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Religion contends that God has set up laws of nature. At certain times, he will do things such as make a dead man live that seem to go against these laws. Why the change? Because he wants to use the event to say something religiously significant. In other words he uses miracle as a sign that he exists and as a teaching tool. These events are called miracle. The distinction between miracle and magic is arbitrary. When God turns a prince into a frog its a miracle. When a witch does it, it is magic.

All miracles are silly beyond imagination.

If you said your teddy bear came to life and sang, La Isla Bonita, nobody would believe you no matter how sane and trustworthy you are. The reason they don’t believe you is because they find it easier to believe in visions of Jesus and miracles of healing. You would get a better hearing if you experienced and/or reported one of these miracles. So the believers just focus on the miracles they want to hear about. This means that people who have experienced bizarre miracles like talking teddies cannot speak about them. The main message of this book is that the visions and healings are every bit as outlandish for several reasons as the talking teddy. The believers have no right to be so discriminating. They don’t care about evidence at all and whatever miracles happen do not happen for the purpose of being signs when nobody seriously takes them as signs. They have no right to assume that miracles like talking teddies don’t happen for they believe in miracles. Their selectiveness speaks of their dishonest arrogance.

If silly miracles happen that would mean that anything could be a silly miracle. Perhaps the coffee you had this morning was really whisky that your senses were fooled into taking for coffee. But at the same time we could only believe that we have been deceived by a miracle if we have reason to believe that. A murderer who says a demon pretending to be him killed the person is giving evidence but we know people would say such things if silly miracles were accepted so that overrides the evidence. We need more than that. The evil thing about silly miracles is that they reduce our trust in our environment. We would be a lot more sure of things if these events never happened.

It will be asked at this point that if we say miracles are not really miracles but simply just strange laws of nature briefly breaking out of their restraint for a few minutes then what? Well then our faith in nature is stronger than it would be if we believe the laws are supernatural ones because we are saying it is freaks of nature not miracles that are happening. But that does not solve the murderer and the demon problem. If nature has freak laws then the murderer could say it was some kind of double temporarily created by nature that committed the crime. There is nothing we can do about that except to hold that if events that seem like miracles happen it is only right that they be covered up for our own sakes! They would be dangerous and opposed to our well-being. So the more of them that people speak about the worse it gets for us! But we can be sure that when people say the supernatural does miracles so that we have both freak natural laws and then supernatural laws to deal with that the whole situation is worsened and is made more poisonous. In summary, it is better and therefore kinder to believe that reported miracles are really natural freaks and that supernatural miracles should not be even up for consideration for belief.

When miracles are so ridiculous they make us less sure that a person found guilty of murder really did it for a demon or something could have pretended to be him and did it and that is bad for the surer you are of something so serious the better and the fairer it is to him. How can miracles be expressions of the love of God when they do that?

Belief in silly secret miracles is dangerous for it says we should neither trust or mistrust anything for we don’t know when they happen or how much they happen. If silly known miracles happen it is supposed that silly secret ones happen too. According to some objectors, “But silly known miracles if validated only prove that it is likely for silly known ones to happen. We know nothing about the unknown ones and it seems we should not believe they happen for there is no evidence that they do.” But you could have a silly known miracle that you won’t see as a miracle until later. It would be mad to say that only secret miracles that will be discovered happen for you only happen to discover and so there could be ones that you will never discover. If they did not happen you would know if the miracle was real the minute it happens without testing and investigating. What would be the point in a force doing crazy observable miracles and then not doing crazy hidden ones? So miracles abolish the validity of the evidence we take for granted in daily life. The objectors are assuming that something can only be mistrusted when it is caught and that is terrible logic. Even Jesus himself said that if you can’t trust a person in big things you can’t trust them in small things. The same goes for a force. The objectors would have us saying things like, “That guy would steal the cross of a donkey’s back but since he does it to everybody else that does not mean he would not do it to you so you should trust him and employ him as your accountant.” Assuming that silly secret miracles don’t happen is just assuming. It’s no good for we are trying to look at the problem of miracles and how they relate to evidence in general logically which is the only way it should be looked at. We want to protect evidence so miracles should be abandoned.

Nobody who believes in miracles and who is sincere and who has a little logic ever says a miracle HAS happened for it would be better to say is that a miracle HAS PROBABLY happened. The reason is that there could be natural laws that do the miracles and these laws have not been found yet. And there are explanations for miracles, perhaps alien super-science or something, that don’t need the supernatural. You cannot ever prove a miracle so every miracle is a secret silly miracle in the sense that you don’t know that it is a miracle. You don’t even know if it is probably a miracle. Again, miracles abolish all evidence.

