even the most secular of Jews, who observe no other part of Judaism, almost always observe these laws. Of course, until quite recently, the majority of males in the United States were routinely circumcised, so this doesn't seem very surprising. But keep in mind that there is more to the ritual of the brit milah than merely the process of physically removing the foreskin, and many otherwise non-observant Jews observe the entire ritual.The commandment to circumcise is given at Gen. 17:10-14 and Lev. 12:3. The covenant was originally made with Abraham. It is the first commandment specific to the Jews.Circumcision is performed only on males. Although some cultures have a practice of removing all or part of the woman's clitoris, often erroneously referred to as "female circumcision," that ritual has never been a part of Judaism.

http://www.jewfaq.org/birth.htm

There is the information.

I am not concerned I am not a male.

Why does it matter that you're not male? He was talking about philosophy, which isn't a male-only vocation.

It is an only male vocation please get your facts right.I looked it up in the internet.

This has nothing to do with philosophy apparently being a male-only vocation.







My suggestion would be to read a post twice before replying to it because you were clearly talking about philosophy, not genital mutilation. I don't think I used any fancy words so I can only conclude that you don't read things properly before typing out replies to them.

I can only guess that you don't actually know the meaning of the word 'vocation' and assumed it meant something other than it does. Such are the consequences of being on the Internet whilst being exceptionally ignorant...

I think you mis-spelled 'indoctrination'.

Part of Hume's argument is also based upon the contrary claims put forward by different religions. Each different religion puts forward a competing and mutually exclusive miraculous claim that supports the truth of their religion. He argues that the miracle claims of Christianity are evidence against the miracles of other religions, but equally so, the miraculous claims of other religions are evidence against the miracles of Christianity. On these grounds, he concludes that they all effective cancel each other out.

But I think the strongest argument is that we can never be 100% sure our senses have not failed us. If we can never be 100% sure that we seen what we seen, then we can never state with certainty that we witnessed a miracle.



Can you rephrase this as I am struggling to get my heads around this sentence?



I just seen a review that says it is quite dense with probability calculus, which is something I admittedly don't have a grasp of. But I shall try and look into it.

Also, could not this same argument you put forward be used to justify quackery and pseudo-scientific cures and healing practices that have no more evidence than the typical religious miracle. Would you be willing to put forth a similar defence for homoeopathy for instance?

well you see most older copies of the bible have 15-20 extra sections, which were later removed (and don't feature in modern translations).
these 'lost gospels' were removed by the catholic church about 1500 years ago because they were considered 'heretical'.
For this reason there are few copies left, written in Greek (which the original bibles were also written in).
The destruction of this 'heresy' was so extensive that most of what we now know about these manuscripts is references in other works.