Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?

Atheists often say this, and it’s one of their main arguments against any claim that God performed a miracle. They present it as if it were common sense: if I tell you I have a dog, you're probably ready to take my word for it. It's an ordinary claim. If I say I have a tiger, you're going to have your doubts if I don't have any proof, because that's headed out of the realm of the ordinary. And if I say that I have a pet dragon, that's an extraordinary claim that you're not going to believe without some extraordinary proof.

So this rule gets set up, and then if it's suggested that Jesus was raised from the dead, you are informed that here we have an extraordinary claim that's going to require extraordinary evidence. And of course, whatever evidence can be provided, it will never be extraordinary enough.

The problem is not the evidence, the problem is the rule, which suffers from at least two fatal weaknesses. It's simply not true that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

(1) One problem is that this rule is not a reliable guide in real life. If we followed it meticulously, we'd suffer from unreasonable doubts at the same time as believing dangerous lies. The claims that the scammer on the phone made were perfectly ordinary, but disbelieving them was absolutely the right thing to do. On the other hand let's imagine I went golfing by myself one day, and at some point I happen to make a hole in one. This is extraordinary for the best golfers; for me it would border on the miraculous. No one has seen it but me, and I have no proof to offer except my word. So, if I tell my wife or my friends, would they be obliged to disbelieve me because I'm making an extraordinary claim without extraordinary evidence?

The direction both of these examples point is that the reliability of the witness is far more important to the reliability of claims than a measure of how extraordinary they are.

(2) An even more important problem is the fact that there is no objective measure by which to designate a statement as ordinary or extraordinary. What is considered to be extraordinary depends on the pre-existing worldview of the person evaluating and the presuppositions that he brings to the table. For example, let's consider the Christian claim that Jesus died on the cross and rose again the third day. For an atheist, the claim of Jesus' death is ordinary, while the claim of his resurrection is extraordinary. But for a Muslim, the claim of the resurrection is not intrinsically extraordinary (Q 3.49 Jesus raises the dead), but the claim that God would let his prophet die in such a brutal and shameful way, that is inconceivable.

Clearly, the Muslim's objection depends on a certain conception of God, but it's just the same for the atheist. He considers a resurrection to be extraordinary only because he presupposes the non-existence of God and the impossibility of miracles. It's not an objective quality of the claim that makes it extraordinary for the atheist, but the fact that it has no place in his worldview. Which of course we already knew...