If natural law can simulate miracles then does that not destroy the reliability of evidence as much as a supernatural miracle does? For example, if alien super-science could delude me all the time then that does as much harm as belief in a supernatural power doing the same. The aliens would mean that miracles can’t be real signs from Heaven as would nature simulating miracles. The problem shows that it is best to attribute miracles to magic tricks done the earthly usual way and verified by liars for we know no magician on earth is going to deceive us all the time. This is not refusing to believe in miracles regardless of the strength of the evidence for them. It is refusing to believe in miracles so as to be able to believe in evidence.

If we are convinced that miracles do not happen then our faith in natural law is safe. Some would say that we can believe in miracles and in natural law for miracles can’t take place unless there is a natural law to break and we cannot say a miracle happened unless we know what natural law is. But what if natural law is suspended all or a lot of the time by miracles leaving us not knowing what natural law and therefore miracle is? There would be no belief. And even if miracles happen seldomly the result is that we have less faith in natural law and in science and in the evidences of the senses than we should have. It is better to be sure that fire burns than to be a bit less sure. Miracles are the enemy for they call on us to be less sure. Goodness is being grounded in reality for evil is irrationality and insanity. Even if natural law is not suspended very much we don’t know that and so we cannot believe in anything. We cannot believe in anything until we get evidence – there is no belief without evidence - that the suspensions are rare or infrequent but that evidence is beyond our reach. Miracles have to go. They make us less sure of things and make us less attached to reality and sanity so they are always and invariably EVIL!

Belief in miracles does not presuppose that we know what natural law is for one or more natural laws that compose the law could be suspended by miracle all the time. For example, maybe the natural law is that egg cells can grow into babies by themselves but this law has been suspended so the only law we have experience of is that sperm is needed.

If we believe in miracles we have reason to believe that this is happening or could be meaning we can believe in nothing and be just as unsure about natural law as we are sure – neither believing in it or denying it. We cannot even prove that miracles are infrequent to say that natural law is probably intact most of the time because we can’t know about every miracle that takes place.

The more miracles you believe in the less confidence you can have in the senses and in natural law. A religion like Pentecostalism or a person be it Christ or a Blessed Virgin vision that says that miracles happen a lot all stop you from saying that you can be sure that if you met John today that it really was John and not a miracle trick. It is certain that belief in a lot of miracles and in a God who uses them discreetly to answer prayer all the time undermines all evidence and without evidence there can be no belief even in miracles! Too many miracles prevent you psychologically and sincerely believing in miracles as manifestations of the power and love of God too!

If we can believe that the things and laws around us are there though it could be that we are hallucinating then some say “that we can still believe in them if we admit miracles for miracles like hallucinations change the course nature usually takes from our perspective.”

Nature can tell us when a hallucination has taken place but this does not mean it can tell us when a miracle has happened enabling us to trust nature the rest of the time. Therefore these people should not be insisting that when we believe in nature despite the fact we could be hallucinating miracles do not deaden our faith in nature either for both hallucinations and miracles affect how we see natural law.

If miracles deny that natural law is fixed and reliable then they deny that there is evidence for anything. They want to hold that a miracle does not refute all evidence for natural law still exists and it tells us that a miracle has happened. But the problem is that nature can never ever prove a miracle has happened and to say it does is to say you know every single law of the universe. So belief in hallucinations not undermining belief in nature does not mean that belief in miracles does not do that either.

If their argument that nature is left intact even if miracles happen is acceptable, then they are saying that there is no harm in believing in a miracle that is badly verified for your faith in nature is still as strong as ever. Nobody accepts this argument for it implies that you should or can believe any miracle claim no matter how preposterous it is if you want to. If a miracle like the resurrection of Jesus which the Church says is a sensible miracle to believe in can be considered to be true, then what harm could it do to believe in a daft one? Not all miracle believers can be expected to agree with the Church for people see things differently. Yet the users of the argument do not want to have all miracle beliefs made acceptable. They want to reject daft miracles like leprechauns and their pots of gold appearing on Irish bogs. They cannot have their blessed cake and eat it. Their argument is really a denial that miracles are signs for it implies they can happen just for the sake of happening. After all, anybody doing a miracle and making no effort to ensure that it can be authenticated or verified is only doing the miracle for the sake of doing a miracle – that is, for nothing.

Miracles are so serious and strange that they must be believed only as a last resort because the evidence forces you to believe. So says the Roman Church. Yet this is the Church that leaves the bishop not the evidence or the investigation to decide if a miracle happened! Oh the hypocrisy! Anyway, back to the last resort point. It implies that miracle claims are bad at least until they are verified. We must be reluctant to believe in them. Miracles then must be evil. They invite people to evil. In that case, all the verifying in the world isn’t going to make them good or entitle anybody to say they come from a good God.

This shows that unverified miracles could be evidence that we should be gullible about miracles. Gullibility and miracles make a bad combination and shows they hate normality, they hate you believing that if you throw a stone up at the sky that it will come down.

