A miracle is what is not naturally possible. It is a supernatural occurrence. It is paranormal. It is like dead men should stay dead but one man, say Jesus, rises from the dead. The idea is that God does the miracle to show his presence and his action.
The miracle or saying a miracle has happened, either opposes the uniformity of how nature works or it shows nature is not that uniform after all. Either way, nobody has the right to say a miracle, in principle, has nothing to do with science for science is all about what the uniformity involves and how it works. That science cannot look at the supernatural is not the point. It can still look at what it does to nature. Religion tells you a half truth when it says, "Miracles are not the domain of science for science cannot investigate the supernatural but only the natural."
If miracles happen too much, they become normalised. We stop feeling wonder and stop being interested even if they shout a religious message at us. If a God of perfect wisdom sets up all things to run by themselves, he will rarely if ever intervene in an obvious fashion. If he does, it is to get our attention.
Miracles can be described as magic acts that are said to have been done by God. He is supposed to do them as signs that such and such a religion is the true religion and the others are wrong. How nice that God wants to create differences over trivial matters! How nice that religion is put before people! It was particularly cruel of him to make us so suspicious of and hostile towards differences.
It is strange if God wants us to be amazed, moved and ultimately changed for the better by being in contact with Jesus in a vision. Why can't he do the miracle of triggering the same reaction just by seeing a drop of dew on a flower? If all comes from God, he has every right to do that. To limit the desired reaction to something like a resurrection appearance, would be arbitrary. What is really going on? Those who say, "Miracles show that we have God's message", are really trying to shock you into agreeing with them. They want a, "We told you so!" This is really about superstition.
Is nature so uniform that if a miracle happens, we are extremely unlikely to notice it or find it? Obviously yes. You can suggest somebody rose from the dead in the past but nobody noticed for it was away back 5 million years BC, or on another world. Thus it is very hard to believe a witness to a miracle.
David Hume said we could believe in a miracle only if the people lying or being wrong would presuppose a bigger miracle. People who do not believe in miracles say that it has never been known for it to be more miraculous for people to be lying or mistaken than for them to have experienced what they said they experienced. This argument suggests that we need to do so much investigating in relation to miracles that events accepted as miracles have to be very rare indeed.
Something seemingly miraculous has happened. Reason insists that the natural explanations come first and that we should not be declaring anything magical or miraculous just because we can't explain it. So if you must have occullt and religious explanations, the fewer of them the better - the more rational and mature you are. Catholicism, the main religion of supposed miracles, surprisingly agrees. This implies that declaring something a miracle should be an exceptional thing.
Accordingly, religion often assumes that miracles are rare. Religion does not like too many miracles for they can lead us to bypass the authoritarian clergy or scriptures who claim to be divine channels. They often agree with us that miracles can only be accepted as a last resort and when denying them would be saying that a bigger miracle of deception has happened. So they are saying that any miracle they believe, they believe it reluctantly. They will say that is respecting miracles like the resurrection of Christ to admit that it is so convincing that it makes them override their scepticism and reluctance.
So you have to believe as few miracles as possible. The principle that the simplest interpretation is the most logical and probable supports this. For example, if your clock jumps off the mantelpiece it is more likely and rational that there is something natural that made it do this and not a poltergeist.
Religion agrees that it is more likely that a miracle story is really just a mistake or a lie or both than a real miracle. And it says that it should not be trusted until it proves that it can not be a mistake or a hoax. You cannot run a religion if you are going to encourage people to believe every story for then the lying prophets will be able to create a new religion based on their lies and errors with the assistance of miracles that are nothing more than conjuring tricks.
If some trusted person is accused of a crime that he really has done, says a demon pretending to be him committed the crime, we would have to believe him if absurd alterations of nature happen. The more common they are, the more we would have to believe him. So we should only believe in so-called miracles when the evidence is irrefutable, and there is no chance of hoaxing being involved. If miracles are uncommon, they still make us a bit less sure that the man is guilty. Miracles lessen the strength of evidence and truth and so they are evil. If you think that God interferes with nature a lot of the time, you will jet to Spain on holiday instead of going to hospital to have a cancer removed and depend on God to take it away.
