Car Keys are not a miracle.

I could go over a very long and exhaustive list over what does not count as a miracle and why but that would seriously inhibit my productivity at work(moreso than it is now).
I'll go over a list of the most common things, and explain them, and then I'll define a miracle and explain why if one were to ever happen most Freethinkers would convert on the spot.

Finding something that was lost
Misplacing something is the act of putting it somewhere and forgetting where you put it, or having someone else come along behind you and move that object, and failing to update you on where they moved it to. God does not update your brain on where the location is, you simply start looking in likely places or are looking for another thing when you come across it.

Overcoming a disease
People overcome diseases every day. They also die horribly from completely preventable diseases every day. The act of going to a doctor for something else and finding out you have caught something early enough to treat it is also not a miracle, as many people die from things that, if caught early, can be easily treated(meningitis, tuberculosis).
Many of these people are devout Christians, of all sects and faiths, and you had better believe that many of them believe the same thing you do- they just didn't have the fortune you did.

Babies
Animals are born every day- are they miracles? And so are bugs- are they? Bacteria split in your intestinal tract every second- is that a miracle? Where do you draw the line that new life is or is not a miracle? How about the baby that dies in childbirth? Or the mother? What about the baby that is born to an eleven year old child who was not ready for this to happen to her?

Surviving A Natural Disaster
Obviously, surviving a natural disaster is not a miracle, as if it were a true miracle, no one would have died. Or, only the sinful would have died(which is everyone) or only non-Christians(or the saved, or those who go to church every day, or people of a particular sect) would have died(which is horribly hypocritical) and that would render it not a natural disaster, but a super-natural one.
Point being, why did you(or the subject) survive while others did not.


Needless to say, many people attribute these occurrences as miracles when they are simply not. Or, you bring up the problem of evil/god's great plan. This of course brings up chaos theory which I will address in a later post.

However, miracles are defined neatly for us and it is easy to put any thing to the test if we are simply consistent in our definition. From the great Wikipedia: "A miracle is a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can be explained by divine intervention, and is sometimes associated with a miracle-worker."
Being that all of the things in this list and many, many others attributed to god or miracles are very explainable and occur in nature frequently we can conclude that miracles DO(not) happen every day and we (don't) need to be thankful for them.

Freethinkers however, upon being presented with evidence of a departure from the laws of nature or something that is unexplainable(not "hasn't been explained" and not "once this happened to me...") by anyone, they will convert to whatever religious explanation actually fits. Here is a video that really explains that, and why.

Santa Claus and Jesus

My mother was an atheist as I was growing up and although she never really tried to indoctrinate me one way or the other, she was very adamant about Santa Claus.
My parents for some reason held on to Santa Claus as the last bastion of childhood wonder and kept an iron grip. Now, when I was about 5 I snuck out of my room and saw my parents getting bags out of the car and and placing presents under the tree, and at that point I knew Santa Claus was not real. I faked the belief for my parents sake(and because I thought that if I told them I would stop getting presents) but I no longer believed Santa had cameras watching me everywhere I went and knew if I was being bad. This belief really only affected about two days before Xmas but nonetheless, the dream was shattered.
However once I turned 8 or so(these ages are rough guesses), I got tried of the childishness of the game, and my parents thinking I was going to stay up in front of the fireplace again "waiting" for Santa- I am not sure what made me snap but I had the conversation that the jig was up, I knew he wasn't real but not to worry I wouldn't let Ellie(my sister) in on the deal as long as they stopped patronizing me.
The effect this had on my mother was to ramp up efforts to get me to believe, insisting that "Santa IS real we just have to wrap his presents for him" and other various attempts to argue me into belief. My mother became a Santa Apologetic and came up with all manner of "rational" arguements to support the notion that he was real.
At some point she began to explore the abstract in that "Santa is real in all of us" and "You're Santa and I'm Santa" and "Santa is in your heart". Now, my mother IS an athiest and is not simply using Santa as a method to "fill the void" or the other various attempts you are going to use to draw paralells but when I tell you she was ADAMANT I really mean it.
So, what this caused me to do was first, to doubt my own eyes and my own empirical observations, being that my parents were now not just playing a game of pretend with me but actively arguing with me over the existance of a being I knew to be not only unreal, but highly implausible. This also, once I got over my doubts, made me realize that sometimes, my parents lied to me, and that sometimes they did not always know what they were talking about.
This is the closest thing to a "deconversion" story I have as the great Santa debate was the only thing that caused me to momentarily be uncertain as to the reality of Christ and God and to wonder if there was a being that not only knew what I was thinking all the time but was judging me for it.
This faded in time after I found other ASantists at school and spoke with them about their various experiences, including some parents who came clean about the existance of the Big Red Man in the North.