I’m assuming that you believe the miracles as described in the bible were real events. What is that convinces you that these miracles really did happen?
Do you think the Holy Spirit has an effect on how we think, or do you see it has being just a natural process?
I don’t think every bible story necessarily had to literally happen in the way you’re probably thinking … i.e. there are visions, parables, allegories and such that I don’t think are pushed as literal accounts. E.g. I’m personally fine if Ezekiel’s army of bones or Jonah fleeing God, or the book of Job could all be kinds of narrative other than historical - not to mention Jesus’ parables (not all of which are prefaced with ‘now this is “only” a parable’).
But yes, I do believe there can be and were miracles in the literal sense too - Jesus’ healings and resurrection. Some of them might be miraculous in ways that might surprise us today if we could go back and actually look. So I’m not necessarily convinced that our usual “flannel-graph” take on miracles as magic shows is always necessarily accurate. But what convinces me that miracles did take place (both in old and new testament events) is the legacy of changed lives and resulting testimonies from the people who were affected / healed / saved etc. Whatever happened, and whatever that might look like to us if we could time travel back to actually just spectate, it had a profound enough effect on the people of the day that their oral and eventually written testimonies saw fit to record it as unmistakably God’s hand that was involved.
So to summarize - what convinces me a miracle took place is the evidence and testimonies of changed lives.
[And I’ll hastily add that this is not some robust, ‘miracle-detector’ test - which I’ve little interest in devising. Skeptics will point out that all sorts of ordinary things can change people’s lives, and they’re right. The whole “let’s get a scientific handle on miracles so we can persuade skeptics” is not a big interest of mine - and I’m skeptical of that enterprise anyway. So my definition of ‘miracle’ may be a bit different than yours. If I, seemingly by coincidence, meet somebody in an unexpected place and needed words of encouragement are exchanged or some other need is met, I’m fine calling that a miracle even though skeptics can rightly write it off as coincidence. I have no need to cajole them to think otherwise on my own terms. The Holy Spirit will blow in their lives in the season where they are ready to receive it as such.]
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Mervin, that reminds me of something John Walton said. He mentioned that the word “miracle” is never used in the Bible, but rather “signs and wonders.” His point was that the Bible and ancient people did not separate things into natural and supernatural, but rather that all things showed the involvement of God. A naturally explained event can thus be a sign and wonder as much as something not explained by physical laws. He said this in the context of removing conflict from the science -faith debate, but is supportive of your point.
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And those signs and wonders were used to confirm a message. I absolutely believe they happened, and I don’t expect any scientific evidence to have been left behind.
I don’t see changing radioactive decay rates as being a sign or wonder to confirm a message. It doesn’t make any sense, either as a natural phenomenon (that would vaporize everything on earth) or a sign/wonder. Looking at how God used signs and wonders throughout the Bible, I have no problem with many of those things that did not leave behind any evidence other than eyewitness accounts recorded in the Bible. There are no accounts in the Bible telling us the age of the earth or about changing the radioactive decay rates (or moving continents, for that matter). At most, the genealogies get you maybe to Adam, and I agree that Adam probably lived around 6000 years ago. I also think other people were around (having evolved) at the time of his creation (be it by birth or being scooped out of dust… I lean toward birth due to the highly figurative language used in those two chapters, with creation from dust just meaning he was mortal, as that phrase is used elsewhere in the Bible).
Now how does this matter to me? My daily life outside of church, not much. My life in church, a whole lot. How people treat me affects my walk with Christ. I’m thankful to be in a church where I have the freedom to discuss differences of opinion on this matter, and my brethren have been very kind to me. Sometimes, though, comments will be made in class by people who don’t know what I believe, and those comments will be mocking my views or suggesting my views are dangerous or even atheistic. That ends up being a stumbling block for me, especially as I rebuild my faith, returning from atheism. Again, when talking to people individually (even after they’ve made such comments), I’ve had nothing but kindness and love exhibited toward me. Usually, once they see why I believe what I believe, they realize I’m not dangerous or compromising the Bible, even though we still disagree. But yes, the issue affects my life at church and how freely I can talk about God’s creation around my brethren. Some of them believe that if evolution is true, the Bible is false and should be thrown out. So I have to be careful not to discuss evolution without first explaining that the Bible and evolution don’t conflict. I wouldn’t want to be a stumbling block to them due to the false dichotomy they’ve been taught all their lives. I first have to address the false dichotomy and convince them that it’s false before I can feel comfortable discussing what the science actually says.
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That is reminiscent of several accounts of God’s providence seen here, the most startling maybe is Maggie’s, and gbob’s is right up there, too. And I have more than several of my own, some just pure fun.
