MIRACLE CLAIMS GIVE YOU THE DUTY OF SOLVING THEM NATURALLY IF POSSIBLE

By burden of proof we don't mean 100% perfect proof.  Just enough.  Certain things need hard evidence and if a miracle doesn't need it nothing does.

A miracle is a magical event. For example, if a stone turns into bread then that is a miracle. Religion pretends that miracles are done by God as evidence of his presence and love.
 
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 of Jesus.  We need some clarifications here.  They need to show that no matter how improbable it is for a man to rise that there are reasons for showing it was probable after all in this case.

So we take on a burden if we stand against what others know is probable.  The for or against side cannot both be making the most plausible or probable claim,

So there is a burden as regards what is too unusual.  There is another.  There is also a burden if you make a claim.  There is burden of proof as in, "If I make a claim that x is true or false, I have to show why I believe I am right."  To say Jesus rose would be taking on a burden to show it as much as saying he did not rise.  And vice versa.  If you make no claim there is no problem.  Yet if you say nothing they will make all the noise and get all the adherents.

Some Christians don't want a burden of proof for the resurrection and try to tell those who deny it that they should do the testing and checking.  That is too one sided.  It is fundamentally sectarian and unfair.  The rule is that if you make a claim that x happened or that it did not then you both have to get to work.  No view is that special that it should be left untested.

Because Jesus comes as a package, he is a miracles package, they cannot just say he rose from the dead.  They have to validate and show every single miracle he reportedly did passes tests for probability and integrity and intelligence.  They are cheating for while you see books defending the resurrection they do not apply the same defences to the other miracle reports.

Let us repeat.

It is not a simple matter of showing the resurrection of Jesus happened. Because of the burden of proof they have to vindicate every miracle of Jesus and every other one they say happened individually. That is because if those stories are tricky or worthy of scepticism so is the resurrection.  Not every miracle of Jesus can be proven believable or proven taken on its own.  Clearly Jesus violated the rule that only probable wonders may be believed and didn’t understand it so we can consider his miracles to be superstitious legendary nonsense. 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. But as impractical as it might be it is still correct.
 
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 made by another 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.

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 of the 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 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 believe that people can come back from the dead and are in Sweden how do we know that it isn’t possible or unlikely for all the dead in Australia to rise this moment? How do we know that Annie's chemotherapy might not put energy into her that draws her down to Hell forever? Those are the hideous consequences of believing in miracles. Miracles urge people to deny the uniformity of life never mind nature. That alone means believers have no right to hide evidence for their claims under a bushel.  They must take great care to create informed disciples.  There is a duty to provide evidence. 

And the duty doesn’t get lighter with “small” miracles. Miracles are just miracles.  A brick floating in mid-air is a challenge to normality and science as much as a million bricks would be.  If testing and checking does not matter people will be fooled by religious predators.  If you try to say it is wrong and disrespectful to cast a critical eye on the claims made by Jesus to supernatural powers then  

Why? Because if we can’t say the dead are dead because of our respect for miracles then we can check nothing.  We must believe a ghost imposter committed the murder to frame John just because John says so.
 
Conclusion
 
A very heavy burden of providing arguments and refutations of critics and providing good evidence rests on those who assert that miracles happen. Whoever asserts miracles without being able to personally vouch for their plausibility and authenticity is a cheat.

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
Philosophy of Religion for A Level, Anne Jordan, Neil Lockyer and Edwin Tate, Nelson Throne Ltd, Cheltenham, 2004
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