I have heard a couple of atheists tell how open minded they are and how they would believe in God if there was good evidence. The question is, what would they consider to be good evidence?
The answers were interesting and quite ironic. One of these answers has been dealt with before and had to do with the atheist who said if something just appeared out of nothing in front of him he would take that as good evidence for God's existence. I pointed out that the fact that everything appeared out of nothing really ought to satisfy him.
The second atheist I want to mention said that if someone could tell him what the 20 digit number in his mind was then he would take that as good evidence for God's existence (obviously he recognises that no one could really hit on that digit by chance, yet that is exactly what he appeals to for the incomprehensibly finely tuned universe - we just got lucky!) So let's just see what he is saying here: he's saying that if it could be shown that a person had special insight into something that he could not naturally know, that would serve as evidence for God.
To a reasonable mind I really think the standard has been met - you look at the prophets of the Old Testament you discover that they had insight into events in the future that could not have been naturally known - things like the fate of Israel and Judah (e.g. Jeremiah 1 v 13-15; Amos 9 v 8-9), the future empires (Daniel 7), the manner of the Messiah's death, describing crucifixion centuries before its invention (e.g. Psalm 22), the timing of the Messiah's death (Daniel 9 v 24-27), and the manner of His trial and burial (Isaiah 53 v 7-9).
These are just a few of the prophecies of Holy Scripture. The only thing that hasn't been met in the atheist's challenge is that it hasn't been done with the 20 digit number in his mind, or to put it another way, God isn't jumping through the arbitrary hoops that the atheist is holding up and He isn't responding to the commands that the atheist is issuing to his Creator. He has given the evidence, it is there to be examined. God won't be bossed around by anyone. If you don't take the existing evidence seriously you can be sure God isn't going to give you anything more, and the fact is, you will be the loser, not God.
