Not Despite Miracles, But Because of Them
The other day, a Christian wrote to me and told me that he didn’t think that even if incontrovertible evidence was shown for God, that I would accept it. One of his arguments was that Jesus did lots of miracles and there were still people in his day who didn’t believe even though they saw the miracles happening right before their eye.
I love these types of conversations. I always throw them for a loop when I tell Christians like this individual that one of the reasons why I don’t believe is because of the miracles. Many Christians have a hard time understanding this line of thinking.
Think about it in this way, even the Bible says that Satan can do these same types of magic tricks. The Bible repeatedly warns against any kind of magic except for God-magic. So if Satan can do magic tricks and Jesus can do magic tricks, how do magic tricks support the idea that God is real? Come to think of it, Penn & Teller can do magic tricks too without supernatural powers. I once saw them throw a rabbit in a wood chipper… okay bad example.
The thing is that Uri Geller can bend a spoon with his mind right in front of your face, but that is really poor reasoning to conclude that Uri Geller is God in the flesh. Think about it, why would God feel the need to show off his divine powers by bending spoons?
If God was real and was all powerful and could do anything and he really and truly wanted to make his presence known, he wouldn’t need miracles or magic tricks to do it. We would all simply “know” it intuitively. As a point of fact, we don’t.
People are taught religion often times from an early age. If we intuitively “knew” God, than there would be no reason to teach religion, no reason to proselytize, and no reason for missionaries. Either God doesn’t want everyone to know of his existence or he does not exist. It isn’t that I don’t believe despite the miracles, but rather that I don’t believe in part because of the miracles.
