Prayer is about wanting to see a result even if the "result" is mere luck or imagined

People pray for they want some kind of a result.  A prayer for a result is a prayer for what you ask and for to see that it is an answer.  So it is for the result and to recognise the result.

Answers to prayer are boasted about in every religion. But when you do the maths and the science, you find the results match up to what you would expect of chance alone. Religion cannot agree with this science and opposes it. Religion may not admit it but it is predisposed to want miracles and answers to prayer to be about show. That is why it lies that these things are show.

Prayer is about show in some way so miracle is show too for miracle and prayer are intertwined and miracle is supposed to be ultimately about promoting prayer.  Religion and miracles are not much to worry about if prayer is not important. 
 
Philosophers Hume and A J Ayer argued against belief in miracles. As there are inevitably problems with the evidence that x is a miracle it is best not to believe. The evidence shows that a miracle is very unlikely and that demands that the evidence for a miracle has to have no loophole. Otherwise it is swamped by the evidence that miracles are unlikely.

Evidence tells you what is likely to be true which means you weigh the evidence and decide if you will listen to that or evidence against it.  So there can be evidence for miracles and the miracles can still be unbelievable.

Maybe the following is what our philosophers should have argued as well. It shows another problem with the evidence for miracles.

We can sum up answers to prayer and miracle wonders as miracles.  They are different but they have the notion of God acting for his people in common.
 
A miracle that is NOT about inviting you to learn about God and thus consider a relationship or a stronger relationship with him would mean a miracle is just about show.  A miracle that people interpret as an invite is no better than one that is not an invite.  It is still not speaking for itself. 

Suppose the miracle is mostly about show there is a worry.  A miracle that is really all about show may try to hide it by seeming to be more about other things than show.  It is like the suitor who is so kind but who is really all about getting your money and who turns down monetary gifts from you as "evidence" that he is not all about money.

If a miracle invites you to let God into your life and that means it has to use a show to do it that does not mean it intends to be a show.  No miracle acts like it is giving deep spiritual counselling to anybody.  No. Every miracle is too superficial for that.  It is not about real spiritual help. 

If there was an example of such a miracle, it would ruin itself by pointing to other miracles.  It would look like one miracle posing as a justification and excuse for the showy ones.  That trick would just be another way of being showy.
 
A show miracle is not about love and justice and compassion but show. It abuses those values in the name of a display.
 
Thus the power doing it could be dangerous. It has to be dangerous. It makes those who celebrate the miracle dangerous for they are saying, "I don't care what acted to help John as long as John was helped." So they are giving an invitation to the power. They need to be careful what they wish for.
 
The miracle working force is either random and believers are covering that randomness up by lying about any message given or it is done by something that we cannot trust for it does not care.

Most miracle claims fall into that all about show category. 

We are making a distinction again from now on between answered prayer and miracle.  We are talking miracle.  Here are examples of miracle claims that are relevant.
 
Jesus cursing a fig tree successfully.

Ganesh drinking milk.
 
Spirits saying in séances they like cigars.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  This is one of the worst ones.

Instead of Jesus being seen rising from the tomb, God has to do damage limitation by trying to fix the evidence or produce evidence after the event. Nobody had any evidence what happened to the body. Even Jesus never gave an account. He said nothing about it.

To pray to the cause of the miracle show proves that you have no deep concern. Praying to heal John means nothing when you are dealing with something you don't know. If you do that then blame your prayer and yourself if John gets worse. Responsibility means taking credit for the good and taking the blame if it backfires. Don't use John to try and feel responsible for the good - do it to feel responsible for the bad as well. Don't try to make John responsible for your prayer not working. 

A miracle that is not happening in the framework of prayer cannot be called an act of God who is master of nature and science. It is not really a spiritual matter but a magical or anti-scientific one. Even religion tells us that. Nobody is really all for God or loves God as the perfectly loving origin of all "You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength and heart soul etc". Lord means he who is to be obeyed and nobody likes that bit. It is loving obedience that is called for. Prayer then is an act of hypocrisy for if you are told to love God and don't do it which means you can you are really just trying to use and exploit and fool God and anybody who knows you are praying.

What did Hume say about experience? He said our experience is that dead people do not rise so we have the right if we experience one rising that something has happened but the person is not really risen.  Experience needs to be got in reality.  Making up or imagining an experience is abusing the power to have an experience.  It is nothing like a true experience.  Hume saw belief in a miracle as an attempt to use the miracle as a prop in order to contradict experience.  Nobody denies that it can be but religion says it is not always doing that.  So the lesson is that experience tells us what to believe not some experience that experience otherwise says is probably wrong.

Prayer can be linked to what Hume said about experience for prayer is defined as the experience of God's helpful and close presence so that a two-way connection and communication happens. The miracle is used as a prop for nobody really experiences the power of prayer/presence of God for we all know how easy imagination manufactures such sensations.  You can make yourself easily experience the nearness of Santa or the tooth fairy.  So the experience of a miracle is used to compensate for how prayer gives us nothing.  Prayer fails as part of a teaching experience about what is real and true.  It is insane for prayer to matter not the miracle when there has to be one or the other if prayer cannot matter without being validated by a miracle saying it does work.

Prayer seems to result in things not changing or getting worse.  Things getting better cannot be clearly linked to it for they are always things that are going to happen anyway. And a complete match to the prayer hardly ever happens.  That complicates things.  Also the reasonable view is that you take things not changing, things getting worse and the seeming answers all together.  They are a seamless garment.  Do not cheat by just looking at the good things. That is desperation and a sign you want to manipulate yourself and those who are influenced by your prayer life.  When you look at it this way prayer does as much good as doing nothing.

Experience then in this way does tell us not to believe.  If prayer is bad then a miracle has to be bad too.  The miracle is despicable.

The miracle is so horrible it will be about an attempted show more than a show.

A miracle just for show is one thing if it is a real miracle. That thing is show. It is no good for religious or spiritual reasons. An event that you mistake for a miracle because of the lies of others or their errors is another subject. It is no better than a miracle that is just for show. It is like a man-made show.

A miracle that is not done for show is still a show.  And what if the miracle is intended a little bit to be a show?  The show say of healing is when you have thousands who suffer as if God is neglecting them and one is given the miracle of healing. That is the show. Focusing on the miracle as the show is just blind and stupid and cold. The show is about one person getting a cure at the cost of others being left without one.