As far as “rightly write it off as coincidence” goes, I would think that only the most resolute unbelievers should fail to recognize from those accounts that “the game was rigged”, as gbob put it. But spiritual blindness is pervasive and persistent, and it sometimes takes a 2x4 “upside the head” to open eyes or just to get someone’s attention.
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For me, it’s not an either/or question. How we think is partly a matter of science (physics, chemistry, biology), but it’s also a matter of how we choose to use our free will to align our thinking with the needs of Heart and Soul. Our thinking patterns can be anywhere on a vast spectrum from having no openness to God to having great openness to God. But no matter what we choose, we still have to work within the limits of our human biology and we still have to take responsibility for what we put in our brains. Accepting these two basic realities is the start of building a healthy relationship with God. Your half of the relationship involves looking after the body and brain that allow you to experience many marvels (dare I say “signs and wonders”?) as a human being. God’s half of the relationship is to be a constant source of love, forgiveness, resilience, and guidance for you. So yes, if you have a relationship with God, it will definitely affect your thinking, just as your relationships with others on Planet Earth will affect your thinking. These relationships can become toxic on your side if you let your brain fill itself to the brim with anger and hatred and the like. Or these relationships can become a neverending source of joy, kindness, and wisdom if that’s what you make a concerted effort to build.
It’s up to each individual to decide what his/her side of the relationship bridge will look like. If you build a bridge of hatred, though, can you really expect God’s love to align with that?
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It’s not a question of changing the evidence. It’s a question of changing the interpretation of the evidence.
You are missing the point. The hypothetical starting point is: “…it was proven that the Earth is no more than 10,000 years old.”
Simply denying the hypothetical premise means you’re not playing the game.
If you don’t want to play, then don’t play.
I’ll play. How could it be proven? What scientifically could encapsulate a disinterested, perfectly fully, completely rational 4.543 ga Earth in 10 ka?
I don’t think it can.
But that’s not really the point of the game, is it?
A: Let’s say someone found a big deposit of gold in the middle of the Sahara…
B: There’s no gold in the Sahara.
A: Yeah, but let’s just say someone found some…
B: But there is no gold there…
A: But if there was…
B: But there isn’t.
A: Okay, but if a deposit of gold happened to be discovered in the Sahara…
B: But you won’t! It’s not there!
Etc.
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C’mon, there’s a great sci-fi novel I can’t marimba the dang title or author of from 20 years back, where a C19th America, as I wrongly recall, wakes up to an empty world.
I played. Do I get a prize? 
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The answer is still no. This is not one piece of evidence or one kind of evidence but million of pieces from hundreds of different directions and sources. They all make the conclusion inescapable. That is why we have esitimates of the age of the universe getting more and more precise over time as more data of different kinds keep narrowing the possibilities.
Already played that game. The inescapable conclusion for me was that I had moved into an alternate reality or different phase of existence (as in via death or dream). An alteration of the evidence is no different from an alteration of memory or alteration of the past.
If you remember, please post it. I’m always looking for good sci-fi.
But Newtonian physics accounted for almost all the existing evidence in the late 1800s. Relativity and quantum mechanics not only did a “better job,” but at the small and large scales, actually contradicted Newtonian physics.
Estimates of the age of the universe are one thing, but we actually use models and “predict backwards” for things like “expansion periods.” It’s not observation, but models and predictions.
Consider the conspiracy theory that “light is actually slowing down.” Imagine if that were proven true? It would change everything about what we know.
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And the first test of relativity was that it agreed with Newtonian physics on all the same evidence where it worked. It improved upon Newton by doing a better job in those places where Newtonian theory failed.
Unlike declarations of theology, these models and predictions can be tested in hundreds of different ways in a number of different sciences.
No it would not change everything. It would either run into inconsistencies or become a meaningless unfalsifiable irrelevance much like the idea of the universe being created this morning with all of our memories as they are. A universal change in an arbitrary measure has absolutely no effect on anything observable. This is the basis of renormalization in quantum field theory.
To be sure we can insist on literal interpretations of Genesis by claiming that everything in the past simply moved faster and in that way cram 13.7 billion years into seven days. But that is ultimately just switching to a definition of time that is ultimately meaningless. It has no real value and smells of desperation like a barrel of rotten fish.
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It’s not. It can’t. Why bother? We know all we’ll ever need, or get.
And I will track that book down.
You seem to be implying some kind of dichotomy between theology and science. The hypothetical premise was about a scientific proof impacting one’s theological perspective. Not the other way around.
Again, that’s the game we’re supposed to be playing.
Nobody’s insisting on that.
Once again, it’s a game. A thought experiment. IF a young-universe were proven, how would that affect your theology.
You seem to insist we’re playing the opposite game:
IF your theology was young-universe, how would that affect your science.
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