In Pensées, Blaise Pascal makes an effective and paradoxical argument in favor of miracles. He says the existence of demonstrably false miracle claims proves, rather than refutes, the existence of true miracles.
Why? Boiling it down, Pascal contends people’s experience of true miracles is what established belief in miracles – otherwise, nobody would ever be taken in for a moment by false miracle claims. If nobody could be taken in, nobody would bother to make the claims.
Pascal extends this argument to religion: if there were no true religion, there would be no false religions.
What do you think?
An easy test would be a case of, say, three-legged, purple unicorns. To my knowledge, nobody has ever claimed to see one, so it’s probably safe to assume no true three-legged, purple unicorns ever existed.
But what about something of uncertain truth where claims do exist?
Does the argument hold for, say, UFOs? There are slews of debunked claims of UFO sightings, alien encounters, and alien abductions. Does the fact that many people make false claims prove the existence of actual occurrences of UFO sightings, alien encounters, and alien abductions?
We could ask the same type of questions with regard to Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, etc.
Does Pascal’s argument hold water?
I’m probably greatly oversimplifying Pascal’s argument, and missing important nuances that make these comparisons invalid. If so, please correct me.
Then again, it very well could be that aliens do exist. Perhaps we should consider Pascal’s argument carefully.