Human testimony alone can verify a miracle. If ten people see a miracle and one liar says they are frauds then we cannot believe in the miracle and God wasted his time. Why cannot we believe? Because if there is any doubt at all, a miracle should not be given credence. Remember how miracles must only be believed as a last resort. If a miracle is against natural law or is the work of some natural law that we do not know about then this is very serious.
A witness, a person who knows and has talked to say a miracle worker, could say it is a fraud. If a miracle were true that liar would either be struck dumb or die suddenly but naturally. Or if the witness were not even there, God would see to it that he would be exposed.
Now, when God does a miracle he cannot be sure if somebody will contradict the witnesses or not and destroy the miracle. He may see in the future that this will not happen but since his vision does not cause the past but is caused by the past it is no help to him. He will not be able to see what something will result in unless he does it. So, God cannot do the miracle.
All miracles have their enemies, even devout and pious ones. The saintly might be the biggest opponents of a wonder that gets accepted as truly from God. The combatants give information that may not tally with the rest and which casts doubt on the reality of the apparition or miracle.
The Catholic Church has approved several miracles that witnesses or the evidence challenged. The appearance of Mary at La Salette was held to be an imposture by a deranged nun, and a court of law decided that it was the nun. The Jews, according to Matthew, said among themselves and not just for others to hear that Jesus was a fake and that they were scared of a fake resurrection. When the men accused of fraud and deception talk like that among themselves it shows they are sincere. God would not do miracles when the miracle is no use without a Church to authenticate and verify it when that Church cannot be trusted.
If miracles happen, God would have to do them before everybody or before witnesses whose veracity and sanctity and sanity and intelligence could be proved. It seems that it is wrong to say that anybody who says they saw a miracle is boasting of their honesty so it cannot be from God for the Bible says God hates showing off. If they feel it is helping God then they are not boasting but just have to say they are good for his sake. But it is obvious that it is arrogant to expect or want people to believe you if you say that the tooth fairy appeared to you. You want them to aggrandise your outstanding honesty and truthfulness even to the point of getting them to agree with you if you say five and five are nine.
If miracles are nonsense that does not mean events that could easily be claimed to be miracles don't happen. Some of these events will be impossible to explain naturally. There are loads of things that there is missing or corrupted evidence for, so that is to be expected. You don't want to be too generous in saying events like that are often miraculous in case you get caught out. It is safe to pick out a few. Saying miracles are rare is a good mask and a good excuse for getting people to believe in miracles even if they don't really happen. If miracles don't really happen at all, the rarity of some that look believable makes perfect sense. It is like the part-time psychic - if you don't do it too often it is harder to get found out and you seem more authentic. Miracle mongers and fake psychics and those who see wonders, that merely look like wonders, are all enablers of possible deception.
Predictably too, some religions report plenty of miracles from centuries ago and moan that the age of miracles is passed or not far off it. That is what you would expect too if the miracles never really happened. They are slotted in the past safely out the researcher and scientist's way. The miracle deserves a bad name and these antics do not help!
If creation is a miracle as religion says, then you are not allowed to believe in any more miracle signs for seeing that all things have been created is the only sign you need. So all new miracles are just unnecessary arbitrary displays of power and reflect badly on God. Plus the claim that God will not show us all his miracles because he does not want to force us to believe would be disproven by the miracle of creation itself. Therefore it is right to be like St Thomas and demand to see the miracle before you believe in it or to demand miracles before you will believe in the gospel.
If God endorses the as few miracles as possible doctrine, then it follows that he only needs one well-attested miracle. For example, if he raised Jesus from the dead, that is the only miracle he needs to do and he will do no others.
The attestation is so important that we would need to be able to see this risen Jesus!
Miracles by definition are uncommon. Incredible but natural events that could pass very well for possible miracles, are uncommon. That is what we would expect if miracles don't really happen at all. We have no reason to surmise they should happen or do happen.