Ya, miracle is a loaded word. It's pretty tough to remove the ecclesiastical connotations and associated negative stigma in the scientific community. As such, I would dispute Itse's argument as merely semantical, and therefore null and useless.
Plus it's question begging in that it assumes modern rationalists follow Humean rationalism.
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"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan
Freedom consonant with responsibility.
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