The Argument
Miracles provide proof that god exists. There’s no other way to explain such things.
How To Debunk It
- If a thing has actually occurred, then that thing, to the extent of its occurrence, is natural. It may be rare, it may have even been a singularity, but if the thing actually happened, then it happened within nature. When a thing that has never been observed before seems to break a known law of nature, we call it a new discovery, not a miracle. We then amend and adjust or expand our previous understanding of nature.
- Claiming that an unnatural or supernatural occurrence has taken place is loaded with the prerequisite of knowing everything there could possibly be to know about nature and the laws that govern it. Otherwise, how could you know that a thing is outside of nature? By claiming that something is supernatural, a person is either admitting they don’t understand how it happened naturally, or that the thing didn’t actually happen (at least, not in the way they think it did).
- There’s plenty of footage showing illusionists like Penn and Teller supposedly breaking the laws of nature. You can’t explain what happened or why in any natural way. And yet, it’s obvious that a miracle didn’t take place. Seeing might be believing, but believing doesn’t mean a miracle took place.
- Even if you want to grant credence to a miracle story, the leap from there to a specific deity is a complete non sequitur fallacy. Nothing has been provided to connect the two sides except the biased opinion of the person telling the story. How do you know it wasn’t Lord Vishnu or Zeus who was responsible for the miracle?
- All you need to do is ask the followers of one religion if a miracle story from another religion proves the existence of that other religion’s deity—and vice versa. The non sequitur fallacy is easily exposed by noticing the biased manner in which some miracle stories supposedly prove the existence of some gods while others don’t.
