(November 2, 2016 at 11:45 am)Doubting Thomas Wrote:

(November 1, 2016 at 8:43 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Yeah, I saw that when I researched this stuff before. Even people on the ground weren't convinced, or saw nothing at all. They were there; they ought to know.

Well apparently those people who didn't see anything weren't devout enough.

I don't think so. 

Most people there, numbered in the tens of thousands, saw the zig zagging sun movements across the sky. But some didn't. Plenty of the ones who didn't were Catholic (as has been linked here already), and plenty of the ones who did were skeptic. 

That's the thing with miracles. We don't understand why God grants this gift to some but not to others.

(November 2, 2016 at 12:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(November 2, 2016 at 11:45 am)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Well apparently those people who didn't see anything weren't devout enough.

I don't think so. 

Most people there, numbered in the tens of thousands, saw the zig zagging sun movements across the sky. But some didn't. Plenty of the ones who didn't were Catholic (as has been linked here already), and plenty of the ones who did were skeptic. 

That's the thing with miracles. We don't understand why God grants this gift to some but not to others.

So, we have a wobbling sun which could not be seen by all the people gathered there.
Some saw it, some of those who saw it were believers... some were skeptic... some of those who didn't see it were believers, some were skeptic.
This means that belief is not the operating factor to see the wobbling sun.

To my mind, mirage is the word that best describes the events... a rising column of air, charged with water distorting the view. Such a column would not be homogeneous, so it stands to reason that some people would see through it while others not.

Add to that the fact that the location is kinda shaped like a bowl, and the effect would only happen right there. Anyone away from "Cova da Iria" (luckily, the clue is in the name, 'cova' is a hole in the ground), would be unable to look through this air column towards the sun.

Have you seen such effects before?
Ever heard of this? http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-na...09/?no-ist

I have to say, it is curious that the kids did specify that time and place, if you're saying poca that it was a natural place for something like that to happen... whether they'd seen similar effects there before, or there was otherwise more to this than meets the eye... almost like PR stunt . It makes me think of the scene in Apocalypto where the Mayan high priest cashes in on an eclipse to wow the ignorant gathered crowd into thinking that the god they're sacrificing to is appeased.

(November 2, 2016 at 12:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(November 2, 2016 at 11:45 am)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Well apparently those people who didn't see anything weren't devout enough.

I don't think so. 

Most people there, numbered in the tens of thousands, saw the zig zagging sun movements across the sky. But some didn't. Plenty of the ones who didn't were Catholic (as has been linked here already), and plenty of the ones who did were skeptic. 

That's the thing with miracles. We don't understand why God grants this gift to some but not to others.

I do.

"I'll see it when I believe it."

(November 2, 2016 at 1:01 pm)pocaracas Wrote:

(November 2, 2016 at 12:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I don't think so. 

Most people there, numbered in the tens of thousands, saw the zig zagging sun movements across the sky. But some didn't. Plenty of the ones who didn't were Catholic (as has been linked here already), and plenty of the ones who did were skeptic. 

That's the thing with miracles. We don't understand why God grants this gift to some but not to others.

So, we have a wobbling sun which could not be seen by all the people gathered there.
Some saw it, some of those who saw it were believers... some were skeptic... some of those who didn't see it were believers, some were skeptic.
This means that belief is not the operating factor to see the wobbling sun.

To my mind, mirage is the word that best describes the events... a rising column of air, charged with water distorting the view. Such a column would not be homogeneous, so it stands to reason that some people would see through it while others not.

Add to that the fact that the location is kinda shaped like a bowl, and the effect would only happen right there. Anyone away from "Cova da Iria" (luckily, the clue is in the name, 'cova' is a hole in the ground), would be unable to look through this air column towards the sun.

Have you seen such effects before?
Ever heard of this? http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-na...09/?no-ist

I understand.

The thing is though, I just find it too much of a coincidence bc the children said something would happen at that same day and at pretty much that exact time even. If this was just an isolated event where people were going on about their daily lives and all of a sudden they saw the sun moving around through the sky just kind of randomly out of nowhere, I'd be a lot more skeptical that it was a miracle. 

But it's just the combination of everything that makes it convincing to me. The fact that it was predicted to almost the exact hour when it happened, the fact that it was seen by tens of thousands, including skeptics... the fact that it started and ended at the same time for everyone who saw it.... and even the wet clothes and wet ground became dry in seconds, as reported by many people. 

Those kids must have been really really lucky if they were just completely lying about the apparition of the Virgin Mary telling them something was going to happen at that same day at that same time... and then coincidentally enough there was something that was either the same mass hallucination or the same mass optical illusion by the thousands. Also, if this was just some illusion that happened because of the shape of the land, etc etc, then it seems like it would have happened there before and/or since then... and that people who lived in the area would be familiar with it. 