Belief that hallucinations happen do not mean that miracles can happen and so it cannot show that belief in miracles fails to annul all evidence. You need absolute proof before you can accuse a person of having hallucinated and you need far more for miracles for hallucinations happen more easily and can be identified more handily than miracles do or can. That is a person’s sanity and reliability you are questioning. You need to believe in the stability of natural law to believe in hallucinations but miracles are different for they deny the stability and you need stronger evidence for them. Therefore belief in hallucinations and accepting nature is not inconsistent with opposition to belief in miracles.

Suppose the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event. Then it follows then that when you say the law of nature is that people do not come back from the dead you have to say there have been at least one exception Jesus. So all miraculous statements are in opposition to science which needs reality to be stable to work out what is out there and what is happening for a scientist cannot talk that way. Jesus weakens the strength of the claim that people do not come back from the dead. Jesus makes it easier to believe a man who claims to have been seen returning to life from the grave and who claims that the New Testament teaches many satanic doctrines. Why? Because if there is evidence that Jesus came back from the dead it, it is evidence that this heretic may be a true prophet who rose to prove his mission. By rising from the dead, Jesus made it easier to destroy his work and for false religions to be created. The fact is that we don’t have a heretic prophet like this man does not mean anything for we could have had one and there are many who are in the situation in which they can pull off a hoax like that if they would just think of it. Joseph Smith, the three visionaries at Fatima in 1917 and Daniel Dunglas Home reported miracles just as impressive, if not more, as the resurrection of Christ. Whatever Jesus rose for it was not to make the truth of God impregnable. Truth is put under siege by miraculous claims and yet Jesus and logic say truth comes first and that anything that attacks it even a bit is bad.

Extra-ordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If something is so outrageous you are justified in disbelieving it happened for a small reason. For example, if the evidence points to the local statue of Jesus committing murders you can disbelieve in this on the grounds that a flower in the statue's hand looks a bit too fresh if the statue is making secret excursions. It is reasonable to take this approach.

Miracle believers deny that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Murders happen and yet we demand a huge pile of evidence before jailing killers for murders are out of the ordinary. Miracles are more uncommon than murders and the same quantity of evidence would be no good for verifying them. Believers demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary miracles they don’t like such as Buddha’s enlightenment but they don’t for the miracles that suit their religious preferences! The evidence they present is only an excuse. They would believe without it. Miracles invariably induce bigotry and dishonesty and blindness. Not very godly are they?

It is thought that those who disbelieve miracle reports and say that extraordinary evidence is needed for extraordinary claims are really saying, “An extraordinary claim like a miracle is one that we are already convinced isn’t true or cannot be true”. Not all of us are really saying that. What we are saying is, “If religion cannot provide extraordinary evidence for miracles, we will not say the miracle is false. It could still have been a real miracle. What we believe is that without the evidence we are not entitled or obligated to believe the miracle happened. But extraordinary claims do need to be justified by extraordinary evidence.” We might have other reasons for holding that miracles are impossible but we cannot use the reasoning they attribute to us to declare them impossible.

It is thought that those who disbelieve miracle reports and say that extraordinary evidence is needed for extraordinary claims are also really saying, “Extraordinary evidence is evidence we know you cannot produce.” The correct attitude is that, “If you can produce extraordinary evidence then I will believe in the miracle it proves.” And, “You may have extraordinary evidence and that entitles you to believe but it doesn’t obligate me to believe unless I see it too.”

None of these corrections affect the correctness of saying that extraordinary claims must be backed up by extraordinary evidence.”

Take the miracle of the Virgin appearing to St Bernadette at Lourdes in 1858. The Church claimed to authenticate that Mary appeared to her. It did not. What it authenticated (leave aside the question about whether the authenticating is of any validity) was that Bernadette was having trances that couldn’t be explained by doctors and that a spring appeared and that healings took place. None of this proves that Bernadette really saw Mary. She might have lied or misunderstood. Or the vision might only have been pretending to be Mary. She may have went into a miraculous trance that affected her brain to make her imagine she saw the Virgin Mary. For the Church to say that it authenticated the apparitions of Mary at Lourdes is simply for it to lie. So here we have an extraordinary claim, that Mary appeared for which there is little evidence if you want to be generous. But the truth is there is NO evidence at all. So the miracles of Lourdes did nothing only support lies. We know that the stranger or more unlikely the claim, the evidence needs to be of a standard and strength to match the strangeness of the claim. The evidence needs to be in proportion to the level of unbelievableness of the claim. You don’t need the same quality or quantity of evidence that Charlie met Annie at Loch Ness that you need to justify believing that Charlie saw the monster there. Lourdes and all the accepted Catholic apparitions deny this truth and so are evil and trying to drag us into superstition.

