I said legitimate. As in provable, reliably demonstrated etc. Which of course includes videos being recorded for proof, with which we can review the phenomena.
The miracles during the formation of the early Church were orchestrated in such a way that they were meant to be witnessed an provable beyond all refutation. So that is the standard that must be met and what I am asking for, no less.
And yet, there were many people (almost everyone, us included) that just has to have faith in the Lord of the substantive nature of these events. We are basing this discussion on the belief that they occurred back then, why would today be any different?
I personally am rather against video proof and I am also against many experiences being dissected, drug though the dirt and trampled on by those that have no intention of belief and only want to discredit.
It's a long topic, I am myself skeptical of many things but there is enough anecdotal evidence of miraculous healings that "doctors can't explain through prayer" that I feel people should be willing to at least "suspend their disbelief". Their response I think is something along the lines of "This doesn't make sense, but there is a lot we don't know about the human body." What do you think would happen to someone that experienced limb regeneration on camera? Do you think the government would have no interest? Not to get conspiratorial but I would have no intention of having a record if that happened to me.
Speaking miraculously in a documentable tongue fluently (greek, german, spanish, russian, etc) could not be proven. You would literally have to have the entirety of all the data of a person's life and unless literally every moment of their life were livestreamed, there would be no way to prove such a thing.
There are many ways to "fake" the miraculous in a way that cannot be disproven without the appropriate data. Suppose I only cut out bathroom breaks from a live stream of a whole lifetime, or I stared at the wall or whatever. I could be studying a language book or using that 5 minutes a day for 10 years which would be almost 300 hours. Plenty enough to learn a language.
My only point with relating that is that since there is no way to prove a false miracle "false" how could you prove a true miracle "true"? As far as my experience goes, I can only go with how things bear up in my spirit. Either revulsion (like what is the case with some of the false stuff out there) or this impossible to describe feeling that accompanies truth. If I could "capture" it with words I would attempt, but I will say there are some "inbetween" things that I have no opinion on because they feel almost neutral. It could be that these are human anomalies like the prophets who "saw things by their own spirit" or it could be my eyes aren't opened to it yet or perhaps may not ever be in this life for whatever reason.
I have considered this topic frequently, if you like I could provide a much more detailed version of how/why I think "proof" is unreliable. We walk by faith, if the Lord confirms something physical "evidence" is typically only a very tiny part of the equation and for the most part does not factor in for the general whole as sort of contradictory to "faith vs sight" (John 20:29). Tons of people witnessed Jesus doing what he did "and yet". People can believe in the miraculous and indeed witness things and not believe that he is who he says he is. Even in Acts, the perceptions of the public (like worshipping them as gods) is skewed and even if some were "set straight" there "may" have been still others that maintained that opinion to no effect regarding salvation.
Faith and the impact of "proof" must be considered when discussing empirical evidence.
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