Aren't Skeptics Guilty of Special Pleading?

I promised this post to Mr. Stein (who goes by Jewish Phulosopher) a while ago, but I've been rather busy. I apologize for the delay.

I want to point out that those who are interested in these types of blogs should applaud Mr. Stein. That's right, applaud. Why? He provides the blogosphere with insight to counter what he believes to be a true threat. It is important to have people who are willing to stand up to skeptics, try to argue against their positions, and make them back up their claims. Though many people take issue with his tactics, which I must myself admit seem to be a bit extreme, I only wish that there would be more people in the Orthodox Jewish community who attempt to respond to skeptics with as much passion as he has.

Mr. Stein recently commented on my blog that I am claiming that "you need not a accept a religion as true until it is proven beyond doubt. Can anything be proven beyond doubt?"

Let me try to explain what, I believe, Mr. Stein is trying to say here. Suppose you open up a veyr old history book, and start reading in it. You see some random fact about a major event that took place. You then read some other books which also referred to this event. Mr. Stein says, you would probably accept this fact. So why not in the case of the Torah? In fact, there is an even stronger case here, because of the Kuzari Principle. Is it because you do not believe in anything physical? But how can one prove that there is nothing physical, if it is not visible to the senses? And if there is evidence that it does exist, from historical sources, then one should believe in it! Thus, I believe Mr. Stein is saying that the skeptic is guilty of special pleading.

This is a very strong claim. If Mr. Stein is right, then all skeptics are denying statements that any reasonable, neutral observer would accept as fact. Thus, Mr. Stein claims, skeptics must be delusional. Since, he feels, the strongest desire which Judaism does not allow is the sexual urge, he places the blame on that.

Mr. Stein, however, is ignoring some very important caveats that require extra evidence in this situation. The issue is the level of evidence required for miracles. Since the classic work on this subject is David Hume's On Miracles, I will draw from there in formulating the skeptic's response to Mr. Stein.

The first thing Hume points out is that miracles are very unusual experiences. Thus, we must take into mind that there occurence is very rare. Hume then asks, which will occur more frequently: that a story of a miracle is made up, or the miracle actually occurred? The reasonable person will believe in that which statistically occurs more often, until further evidence sways the statistical likelihood.

Hume then goes into the evidence which is available for the existence of miracles. The most common evidence is, of course, human testimony. But, Hume points out, testimony is often contradicted by circumstantial evidence, other testimony, or the unreliable character of the witnesses, to name a few. Thus, with enough evidence to the contrary, such as that miracles rarely happen, if ever, should at least put their testimony in doubt.

Hume noticed the counterargument that Mr. Stein put forth, which I paraphrased: that the skeptic does not believe in anything not physical, despite no evidence to establish such a claim. He compares this to the Indian prince who had never seen ice, that when he was told that water becomes hard when it is cold (i.e. becomes ice), was absolutely certain that the person telling him was trying to pull his leg. Therefore, Hume proceeds to analyze the reliability of the evidence available for miracles.

Hume first points out that

The passion of surprize and wonder, arising from miracles, being an
agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events,
from which it is derived. And this goes so far, that even those who cannot enjoy
this pleasure immediately, nor can believe those miraculous events, of which
they are informed, yet love to partake of the satisfaction at second-hand or by
rebound, and place a pride and delight in exciting the admiration of others.

Thus the stories of miracles are likely to spread without thoroughly being checked for validity. Hume also offers other possible reasons to spread such stories: one may be deluded into thinking that such a thing was actually a miracle, someone may wish to spread his/her religion, or he may wish to deceive the general populace. I'm sure everyone can agree that there are many false claims of miracles. Even the Vatican is very cautious against declaring every claim of a miracle as such, and many false miracles have been exposed over the years. But the rest of purported miracles may simply be reports of charlatans who were not caught. Why, then do people believe it? Due to ignorance (which was more rampant than many people realize possible before literacy became common), or eloquence.

Hume also points out that many things in the ancient past, such as wars, disease, hunger, or storms were believed to be due to supernatural causes. Now, we know this not to be the case, as we can explain and predict these things perfectly well from natural causes. However, the belief in a supernatural realm has persisted nonetheless, which may further enhance the belief in miracles.

This is important. To the ancient past, supernatural intervention was thought part of everyday life, and was needed to explain things. Thus it may have solely been established as such, and over time, the beliefs developed so that divine beings were involved personally in people's lives. If the original basis for such a belief is faulty, then shouldn't all subsequent beliefs based on this, such as miracles, be held suspect?

Hume pushes on, noting how it is strange that there seem to be so much fewer miracles in the present time, when we have made so many advances in science and mathematics, than when people were ignorant and apt to believe in bizarre superstitions, such as Paganism.

Additionally, each religion claims miracles which establish its religion as true, while the other as false. Does this not diminish the certainty that their miracles actually occurred? After all, each makes equally strong claims that negate the claims of the others.

I'm sure that Mr. Stein would point out that here the case is different because of the Kuzari Principle. I would also like to point out that all religions go through processes in which beliefs become built on preexisting beliefs, which is readily seen in the written records of the Catholic Church. So too, the story of mass revelation at Sinai could just be such a process, in which the story got built up, as I have suggested in a previous post. In fact, the case would be even stronger, as records were not kept to same level that they were in the Catholic Church to document such a process, which the Catholics could have ostensibly used to notice that they were gradually creating a story which was not what the original Christians probably believed. In fact, we have virtually no archaeological written records on any topic from the Bayit Rishon period. We only have a few records that were inscribed in stone as monuments; while we have Christian records that were copied throuhgout the Middle Ages to the present. Thus the objection that there should be written records is not a good one.

Thus, the skeptic can well claim that there is not much more evidence in favor of Judaism than in favor of any other religion, which is not very good.