Author: Tim

Martin Luther Edwards: This is bare-faced begging of the question

You present what you acknowledge to be spurious to discredit what is claimed to be genuine. In respect to the alleged miracles, account of which we have outside the Bible, we have no dispute. So far as any superhuman power is concerned, we both count them spurious. What you have to do is to answer the arguments presented going to show that those of the New Testament are genuine.

You respond to such arguments substantially as follows:—Miracles are contrary to Nature and impossible. It is necessary to give up miracles or reason. The miracles of the New Testament are lies. I submit that this is bare-faced begging of the question.

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George Berkeley: Your men of sense are hard to please

Euphranor. It seems then they reject the Revelations because they are obscure, and Daniel’s prophecies because they are clear.

Alciphron. Either way a man of sense sees cause to suspect there has been foul play.

Euph. Your men of sense are, it seems, hard to please.

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Richard Cecil: I was afraid to read

When I was sunk in the depths of infidelity, I was afraid to read any author who treated Christianity in a dispassionate, wise, and searching manner. He made me uneasy. Conscience would gather strength. I found it more difficult to stifle her remonstrances.

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John Relly Beard: On mental honesty

Mental honesty is the great quality which all who have the light of reason should, before all things, labor to preserve; and, for myself, I see no essential difference between the hypocrite who, to serve a purpose, affects to believe that of which he is not convinced, and the sceptic who, under the impulse of his prejudices, refuses to enquire, or enquires only so far as he may find agreeable.

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