The Bible of Bibles; Or, Twenty-Seven "Divine" RevelationsGraves, Kersey
Religion
The Bible of Bibles; Or, Twenty-Seven "Divine" Revelations
Graves, Kersey
Free thought
5. As God appears to have regulated every thing in the beginning by
fixed laws, if he should break one of those laws by the performance of a
miracle, it would throw every thing into chaos and confusion, and prove
that he is not a God of order and stability.
6. If God, as we are told, made every thing perfect, then the
performance of a miracle must make them imperfect, or prove that they
have always been imperfect.
7. The performance of a miracle would prove that God is an imperfect
being in not having every thing regulated by the laws of nature.
8. If the performance of miracles can authenticate the truth of one
religion, then it must prove the truth of all religions; for all report
miracles of some kind, and furnish, in most cases, the same kind of
evidence that these miracles were performed.
9. There is not a miracle related in either the Old or New Testament
that has not a parallel reported in the Bibles or sacred writings of the
Orientals; such as curing the halt and blind, raising the dead, crossing
streams in a miraculous manner, &c. Many cases are reported of the
Hindoo Savior and Son of God, Chrishna, raising dead persons who had
been drowned, murdered, or died a natural death. According to Tacitus,
Vespasian performed a number of miraculous cures; such as curing the
lame, restoring sight to the blind, &c., just as is related of Jesus.
According to Josephus, Alexander with his army passed through the Sea of
Pamphylia in the same miraculous manner that Moses did through the Red
Sea. As Alexander's army was engaged in the work of human butchery, we
may assume that, if God could have had anything to do with it, he would
have embraced the opportunity to drown them, and wash them all away.
10. _Jewish Miracles_.--The Jewish Talmud speaks of birds so large that
they darkened the sun, and shut out the light of the sun from the
earth. Probably they supposed, like Moses, that nearly all the earth
was located between Dan and Beersheba. Another kind of bird was so tall,
that, when walking in a river seventy feet deep, the water only reached
its knees. This is a tall story; but it should be remembered that it is
related by the same people who tell us about sticks being converted
into serpents, water into blood, dust into lice, &c., and a man (Samson)
overturning a house with several thousand people in it, &c. Hence all
these stones are equally reliable or unreliable.
11. _Mahomedan Miracles_.--Mahomedans bear off the palm in miraculous
prodigies. For instance, a cock is spoken of so large that the distance
between its feet and head was five hundred days' journey. What a pity
Barnum could not obtain it! Another example: an angel so large that the
distance between his eyes was seventy thousand days' journey. The head
of this tall ghost must have been among the planets. The earth would
have been too small to furnish him with a seat; and the attempt to-use
it for that purpose would probably have thrown it out of its orbit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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