Does a miracle constitute a sufficient evidence for the truth of a claim?
I see lots of religions really presenting a history of their pivotal figures being able to perform miracles. However, the source of the miracle is generally attributed to some divine being. It's generally understood that miracles are supportive of their faith that they are coming from extra-terrestrial source, which they claim to be divine.
But I don't understand how it is sometimes taken to be a sufficient evidence for the truth of what they claim. Supportive evidence is not the same as sufficient evidence. For example, wearing a skirt is supportive evidence of being female, but it is not sufficient evidence; however, having an XX chromosome is. I mean: performing miracles only means that who performs it is in possession of something that others do not have, but that possession doesn't directly entail that its source is as the performer claims; it might as well have an extra-terrestrial source. Even yet, this source might not be God; for example, it might be other intelligent source.
Of course I'm not claiming existence of such sources, but I'm merely examining the details of the presentation. I mean: for the sake of discussion, let's assume that a proof was advanced of some action which was deemed miraculous to humans and other known beings on earth, i.e. they are incapable of doing that action; now suppose that proof was scientifically valid! Even then, this would only prove that there is an intelligent being, more intelligent and capable than humans, who is the source for that action; but that in itself doesn't provide us with any detail about that being
What is this intelligent being exactly? Can it lie, for example? Was it actually lying? What is its intention? All of those remain in the darkness; i.e., we have no illuminating evidence about answers to those.
In other words "being a miracle" in itself doesn't grant, for example, that the source of that miracle is as it claims. For example, if the source of the miracle is claiming to be God, it doesn't follow that just because it did a miracle, i.e., something that humans cannot do, then it is really what it claims itself to be; i.e., it doesn't follow that it is really God!
In order to prove that the source is God, for example, we need evidence that everything in existence other than God cannot do that act; but we don't have the whole universe in front of us on the table to be examined, so this is not a verifiable claim. What is verifiable is that humans (and other objects on earth) cannot do it. So, at best, it just proves the source being some extra-terrestrial being, or even a terrestrial intelligent being that we didn't discover, or something like that. There is no guarantee that it is saying the truth about itself.
On the contrary, since that source is a STRANGER, then we ought not to listen to it in the first place; we don't know his intentions, and being so intelligent would put more suspicion on his intentions, because from experience with nature on earth, the more intelligent a being, the more it is capable of fooling lower intelligent beings. So the miracle would place us humans at a lower intelligent capability than the source of the miracle, rendering its real intentions more of a suspicion than it being a fountain of comforting faith.
Now, the problem would get worse if, in that religion, the source of the religion (a Deity, God, supernatural, etc..) claims that his miracles are sufficient evidence, and base consequences of denying them as of those of denying sufficient evidence, like being subject to his wrath, dispelled from its mercy, eternal damnation, etc.
Some religious people claim that the evidence is not in the miracle itself, but it is a conjoint evidence of some rational thought about existence that to them is an evidence for an existence of a creator (argument of design, among others). Now, this creator cannot be imagined to stay there not connected with us, so to them this is an evidence of the will of the creator of this universe to make a connection with us, since he couldn't have created us in vain; i.e. leave us to our own devices, which are imperfect and cannot reach him, so he must send prophets, apostles, sages, etc. When those do miracles it is just a sign of this already confirmed in a priori manner expectation, and so the miracle would constitute the key that would open the door for the pathway to God. However, finding the door in the first place resided on a priori reasoning about existence.
The problem with that way of reasoning is that even if the a priori reasoning of existence of a creator is supposedly correct, still the expectation about his will to send prophets is not as clear; since, by then, this will open the door for any being more intelligent than us to claim this argument and place himself as God.
So the defect is not breached by this a priori expectation about God's will to communicate with us. It's a very risky kind of ideation. It might as well be possible that God's plans didn't encounter him making that connection with us, for reasons best known for him. Such a speculation about God's will is not the kind of the general expectation that God must be Good in the general sense; no, this expectation is very detailed, and we know that the detailed will of God is not clear.
Even the religious people maintain that the detailed will of God cannot be anticipated by human reason. God didn't prevent innocent children from catastrophes and calamities of this world; while, if we are to make a theory about expectations of God's will, the opposite would have been the expectation. So actually no religious man claims he has an exact theory of expectation of the detailed will of God.
There is no clear evidence that the matter of God willing to establish a connection with us through prophets with miracles as signs of that connection. There is no evidence that this is not among the detailed will of God that we humans cannot grasp.
So, still I don't see miracles even when viewed as topping an already existing a priori philosophical edifice of contemplation about existence; still, I don't see all of that constituting a proof of the truth of a claim. What is worse is that those claimed a priori evidence are not easy material to fathom, and no consensus on their validity is reachable; so this makes matters even more grim. What is really worse is for a God to consider all of that as valid in a clear manner that he'd sentence people to eternal damnation in hell for not observing such a difficult to prove argument. This is neither mercy nor justice.
The last standing is that some religious people say that "miracles" are just gestures to draw attention to a message from God, but the validity of the message doesn't have any connection to them; a position which to me seem to be more reasonable. But many people thought according to what's presented in the main books of those religions that "miracles" are the proof. They are NOT!
