
By: DAVID RICE
Re: Miracles: quotes

"Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the
ancient Christianism, which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian
factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed
upon the public?  Miracles after miracles have rolled down in
torrents, wave succeeding wave in the Catholic church, from the
Council of Nice, and long before, to this day."  --- John Adams,
to Jefferson, 3 December 1813

"In those parts of the world where learning and science has
prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are
barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue."  --- Ethan
Allen, Reason the Only Oracle of Man, pamphlet, 1784

"All the biblical miracles will at last disappear with the
progress of science."  --- Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

"Miracles happen to those who believe in them.  Otherwise why
does not the Virgin Mary appear to Lamaists, Mohammedans, or
Hindus who have never heard of her."  --- Bernard Berenson
(1865-1959)

"The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a
world of law and order; do not add to them by believing it to be
a world of miracles."  --- Louis D. Brandeis

"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 endeavors to establish."  ---
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748

"The Christian religion not only was at first attended with
miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any
reasonable person without one."  --- David Hume, An Enquiry
Concerning Human Understanding, 1748

"The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is large
enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous; but it would
have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle if Jonah had
swallowed the whale."  --- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"No miracle has ever taken place under conditions which science
can accept.  Experience shows, without exception, that miracles
occur only in times and in countries in which miracles are
believed in, and in the presence of persons who are disposed to
believe them."  --- Ernest Renan, 1863

"As nature preserves a fixed and immutable order; it must clearly
follow that miracles are only intelligible as a relation to human
opinions, and merely mean events of which the natural cause
cannot be explained by a reference to any ordinary occurrence,
either by us, or at any rate, by the writer and narrator of the
miracle."  --- Benedict Spinoza, Ethica ordine geometrica
demonstrata

"Life is not a miracle.  It is a natural phenomenon, and can be
expected to appear wherever there is a planet whose conditions
duplicate those of the earth."  --- Harold Urey, Time, 24
November 1952

"As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to
commit atrocities."  --- Voltaire

"Miracles do not happen."  --- Matthew Arnold, Literature and
Dogma, last words of preface to 1883 edition

"'God works in many ways his wonders to perform.'  But He's not a
skillful mechanic.  A man drives over a cliff and 'by a miracle'
he only breaks his back.  It would be more divine if he were a
better driver and stayed on the road."  --- Paul Goodman


... A virgin girl who is raped must marry her rapist. Deut. 22:28-29
* Shy.David@EdenBBS.com
--- Silver Xpress Mail System 5.4H1
 * Origin: "And furthermore, 'Don't call me brother.'" (1:124/9005)

