Now I'm going to run a little video for about 40 seconds and then you have to tell me what you saw. this little video . What did you see? What you saw is a classic, old cartoon with Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. As usual, Wile E. Coyote is chasing the Roadrunner. The Roadrunner is going so fast he creates a cloud of dust. Wile E. Coyote follows him but does not see that he going to run off a cliff because of the cloud of dust. Suddenly, Wile E. Coyote discovers he is hanging there in mid-air. He gets a panicked look on his face. Then he falls. So he falls after hanging in mid-air for several seconds. It's a miracle! This doesn't happen in the real world. In the real world you would fall immediately.

You can do ANY sort of thing you want to do in an animated movie. Superman can fly. Wile E. Coyote can take a beating and never die. Then there are the Veggie Tales videos. Have you seen them? The stories are designed to teach children about the Bible and how they should behave. In the videos, the characters are various types of fruits and vegetables. Oh, like Bob the tomato, Larry the cucumber and Madame Blueberry. These characters could move things around without having any arms or hands at all! They could suspend a tea cup and saucer in mid-air and drink from the cup! Or there is a video about the little drummer boy, the story you hear about at Christmas. The little drummer boy plays his drum for the baby Jesus. In the Veggie Tales video the little drummer boy is played by Junior Asparagus. Junior Asparagus doesn't have any arms or hands but he has drum sticks that hang there in mid-air and they "magically" beat on drums. It's impossible in our real world but it is easy to do in an animated movie. (See VeggieTales: The Little Drummer Boy)

Now, think of our block universe as being just like an animated movie. What we call the "laws of physics" can be produced just by creating a series of 3D images that follow certain patterns. Now God has chosen to follow certain patterns in making the universe. You know, things fall according to the "law" of gravity. So when someone falls off a cliff, or off a ladder, God creates a series of 3D images of the event that use the "law" of gravity. So when you see someone falling it looks just like there is a force pulling them down to the ground. But there is no force, there is just a series of images that follow a certain pattern. Then there is electricity and magnetism. Charged particles attract and repel each other according to the "laws" of electricity and magnetism. And there are other "laws" as well. The amazing thing is, when God does follow these patterns, you get our world. You get atoms, molecules, stars, planets and life. Then, once people discover what the patterns are, they can build spaceships, computers, cell phones, cars, the internet, light bulbs and all sorts of interesting and useful gadgets.

So now, just think, "Does God have to follow the 'laws' of physics in our block universe all the time?" Well, no. He can place whatever things He wants at any place He wants in every 3D image of the universe just like an artist can place anything he wants to into the frames of an animated movie. Generally, the "law" of gravity is a good thing to have. It makes planets form. It keeps air on the Earth instead of drifting off into space. It keeps us all on the Earth and forces us to work with each other. But God doesn't have to use the "law" of gravity pattern all the time. So it was easy for Jesus to walk on water. Then when Jesus left the Earth, he simply floated up into the sky. Other types of miracles can happen as well. Jesus can heal the sick. For instance, suppose someone has a deadly cancer. Can the cancer just disappear? Sure. In one 3D frame of the universe a person can have a deadly tumor and in the next frame it simply does not have to be there! For God, drawing in normal tissues in place of the tumor is no harder than drawing in the tumor.

Creating bread and fish of nothing, to feed thousands of people, is easy too. All God had to do is "draw in" the bread and fish. Now these miracles violate one of those so-called "laws" of physics. It violates the "law" of the conservation of matter, which says that things just don't go around appearing out of nowhere or disappearing into nothingness. Of course, in general, you don't want things appearing and disappearing willy-nilly. You want to count on things being found exactly where you placed them. You don't want to have to worry if you car will be there in the morning when you have to go to work! And you don't want to see a rock appear in the middle of the road as you drive to work!

Here is another example. When many of the Israelites were prisoners in Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue and ordered everyone to worship the statue. But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to worship the golden statue so the king had them thrown into a fiery furnace. They didn't get burnt up. They didn't even have the smell of smoke on them. How? OK, a lot of very hot air was heading toward their bodies. What could be done? Well, the hot air could simply disappear so it never hit Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego never got hot. They never burned up. That so-called "law" of conservation of matter was being broken as the hot air disappeared around them. So, in this miracle, the usual patterns that God uses almost all the time were not followed and that was good for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego!

Or another nice Old Testament case is when the Israelites fled from Egypt. They were in the desert for 40 years. Yet their shoes and clothing did not wear out. If you simply look at the laws of physics, eventually atoms in the shoes and clothing will become dislodged and the shoes and clothing will fall apart. But it doesn't really have to happen. Those "laws" of physics that say that things should fall apart don't really have to be followed. Oh, it's good that God follows these laws of physics most of the time because when you know these "laws" you can make useful electronic gadgets, like lasers, computers and cell phones that work (until the laws of physics make them break!).

Then, there are many, many, other miracles reported in the Bible and every one of them is easy to do. You have probably heard that "all things are possible with God". This has two meanings. First, He can make events happen just the way He wants. So God can assign you to do something that seems impossible. But with God in charge, He can make you succeed. And the other meaning is that God can do anything with the material world that He wants to. So God can make gold or fish or ice cream cones appear out of nothing. So there will be an awful lot of surprising things in Heaven because anything you want can show up instantly.

So, to summarize, God has created a world with "laws" of physics that are really just patterns He followed very closely. These patterns allow Him to accomplish His goals for this world most of the time, but from time to time He departs from the "laws" and does what we call a miracle. Miracles are as easy as non-miracles and there are no actual laws of physics that have to be broken to do them. So, then, the atheists who claim to be MODERN, rational and scientific have not even been MODERN, rational and scientific because they missed (or failed) the course on 20th century physics.

I know this is a lot to take in. You have to make a huge change in how you think about the world. I think you're going to be "blank" about this for a long time. You're thinking "What is going on?". The world can't be like that! I know. It took me years to really appreciate this strange result. But it is worth understanding because we can use it to get a better understanding of what God has done in this world and what we, through Him, can do in the future.