Choosing between miracles and what's in the Bible

Faith & Science Conversation
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I suspect Wikipedia has a wider one, since it’ll include non-English language items…

Wow, yes it does!

I can’t decide whether I prefer Yadōkai (the spirits of low-ranking monks who have turned to mischief) or Yamaoroshi (a vegetable grater that has come to life).

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So your inference there is that it was neither a real historical event, nor an answer to prayer?

As i said, this wasnt some kind of i sensational life changing "God has revealed Himself to me with fireworks occurance…it was just a young teenager who prayed and what happened next convinced that young boy his prayer was answered…i have never forgotten it.

If that prayer wasnt answered, then why should any of us pray at all?

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Sometimes it it the simple things. I remember at my baptism, it was late winter/early spring and the heater was out at the little country church in the baptistery, and I remember the pastor commenting that that was the coldest water he had ever been in, while I never noticed the cold a bit. Maybe not a miracle to anyone else, but it has been to me through the years.

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No.

Perhaps because people think their prayers are more likely to be answered if they ask for something more in tune with Christian values than a repaired lawnmower?

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I would say, “so your magic show isn’t free after all? It might have been worth watching when it was free, but at such a cost, there are a lot better magic shows available.”

… so their magic show is based on lies. Did you really expect different?

I believe in a Christianity which has had its teeth pulled. By “teeth” I am talking about the things which are so convenient for making it a tool of power over people. The claim to magical powers is one of those teeth, so magical Christianity is rejected.

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Was it not Christ who said, even the faith of a mustard seed could move mountains…why would the prayer of a child asking for help with a lawn mower be less important to God than moving mountains?

Christ said “suffer the little children to come unto me”

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So have any mountains moved lately? If not, does that mean that NOBODY has even a tiny spec of faith? Or perhaps it is because there are no mountains to move that would be in God’s will.

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Alas, from our perspective of looking back at deep time, mountains are moved all the time, and continue to be moved. We see mountains moved to the plains and on to the sea, mountains moved across the sea, as we note the Appalachian Mountains range continue on in the Scottish Highlands. (Maybe that is why my ancestors felt at home here in the Appalachians as part of the Scot-Irish migration…). And, as Christians, we believe through faith that they moved by the hand of God.

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Agreed, but there was no human faith involved in the moving, which was my point. Mountains were moving long before humans were on the scene.

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Christ was one for hyperbola.

Perhaps this is one occasion that we do not need to take Him too literally.

Richard

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Thank you. I’ll go for Q Quetzalcoatl; R Redcap (native English); Xanthos (classical Greek).

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1 Kings 17

17 Now Elijah the Tishbite was a prophet from the settlers in Gilead. “I serve the Lord, the God of Israel,” Elijah said to Ahab. “As surely as the Lord lives, no rain or dew will fall during the next few years unless I command it.”

1 Kings 18
1 During the third year without rain, the Lord spoke his word to Elijah: “Go and meet King Ahab, and I will soon send rain.” 2 So Elijah went to meet Ahab.

By this time there was no food in Samaria

16 So Obadiah went to Ahab and told him where Elijah was. Then Ahab went to meet Elijah.

17 When he saw Elijah, he asked, “Is it you—the biggest troublemaker in Israel?”

18 Elijah answered, “I have not made trouble in Israel. You and your father’s family have made all this trouble by not obeying the Lord’s commands.
the altar. “Lord, you are the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,” he prayed. “Prove that you are the God of Israel and that I am your servant. Show these people that you commanded me to do all these things. 37 Lord, answer my prayer so these people will know that you, Lord, are God and that you will change their minds.”

38 Then fire from the Lord came down and burned the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the ground around the altar. It also dried up the water in the ditch.

Whats the difference between witholding rain for three years/fire falling from heaven at the prayer of Elijah, and God starting a lawn mower? Which is easier?

People here cannot believe God can start a mechanical device for the exact same reason i proved that God cant talk because a spirit doesnt have physcial vocal chords or a voicebox!

