Religious Evidence and Miracles

[BluffTHIS!]

In another thread David posted in reply to myself, he said that believers might believe themselves to possess additional personal evidence for their religious belief that would not be obvious/credible to unbelieving expert evidence evaluators, and I would like to comment further on this. NotReady gave in one post a partial "testimony", which is what Christians call telling how God brought about their individual conversions and continues to act in their lives. I most certainly believe that God has performed supernatural miracles, many of which are told of in the bible, and that He might from time to time continue to perform such miracles. Of course skeptical non-believers will merely state that in the case of such a miracle that might be reported today, that even if science cannot explain it, it is certainly due to the fact that either enough information has not been gathered regarding such a reported occurance, that the reporters were not credible, or that science merely has not progressed to the point to be able to explain what must surely have a rational scientific explanation. I should also mention that I personally do not believe most such current reports myself for the same reasons, such as a face being seen in the grime on the wall of an underpass, which I believe to be merely wishful thinking and no different than an interpretation of a Rorshach inkblot.

But I do not believe that supernatural means are the primary manner in which God chooses to perform miracles, or "interferences" if you prefer. If a Christian should pray for a safe journey and God chooses in His wisdom and compassion to answer that prayer, then take the case where a person would have taken a plane or a highway route that would have put him in danger. Sure, God possessing infinite power could either send a angel to warn that believer in advance, or could simply snatch him miraculously out of harm's way. But He also could just as simply with infinite power just cause that believer's car to malfunction and cause him to miss that plane or miss being on a highway at the time of a catastrophe. That is in fact how I believe God operates the vast majority of the time. Or in the case where He might want you to meet someone, like your future wife or a friend who will benefit you, He just causes you to happen to meet that person. Thus I believe that coincidences and serendipity are prime means by which God chooses to act.

Although I am religious, I am also highly scientifically and rationally oriented, and so I would not instantly ascribe any such occurance to divine intervention. Nonetheless, my own testimony is that there have been many times in my own life, when the timing of such occurances, when I needed them most and have prayed for help, have been the result of God's benevolent aid. I recognize that to a non-believer this would not be very credible evidence, but such actions on God's part were not meant to persuade others to religious belief, but rather to confirm to me His love and protection. And this is why I would rate the evidence for my religious faith much higher than a non-believing expert evidence evaluator would, with the full realization that such personal evidence would not change such an evaluator's determination of the odds. Even so, as believers, we still have to bear a certain amount of adversity that the gospel might entail, or that is merely the result of being a human living in an uncertain and often dangerous world.