A miracle is?
Miracles are supernatural events. Strange things happen naturally but they are not miracles. A miracle is what is not naturally possible. It is a supernatural occurrence. It is paranormal.
Miracles encourage the belief that unbelievers in miracles are narrow minded and therefore not to be trusted. Belief in miracles encourages this hurtful and sectarian attitude.
The responses
1 People believe miracles can happen and do happen. These people will differ on
- A miracle only happens when it can be identified ie the divine may send miracles as a sign
- A miracle may only happen in secret so you never know
- A miracle may happen but it may be identifiable or secret
2 Others believe they can happen but don't.
3 Others believe they may happen but there is no reason to believe in them or disbelieve them for they are not that important and human witness is a problem for it lies and makes mistakes.
4 Others believe they may happen but that there is no good enough reason to think any miracle ever happened.
Four views. Only one is pro-miracle the way religion wants it to be: This shows God has authorised our faith to speak for him..
When faced with a miracle you must decide what camp you belong to. No sensible person would be pro-miracle that way. When you have four options and only one is pro it is unwise statistically to choose the pro. This is not a bias. It's only fair. And more so when even the pro-one is cautious.
ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE
Arguments from silence are very weak usually. There is a difference between, "John wrote his diary every day and never mentioned this wife you say existed so he was not married," and, "Jesus never mentioned abortion therefore he was not against it". You could say, "Jesus never mentioned Muhammad therefore we can believe Muhammad was a prophet."
In psychiatry, you are not considered to need help if you find your fridge floating all over the room or the mirror talks to you and this is a once-off.
If that is happening to a lot of people in its own way they are unlikely to tell and those that do it will be forgotten. People's ears rise at the ghost story but not the wardrobe moving across the floor by itself.
The argument that miracles are targeted to uphold God's truth and to teach us his doctrine is an argument from silence. "Nobody tells us about untargeted miracles therefore they should be treated as irrelevant and as not happening. Therefore when a miracle is real it has a message from God and is a sign of his truth and his presence. For example, Jesus was healed of death by God as the promise that we could be as well. Fridges do not talk to you. The seedling in the garden did not come from nowhere." This an appalling argument from silence. The conclusion that only miracles that teach happen is also an "I say so" argument, an argument from authority. Religion wants to hold the miraculous fits science. But how can it if it tells science not to test for seemingly wasteful miracles? In fact, if science did allow for miracles, the ones such as bricks floating in mid-air and a broken window instantly repairing itself would be its focus. Why? For it does not want to looked biased towards religion. Also just because people decided the miracle return of Jesus had meaning does not mean it did. If some untargeted miracle made it seem he came back then he made the best of it and we did after the event. It does not mean the return had meaning.
Also if God has a plan and it needs a miracle, does it really matter if the miracle is a trivial one such as a seedling just appearing out of the ether or a man returning from the dead? None of their thinking is coherent.
Further Reading ~
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 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