We all see that people die and stay dead. For those who disagree to say that Jesus didn’t stay dead, the burden of proof therefore is on them. It is up to them to prove the resurrection. (Because of the burden of proof they have to prove every miracle of Jesus and every other one they say happened individually.) They answer that the burden of proof is on those who deny the resurrection to disprove the resurrection! It is not. It can’t be on both sides. If one and one is usually two and somebody says there is an exception then the burden of proof is on that person. Not every miracle of Jesus can be proven believable or proven taken on its own so clearly Jesus violated the rule and didn’t understand it so we can consider his miracles to be superstitious legendary nonsense. If you assert that a miracle has happened then the burden of proof is on you no matter who else has proved it to themselves. To say, “I saw the Blessed Virgin in an apparition,” is just as serious as somebody saying, “My friend saw the Blessed Virgin in an apparition.” One is just as outrageous as the other. So the burden of proof is on the first to prove that he really sees the Virgin and separately on the second to prove that he or she is right to hold that the friend saw the Virgin. It is bigotry to believe in a miracle claim without proving it to yourself. It is not enough for the Church to prove it – you have to see the complete evidence and examine it for yourself. You stand alone in considering claims like that. If God wants us to believe in miracles then he must want us to go through all this! It is ridiculous to think that he does. A better belief is that miracles are mistakes or frauds and God had nothing to do with them. To say that a reported miracle by Jesus or anybody else may have happened or was possible is simply to say we should be gullible. Nobody teaches that one must verify miracles to oneself for it is such hard work and there are so many miracles reported.

If we say it is unlikely for a man to rise from the dead the believers are forced to answer that we don’t know what is unlikely or not. This answer shows the immorality and wickedness of declaring miracles to have happened or possible. Why? If we say that the dead are dead we have no right to say that if we believe that people can come back from the dead for how do you in Sweden know that it isn’t possible or unlikely for all the dead in Australia to rise this moment? How can you say the dead are dead or that the dead don’t return? Because of the consequences of miracles, they deny the uniformity of life never mind nature, the burden of proof is on the believers. And the burden doesn’t get lighter with “small” miracles. Why? Because if we can’t say the dead are dead because of our respect for miracles then how can we say that people need to study if God miraculously inspires a schoolboy or schoolgirl regarding the correct answer to a small question in an examination paper?

The person who says they got a revelation from God that the world is to end next week and the person seeing the Blessed Virgin and getting a harmless message to repent from her, demand the same level of evidence. Why? Doesn’t the first person have a more important message than the second? Yes the content is more serious but that is not the point. The method by which both messages came is equal in that it is supernatural. The two messages equally need to be proved reliable and supernatural because they claim to be supernatural. The point is not the importance of the messages but the medium of the message – that is, how the message was given. The content messages can have no importance at all unless the supernatural nature of the message can be proven and the supernatural can be proven reliable. Think of it this way, we can’t listen to the world end message or the other one just because of what it says. The supernatural has to be proven to exist and be reliable before we can heed such a message. Therefore small miracles need to be treated as scientifically or sceptically as big ones.

If 1 plus 1 is 3 in a village in Spain that calls for as much attention and examination as 1 plus 1 being 3 in the whole of Europe would be. A miracle challenges the way things happen in the same way that that would challenge mathematics. For example, if 1 + 1 = 3 is true anywhere it is true everywhere. It’s a universal law. If somebody can instantly cure the incurable that means the diseases cured are no longer incurable and this becomes a universal law too.

Imagine that when two natural laws are brought together they result in a specific result that we will call result X. You could say that law 1 plus law 2 is equal to result X. If a miracle interferes with this then the two laws bring about a different result. It’s the same scenario as 1 and 1 = 2 being changed to 1 and 1 = 3. Believers say that this is wrong. Its law 1 plus law 2 plus miracle law 3 = a different result from X.

It’s a matter of worldwide concern when a miracle takes place – though the world wouldn’t be concerned it ought to be. The view that the bigger the miracle the greater the evidence is a mistake. True, you need almost unattainable evidence for a big miracle for its big but you are no better off with smaller ones. Why? The manifestation may differ but the nature of the event is the same, it defies what we know of nature. This evidence is so difficult and time-consuming to verify that clearly all believers in miracles are inferring that evidence isn’t so important and if so, then we should believe crackpots who claim revelations about the end of the world!

God programs us to be amazed and impressed by miracles. He makes the nerves and responses. So why can't he make us amazed at the miracle of the existence of the universe? Then he wouldn't need to change the way nature ordinarily works. It is mad to go to all that trouble. Miracles never convert anybody. Ever. It is our reaction to them that does that and God can tweak that instead of tweaking nature. Miracles always have the element of showing off and are beneath the dignity of God.

CONCLUSION

To believe in miracles as signs is evil and a thoughtless insult against all who live on this planet and any God out there if there is one. Miracles or supernatural events are hopeless when it comes to searching for support for any dogma or system in them.