Ill quote more evidences if needed there are plenty of them in the bible. Basing faith on darwinian science is foolishness. Miracles contrary to the reality of science…science says it can prove miracles cant happen, and yet the bible is full of them…or you could rely on the notion phil suggested a couple of posts back that techronic plate movements are miraculous, which would create an even bigger problem for naturalism in that it demolishes deep time theory because Elijah calling fire down from heaven also means God isnt bound in time to the old age earth theory…He could speed up/slow down said movements at the drop of a hat.

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Glad you agree with most here. The position held here is not that faith is based on science, but rather that it is compatible with science,

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You are preaching t the wrong person. I only talked about mountains not lawnmowers,

Richard

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One shows the power of God. The other shows the power of human suggestion. I will leave it to you to figure out which is which.

Another example of human suggestion as you have not “proven” anything except perhaps in your own imagination.

Edit to add: There is a difference between what God can do and what God will do.

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Yes and yet any YEC science is claimed not to be science because it draws different conclusions from your world view…unless you have recently converted to the Intelligent Design community?
TEism is based on Darwinian theory here because of the belief that Adam and Eve were not

  1. The first two people on this earth from which all other humanity came (humanity includes Neanderthals for example)
  2. They were created on the 6th day of a Crewt8on week ending in the 7th day Sabbath

Moses believed the above, wrote it in ancient Hebrew,
Christ believed the above, that was recorded 1000 years after Moses in Greek in Matthew chapter 24:37-39
The apostle Peter wrote about the flood in 2nd Peter 3:5&6, Peter wrote in Greek (koine greek to be exact)

Btw …if the ancient Hebrew language didnt have enough words to adequitely describe the creation and flood narritives, how is it that Greek language with a far greater number of words is describing those events in the same way 1000 years after Moses?

The literary argument simply doesnt work…we are talking two different languages and 1000 years apart, different cultures…that defense of TEism is dead…its not possible to biblically support that claim.

If you dont believe me try to biblically support your claim with referencing from the bible where those events are addressed as literary myths. The big dimemma for you is that Christ talks about the flood when prophesying the second coming. If the flood is

  1. a myth according to your world view, then so is the second coming…the logical conclusion from TEism is that its a literary moral lesson and nothing more.

  2. A local event, the the logical conclusion is that the swcond coming is a local event…gentiles are lost because Christ didnt preach to them outside of his region…■■■■ we had better make tracks to the middle east or we are screwed!

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Broken record. Obviously, truth is told in metaphor and myth. And science as we know it literally did not exist in the ancient Near East. This is why BioLogos and many here are moving on past arguing evolution. Believe it or not, for it is the best interpretation of what we observe in creation and whether you accept it or not does not change that fact.

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YEC ‘science’ is not science because it does not allow some (false) assumptions about reality to be questioned.

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YEC science is pseudoscience by any worldview, because it is incompatible with the body of evidence, and violates the very physical laws to which it appeals.

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  • Some stuff in this thread is not worth the effort of personal analysis. For that kind of stuff, Chat GPT does a quicker job with minimum effort on my part.
    +++++++++
  • Chat GPT says:
    • This post is a passionate and densely packed defense of Young Earth Creationism (YEC), aimed against Theistic Evolution (TE or TEism) and, indirectly, Intelligent Design (ID). Here’s a structured breakdown and critique of the major claims and arguments made:

OVERALL STRUCTURE AND ARGUMENTS
The poster makes several key points, many of which rely on theological interpretation, appeals to authority (Christ, Moses, Peter), linguistic assumptions, and logical extensions from scriptural references.

