H1G3, Hume-- "You Get A Miracle!"

My group, the philosoraptors, was officially delegated to discuss David Hume who believed that the Design Argument was fundamentally a faulty one. Along the same lines, he felt as though you should generally never believe anyone who says that they saw a miracle-- chances are, they were rushing to conclusions, quick to ascertain a supernatural cause to something that could be explained rationally.

In what I found rather surprising, wasn't that my group didn't find much interest in Hume's take on the Design Argument because "this is something we'll never know, so why bother about it? That's where you have to choose to believe, or not to believe, in your theory... be it god or otherwise,"but rather took much interest in Hume's opinion on miracles.

As someone who puts about as much stock in someone proclaiming that they saw a miracle as I do someone saying that they communicated with their dead great uncle via a medium (that is to say: I would not invest in that stock), I was surprised that the philosoraptors chose to flesh out miracles--or, more specifically, the supernatural.

Jake brought up the ideas of possession and exorcism as rather solid examples of things ("there are crazy documented things") that can't be explained by science. I'm not buying any of the notable cases provided by wikipedia , however... They are all full of exactly what Hume warns against--people exaggerating what they saw, explaining things that could be explained scientifically (ie Dissociative/Mu
ltiple Personality Disorder, and other mental disorders) as supernatural, etc.

When Chloe brought up the question of 'Why don't we see miracles now?' After all, in the 1,600+ years it took to write the bible, God seemed a little like Oprah:

 Michele responded with an interesting response: we don't see them as often because "God now works through doctors", and scientists, etc--to which Jake brought up a story that many people can relate to: his aunt was thought to have no chance of surviving cancer, and ended up making a full recovery, without much help from the doctors (if I understand correctly).

Nate, however, brought up a different angle that "When god does miracles he does it for a purpose…. People saw miracles and still didn’t believe, so he stopped....Miracles in the old testament shows God is there and exists, the new testament had Jesus, the physical manifestation of God, but now...[cue abrupt ending due to the ringing of the bell." (NB: Nate, if you could continue your thought process below, that would be much appreciated!)

I personally don't buy that response, simply because people who do not know science are rightfully more likely to assume that it is supernatural--they don't know know what they don't know;  primarily that there could be a scientific explanation for what they saw or heard about through the "telephone-esque" grapevine!

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" 

-British Writer Arthur C. Clarke

But I digress--besides this certainly doesn't explain the crazy stuff that happened in the bible (ie: Moses, the Crucifiction, etc.). NB: what Christians need to remember is that crazy miracles are reported, with  in most religions. Including shape shifting. And (DQ): Are miracles a proof that God exists?

The internet had some thoughts on miracles that I thought were thought provoking (and a little funny):

FQ: What reasons did Hume provide when saying that you should be very skeptical of a "miracle"?