We don't! It depends on how you see the miracles that happen every day and all around you. Perhaps it's because people don't SEE who is responsible for those miracles and therefore chalk it up to modern medicine or fate of some kind. Surely we have all heard and seen things happen that there is no explanation for...and yet it happened. I chalk most of those up to God.

There is no contradiction. The bible describes Jesus performing miracles and it exhorts faith. There was purpose in the miracles e.g. water to wine because the wine had run out.

You cannot believe something incredible without some sort of evidence. If the bible presents enough evidence for your scepticism threshold then you'll believe. If it doesn't, it won't. We don't 'have to make do with written scripture [read: book] and 'faith' [read: lack of knowledge] alone'. We can simply reject the claims.

There's only one way to explain it and it's really a very simple answer:

For kicks.

Maybe those are the rules. Maybe that's the reward. If you believe, you get to see miracles being performed everywhere. Look at how different our planet is from every planet we've come to know. We may take it for granted but that's a miracle right there. The universe tells us that the odds are against us and yet... here we are ;)

lol, really? of all the things in the bible that is what baffles you?

inherent inconsistancies in the bible number in the hundreds, I don't have the numbers with me, but anyone can google "bible inconsistancies" and see for themselves. Now talking about inconsistancies in the actual teachings, parables, sermons, etc... wow, it would be like watching deep space nine at a treck convention (hopefully I'm not the only one who gets that analogy ._. )

but playing the devil's advocate (wait, is that cliche ironic?)

one is asked to "have the faith of a child" specifically because the authors knew it would be cold day in hell (okay I'm done being ironic) when any of the sheep ever saw an actual miracle.

So then someone rebelious enough to ask "hey, where's my miracle!" could quickly be reprimanded, "the bible says not to ask for a miracle! blind faith! repent! repent heathen!"

of course many christians circumvent this no miracle clause of the bible by pretending to speak in tongues, playing with snakes, and blaming every god damn perfectly logical and explainable act of nature and chance on god. I mean, blind faith? are you kidding? personal jesuses don't have time for that, what with conversion quotas and all.

Really it's like an inconsistancy circle:

1. People in the Bible get miracles to believe, but we're not allowed to.

2. We'll just go around pretending every other thing is a miracle even though the bible says not to look for one.

3. If we get a failed miracle, revert to quote in Bible saying not to expect miracles.

4. When faith falters, read about all the miracles that really really must have happened in the Bible because the Bible says they happened in the Bible.

5. Back to going around pretending everything is a miracle... and so on.

While Bible inconsistancies are fun like in the way it's fun to tell that snot nosed kid at the roller rink there's no such thing as Santa because he skates better than you and you're a grown ass man damnit,

I prefer pointing out the inconsistancies of peoples' actual present faith. For instance this girl asked me to pray for her because she was having a minor surgery, and I told her prayer doesn't work, and she said I didn't know that, then I said okay then if it works I'm going to spend the time praying for the little kids in Africa because they're just little kids, and don't have the wonders of modern medicine to save them.

You see, either way, she wasn't worthy of my prayers.