A miracle is what is not naturally possible. It is a supernatural occurrence. It is paranormal.
Religion uses miracles as evidence for the truth of its claims.
Miracles are events that seem to be against nature or the way natural law usually runs. In other words, they cannot be explained by nature. Examples are the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing to children, the unexplained cure of incurable illness, blood coming out of nowhere on Catholic communion wafers, the sun spinning at Fatima in Portugal in 1917 and most importantly Jesus Christ coming back to life after being dead nearly three days. It is thought that only God can do these things.
I am more sure I exist than I am that anything else does therefore I come first and I should be helping others mainly to please myself. This view is called egoism. It is about self-interest.
There is some confusion over terminology. Selfish should mean being willing to harm others for one's own gain. Self-interest is healthy self-care. Self-centredness means owing to illness and trouble - you cannot think of others.
You may never feel more free and more happy than when you indulge your desire to help others and when you do it to indulge. You are doing it for you and not them. It follows that even if we might be wrong, we should assume that others help us for themselves and not for our sake.
The Christians hold that as we must sacrifice for God it is a sin to help others or God just to please yourself. That is loving yourself and using them to do it.
To think that public miracles - eg apparitions - are done for a good purpose is mistaken. The miracle energy would be better spent on discreetly changing our disordered selfish desires to make us more useful to others so that we practice rational self-interest. Miracles would be unnecessary. They would imply a mistaken God who needs them to correct the result of his errors. And who should have made our feelings ordered the way they should be - in the first place.
When I am most sure I exist nothing outside of me, be it an apparition of Jesus or some other miracle, has any business judging my motives or accusing me of doing wrong deliberately. Not even implicitly. I must judge myself which is another reason why it is so important to have a fully rational basis for the chief things like God and right conduct in our lives. And why religion must be avoided for it is wrong.
So, nobody outside of me has any business telling me I have free will when that accuses me of being sinful. I know I can do bad but nobody knows if I meant it or not for nobody can be me but me. They can judge my actions but not me.
They impose their view of free will on me. Unless I can prove by my own individual experience that I have free will and can sin or be immoral I should ignore them. Experience does not prove it or even give evidence of it. It does the opposite. I see how feelings and thoughts work up to the thought and desire that causes me to act just the way they would if they were a response to some force controlling me. They work like the reactions inside a computer that lead to the computer carrying out a command.
If people report miracles, that is not going to do us any good. So we can assume that they are doing it because they want to believe in miracles.
If I am an egoist, then my god is me. I can't have another god. God setting up a religion with miracles and a theology to win me would only show God's own ignorance.
If miracles oppose egoism, as religion claims, then they are evil and want me to curse the way I am. Only I can decide what I should or shouldn’t do so God should mind his own business and not be making out that it is my duty to believe what he says.
God is only a bully for commanding me to love him. And so is anybody who is his messenger for they urge that duty upon me. Miracles are bad if they encourage such degradation.
Miracle stories are enjoyable. People find myths more interesting than the truth. So there is a danger of those stories being lies. Another attraction is how people think that when they experience miracles that they are favoured by God and those who do not have experience are not favoured or not favoured yet. To say that some are chosen to experience miracles is to say that they are favoured over others. It boosts their egos which is why you can be in big trouble if you tell a religious believer in miracles to have some sense.
FINALLY
Egoism is doing good for others while being motivated to do this simply because you enjoy it. It is the enjoyment you want. The good results for others are really a side-effect. This is harmful in the sense that it puts enjoyment above people's happiness. It is a form of selfishness. But it means that practically speaking you can be one amazing person. Egotism is defined as selfishness which does not work for the wellbeing of others but against it. We advocate egoism and hold that any real miracle would guide you in being the egoist you are meant to be. Of course no such wonder exists.
If we are naturally egoists, then the notion of God doing miracles as signs is ridiculous. Why? Because all he needs to do is tweak our emotional responses. We have no control over our feelings. We think we have control and loads of it. When I feel miserable and go for a walk to cheer myself up it seems I am controlling the feeling. But I did not make the good feeling. It happened just because I went for a walk. It might not have happened. So I never control my feelings.
All miracles, assuming they happen at all, are evil - indirectly if not directly for egoism is a fundamental human right. It matters not them. The even dare to challenge it.
Further Reading ~
A Christian Faith for Today, W Montgomery Watt, Routledge, London, 2002
Answers to Tough Questions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press,
Bucks, 1980
Apparitions, Healings and Weeping Madonnas, Lisa J Schwebel, Paulist Press, New
York, 2004
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust,
London, 1971
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Veritas, Dublin, 1995
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco,
1988
Enchiridion Symbolorum Et Definitionum, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger, Edited by A
Schonmetzer, Barcelona, 1963
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles, Rev Ronald A Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Miracles in Dispute, Ernst and Marie-Luise Keller, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1969
Lourdes, Antonio Bernardo, A. Doucet Publications, Lourdes, 1987
Medjugorje, David Baldwin, Catholic Truth Society, London, 2002
Miraculous Divine Healing, Connie W Adams, Guardian of Truth Publications, KY,
undated
New Catholic Encyclopaedia, The Catholic University of America and the
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
Raised From the Dead, Father Albert J Hebert SM, TAN, Illinois 1986
Science and the Paranormal, Edited by George O Abell and Barry Singer, Junction
Books, London, 1981
The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan, Headline, London, 1997
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000
The Encyclopaedia of Unbelief Volume 1, Gordon Stein, Editor, Prometheus Books,
New York, 1985
The Hidden Power, Brian Inglis, Jonathan Cape, London, 1986
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994
The Stigmata and Modern Science, Rev Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974
Twenty Questions About Medjugorje, Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D. Pangaeus Press,
Dallas, 1999
Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, Freeman, New York, 1997
THE WEB
The Problem of Competing Claims by Richard Carrier
www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/indef/4c.html