I have been talking to people, sharing with me the kind of miracles they've had in their life and how that proves god is real and loves them and what not. They were talking from their gut of course and I have trouble responding to that (intellectual responses don't work here). I was reading "Atheist Universe" by David Mills and came across this segment which touched my heart (and would touch the hearts of adolescent males across the universe).

Moreover, the "miraculous" event, even though positive, will
lose its holy luster if the event is perceived to conflict with "God's will" or with the Ten Commandments. When I was a teenager, for example, I frequently rode my bicycle around the neighborhood. One evening, I rode past the home of a girl with whom 1 went to
high school. All of the boys at school, including me, thought that
this girl was exceptionally attractive. As I pedaled past, I glanced
over for a split second at the girl's house. And at that precise
instant, she walked by her bedroom window topless, wearing only
her panties!
As you might imagine, I, as a teenage boy, regarded this event
as more historically significant than World War II and the Moon
Landing put together. I couldn't believe my incredible good luck!
"What were the odds," I kept asking myself, "that I would glance
in her window at the exact moment that she scurried past topless?"
My titillating peek defied all laws of probability. As I pedaled
back home, I said aloud "There must be a God. There must be
a God." When I boasted to the boys at school about my delightful
voyeuristic experience, few of them believed me. It all sounded so
unlikely and just "too good to be true."
I'm willing to bet that, under absolutely no circumstances,
would the Vatican ever declare my cheap, teenage thrill to be an
officially recognized miracle of the Catholic Church. No religious
pilgrims will ever retrace my bicycle journey in hope of being
blessed by the same miraculous vision that I beheld years earlier.
Even though my prurient glimpse, like a miracle, was highly
unlikely statistically and, like a miracle, was quite positive (in my opinion), no religious leader would consider the event miraculous
because God is allegedly opposed to ogling our neighbors' breasts.
In other words, our perception of what is, and what is not, a
Divine "miracle" is prejudicially determined by what we already
believe about God's nature. Witnessing "miracles" therefore does not evoke belief in God. Rather, belief in God evokes the witnessing
of "miracles."

Take taht!

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