Monty Python and Philosophy by Gary Hardcastle (best novels for beginners .TXT) 📗

of different creation scenarios were consistent with our observations of the world around us:

This world [for all we know] is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant Deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance. (p. 71)

From the context of the passage, it is clear that Hume did not sincerely entertain this proposition or several of the others he mentions. Rather, he sought to illustrate that what we are able to observe of the world around us does little to illuminate such remote questions as the existence and attributes of the Creator, if there is one.

The Argument from Miracles, Or, “He’s Been Taken Up!”

What religion would be complete without its miracles? Well, certainly not Christianity. One of the most important arguments for Christianity is founded on such miracles as the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the miracles performed by Jesus Christ and described in the New Testament by the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. According to these accounts, Jesus brought about events completely outside the natural order of things, such as turning water into wine, raising Lazarus from the dead, healing the blind, the lepers, and even the impotent (the number of different kinds of miracles Jesus performed depends on which Evangelist you consult). What can we conclude from all this? A miracle is often cited as a sign that the person performing it is either Divine or Divinely empowered. Let’s grant that only God can confer supernatural powers, and let’s further assume that He would never give those powers to someone who would misrepresent Him. Then the words of a miracle-worker such as Jesus should be accepted as revelations of Divine Wisdom (a version of this argument may be found in John 3: 2). That, in a nutshell, is the Argument from Miracles.

This raises the question, was Brian Cohen divine? Let’s take a look at his miracles. In Monty Python’s Life of Brian, each “miracle” Brian performs leads to greater conviction on the part of his followers that his every utterance is Divinely sanctioned. His first miracle is to be “taken up” into heaven, only to be spotted in full sprint moments later. For his next miracle, he causes a juniper bush to bring forth juniper berries. Later he miraculously restores the power of speech to Simon, a hermit of eighteen years (by landing on his foot, that is). As evidence of Brian’s divinity mounts, his words are received by the devoted throng as Divine revelation. His exasperated plea for the crowd to “fuck off ” is treated as an invitation to ritual: “How shall we fuck off, O Lord?”

Of course, we know, as do Brian, Simon the Hermit, and everyone else who is not in a devotional stupor, that the purported miracles are nothing of the sort. Which of these events lies outside the natural order? Temporarily disappearing from view when running through a crowded marketplace? Juniper bushes bearing juniper berries? Yelping over a foot injury? The answer is none of the above. Eyewitnesses believe them to be miracles, yet clearly they are not. This is the starting point for a critique raised by Hume in his essay “Of Miracles.”64 Eyewitnesses are often wrong. And as weak as the evidence from the reports of eyewitnesses might be, it certainly gets no stronger as it travels through the grapevine, as anyone knows who has ever sent a story around a circle. Moreover, a miracle is by definition outside the natural order, and hence has the weight of every contrary event stacked against it. For every report of water being turned to wine, we have countless reports of water remaining water. The less probable an event is, Hume says, the more suspicious we should be of claims that it happened. From errors on the part of the witness, to mistakes or deception at each link in the chain of human testimony, there are countless ways that a report of a miracle could be mistaken. Ultimately, Hume says, the only condition under which we should accept someone’s testimony of a miracle is if it would be even more miraculous if they were wrong!

It was central to Hume’s philosophy that questions of existence, which he called “matters of fact,” could never be settled by abstract reasoning alone (we saw this earlier in the critique of the Ontological Argument: a being cannot simply be defined into existence). Knowledge of what exists is always rooted in experience. Nonetheless, as is well-illustrated by the eyewitness accounts of Brian Cohen’s “miracles,” experience is a fallible source of knowledge. Hume readily acknowledged that we can be mistaken about what our senses are telling us.

The Cause of Religion, Or “Oh Father, Please Don’t Boil Us”

Hume’s examination of the Ontological, Design, and Miracle arguments found each of them severely lacking. Yet for all of his attention to the reasons for religious belief, Hume was convinced that elegant argumentation had little to do with why most people actually believed. To answer that question required an inquiry not into the reasons for religious belief, but rather its causes. In his Natural History of Religion, Hume fingered a rather simple and age-old cause of religious belief: fear.

Hume argued that people everywhere are afraid of the forces which affect their lives but are beyond their control. They call these forces Gods and seek to appease them through religious worship. Over time, the number of Gods has decreased, but the same story holds. In Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, the school chaplain leads the young lads in a hymn that essentially beseeches the Almighty not to cook and eat his loyal flock: “O Father, please don’t boil us.” And in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, God himself chastises King Arthur for his fearful groveling and supplication. These views of religion fit very well with Hume’s analysis.

The Epilogue: A Question of Belief

Good evening, and