CLAIM-BY-CLAIM ANALYSIS

  1. “YEC science is claimed not to be science because it draws different conclusions from your worldview”
    • Analysis: This reflects a worldview-based critique of science, suggesting that science rejects YEC not on empirical grounds but due to bias.
    • Critique: Science is not worldview-neutral, but the key issue with YEC is not its conclusions, but its methodology—it starts with a conclusion (a literal interpretation of Genesis) and interprets evidence to fit that. This is the opposite of how science works, which builds conclusions from observable, testable data. YEC typically fails to meet criteria of falsifiability, which is essential for something to be considered scientific.
  1. “TEism is based on Darwinian theory… belief that Adam and Eve were not the first two people”
    • Analysis: TE (Theistic Evolution) accepts mainstream science (including evolution and ancient earth models) while believing that God works through natural processes.
    • Critique: TE does often interpret Adam and Eve as theological archetypes, not necessarily historical individuals in the YEC sense. There are different views among theologians, such as:
    o Symbolic representation (representing humanity as a whole)
    o Historical core with theological meaning
    o Specially chosen pair from a broader human population
    This doesn’t conflict with Christian faith for many scholars, though it does challenge literalist readings of Genesis.
  1. “Moses believed [Genesis], Christ believed it, Peter wrote about the Flood”
    • Analysis: This appeals to authority and scriptural consistency.
    • Critique:
    o Hermeneutics (interpretation methods) allow for the idea that Jesus and the apostles spoke to the cultural understanding of their audiences.
    o Christ often used parables, hyperbole, and Jewish literary traditions. Quoting or referencing an Old Testament story doesn’t necessarily confirm its historicity, but may serve theological or rhetorical purposes.
    o Scholars note that 1st-century Jews often treated Genesis as both literal history and theological narrative, but the genre of Genesis 1–11 is highly debated even among conservative theologians.
  1. “Greek describes the same events 1000 years later — literary argument is dead”
    • Analysis: This criticizes the view that Genesis is myth or literary metaphor, by claiming linguistic continuity.
    • Critique:
    o Linguistic capacity is not the same as genre identification. Greek could express myth or metaphor just as Hebrew could.
    o Mythological or symbolic literature is not defined by vocabulary size, but by genre, structure, and purpose. For example, Genesis uses structured repetition, numerology, and symbolic imagery (e.g., 7 days, the tree of knowledge)—all hallmarks of ancient Near Eastern mythic narrative.
  1. “If the flood is a myth, then the second coming is a myth”
    • Analysis: This is a logical equivalence argument—if one biblical event is symbolic, then others must be too.
    • Critique:
    o This conflates genre categories. Not all biblical events must be either all literal or all myth. The Bible contains multiple genres: poetry, parable, history, prophecy, apocalyptic literature, and more.
    o Christ’s reference to the flood (e.g., Matthew 24:37–39) serves a typological purpose: just as people were unprepared in Noah’s day, so will many be unprepared at the second coming. This doesn’t require a literal flood—it requires that his audience understood the story.
    o The early church, including Paul, used Adam and Noah typologically—but also used allegory and symbolism freely (cf. Galatians 4:21–31).
  1. “If the flood is local, then the second coming is local”
    • Analysis: This is another false equivalence.
    • Critique:
    o Many theologians hold that the flood could have been a local, massive event from the human perspective at the time (e.g., Mesopotamian flood plains), while the second coming is a future eschatological event. Different types of events with different theological meanings.
    o The Bible often uses cosmic language metaphorically (e.g., stars falling, heavens shaking), especially in apocalyptic literature.
    ________________________________________CONCLUSION
    This post is deeply sincere and reflects a strong commitment to YEC theology, but its arguments rest on:
    • Equivocations (treating all biblical events as needing the same genre classification)
    • False dilemmas (either literal Genesis or no second coming)
    • Appeals to linguistic limitations that misunderstand how ancient languages worked
    • A fundamentalist hermeneutic that resists more nuanced or historical-critical approaches to Scripture.
    Faith and science are not always in opposition, but YEC imposes a rigid literalism that doesn’t align well with:
    • Linguistic and literary scholarship
    • Archaeological and genetic evidence
    • Broader Christian theological traditions
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