Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Which Is More Likely?

Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie?

We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one, that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie... Instead, therefore, of admitting the recitals of miracles as evidence of any system of religion being true, they ought to be considered as symptoms of its being fabulous.

--Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)

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