This means that it must be more probable to believe the witnesses to a miracle then to believe all past experience which would go against the miracle, in order to prove that the miracle happened. With all of Hume's stipulations, it makes it impossible for miracles to be more probable than the opposite of the miracles. In order to reach this conclusion he went though a simple thought process: beliefs about matters of fact are decided according to probability; laws of nature are the beliefs which have the greatest degree of probability; anything which goes against the laws of nature, are improbable and not worth believing; all miracles defy the laws of nature. Therefore, miracles are not worth believing, and are the least probable things to occur. .
When weighing the two sides of the equation either to believe a miracle, .
or to believe the opposite of a miracle, it is always more probable that there is no miracle. This is true because no matter what the miracle is there is a stronger argument against it, according to an empiricist. The laws of nature hold true everywhere, and for everyone. This is more believable than that on rare occasions these rules are broken and a miracle occurs. Therefore, no matter how many people, or who saw the miracle, there are always more people and more credible people who have seen the opposite. The laws of nature have stayed constant throughout time and there is no testimony stronger than that. .
Hume goes on to say in the second part of section X why people continue .
to believe in miracles, when they are not at all probable. He gives three main .
reasons. First of all he talks about feelings. It is a comfortable, and pleasurable feeling to believe that miracles are true. The second reason why people believe in miracles is tied to religion. For some reason, religions do not have to be probable in order for people to believe in them. Someone can walk on water, change water to wine, and make the blind see, because it is in history and it is part of a religion people believe it.
