A lot of people find the miracles in the Bible to be a stumbling block. Such people argue that we now live in a more advanced age. We understand more about the principles of science, and we know that supernatural events don’t occur. Over the past century there have been various attempts at demythologising the Bible, and efforts at rediscovering the historical Jesus, free from any miracles or interpretations.
I myself think that such efforts are a lot more irrational than believing in a God who is able to perform miracles. If there is a God who is so powerful that he can create the universe and everything in it, then it must be trivial for him to throw in a few extra miracles and a resurrection. It is illogical and incredibly arrogant for me to attempt to redefine the limits of God’s powers by reference to my own very limited cultural understanding.
But on the other hand, miracles are of very limited usefulness in persuading someone to believe in God. The most unmistakeable miracle performed directly in front of a determined skeptic will be explained away as a statistical aberration or an occurrence of a phenomenon which has a scientific explanation which is yet to be discovered. How else can atheists explain away the creation of the world and everything in it out of nothing?