The trouble with the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” mantra is who gets to decide what is an extraordinary claim?
For example, the claim that consciousness arose by itself in a material universe for no reason, and there is no intelligent agent behind any of it, sounds like a pretty extraordinary claim to many people! Where is the evidence this is even possible? Yet some will insist that this is a perfectly ordinary way to understand existence and in fact insist that the burden of proof should be on others to demonstrate this is not the case.
Existence and consciousness are deeply mysterious whatever way you look at them. Why should any collection of atoms and molecules ever combine to have a sense of themselves as a subject in the universe? Or why should there even be matter and fundamental laws of nature to begin with? It is a totally miraculous situation we are in whatever your explanation. Once the enormity of this miracle Is appreciated it becomes somewhat more difficult to dismiss other “miracles” out of hand.
For example a materialist may say that the idea of resurrection is totally fantasy. But stop for a minute to consider what this claim involves. It means saying that the material universe arose without intervention from an intelligent agent and that matter in that universe somehow arranged itself to become conscious beings that can understand the universe around them. This is to be accepted as a perfectly rational story of how we got here. Yet the idea that in the same universe such conscious agents could be revived a second time by a supreme intelligent agent, that is described as an extraordinary claim that demands extraordinary evidence.
You can’t win this argument by claiming the story from the other side is “extraordinary”. Whether we got here by a supreme intelligence, or whether we somehow arose as subjective agents all by ourselves, frankly both propositions are extraordinary. We live in a miraculous universe whatever way we look at it. So when it comes down to it, materialists are not denying miracles. They are insisting that we accept their version of a miracle—conscious agents arising from nothing for no reason—to the exclusion of other miracles. They are free to do this, but don’t claim it’s more rational or less miraculous than other explanations. Everyone believes in miracles one way or another.