As I said, this is very convincing to me that it truly was a miracle that happened that day. But I'm not trying to get you guys to think it's convincing as well. It just simply makes more sense to me that it was a miracle than it does that it was some sort of elaborate coincidence in so many ways.

(November 2, 2016 at 12:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(November 2, 2016 at 11:45 am)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Well apparently those people who didn't see anything weren't devout enough.

I don't think so. 

Most people there, numbered in the tens of thousands, saw the zig zagging sun movements across the sky. But some didn't. Plenty of the ones who didn't were Catholic (as has been linked here already), and plenty of the ones who did were skeptic. 

That's the thing with miracles. We don't understand why God grants this gift to some but not to others.

I have been adressing this --' 

Seems like there's no **** point in arguing sometimes.

(November 2, 2016 at 12:49 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: That's the thing with miracles.

No. That's the ring of mass psychosis. Apart from the fact that people may or may not have seen what they talked about later. Some may have been honest in their accounts, really believing they saw what the claimed to have seen, some may just have seeked their 15 minutes of fame. The whole thing is the classic case of hearsay and anecdotal evidence.

(November 2, 2016 at 2:50 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(November 2, 2016 at 1:01 pm)pocaracas Wrote:
So, we have a wobbling sun which could not be seen by all the people gathered there.
Some saw it, some of those who saw it were believers... some were skeptic... some of those who didn't see it were believers, some were skeptic.
This means that belief is not the operating factor to see the wobbling sun.

To my mind, mirage is the word that best describes the events... a rising column of air, charged with water distorting the view. Such a column would not be homogeneous, so it stands to reason that some people would see through it while others not.

Add to that the fact that the location is kinda shaped like a bowl, and the effect would only happen right there. Anyone away from "Cova da Iria" (luckily, the clue is in the name, 'cova' is a hole in the ground), would be unable to look through this air column towards the sun.

Have you seen such effects before?
Ever heard of this? http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-na...09/?no-ist

I understand.

The thing is though, I just find it too much of a coincidence bc the children said something would happen at that same day and at pretty much that exact time even. If this was just an isolated event where people were going on about their daily lives and all of a sudden they saw the sun moving around through the sky just kind of randomly out of nowhere, I'd be a lot more skeptical that it was a miracle. 

But it's just the combination of everything that makes it convincing to me. The fact that it was predicted to almost the exact hour when it happened, the fact that it was seen by tens of thousands, including skeptics... the fact that it started and ended at the same time for everyone who saw it.... and even the wet clothes and wet ground became dry in seconds, as reported by many people. 

Those kids must have been really really lucky if they were just completely lying about the apparition of the Virgin Mary telling them something was going to happen at that same day at that same time... and then coincidentally enough there was something that was either the same mass hallucination or the same mass optical illusion by the thousands. Also, if this was just some illusion that happened because of the shape of the land, etc etc, then it seems like it would have happened there before and/or since then... and that people who lived in the area would be familiar with it. 

As I said, this is very convincing to me that it truly was a miracle that happened that day. But I'm not trying to get you guys to think it's convincing as well. It just simply makes more sense to me that it was a miracle than it does that it was some sort of elaborate coincidence in so many ways.

Yeah...I don't believe the kids were lying.
I find it far more likely that they were being deceived by someone else (possibly a team of people).
Someone who knew the land and who had noted consistent atmospheric phenomena throughout the years... There's another well known phenomenon here, the Summer of St. Martin, that happens yearly around November 11th (St. Martin's day, when we traditionally eat roasted chestnuts... global warming must be messing it up, as it seems to have passed by last week), but I remember it working like clockwork,
just last year.

It wouldn't take much to make those kids believe in what they were being told... Rural Portugal was pretty much pastoral - no sophistication of any kind... Very religious to begin with, so, by default, gullible.
Curiously, on the day the sun was seen to wobble, there was no apparition... no lady, no angel... just the sun. It's as if it would be impossible to pull such a trick in front of all those people.

(November 2, 2016 at 3:24 pm)pocaracas Wrote: It wouldn't take much to make those kids believe in what they were being told... Rural Portugal was pretty much pastoral - no sophistication of any kind... Very religious to begin with, so, by default, gullible.

That's why I even draw the skeptics into question. I guess it would have been hard to find any skeptic in rural Portugal at that time. Or any rural part of Europe for that matter.

The children? Well, who says they said what they're supposed to have said at the time in question? I guess Fatima was as piss poor a region before the grand "miracle" as many of the other regions where miracles supposedly happened. Not anymore, I guess. Same as Lourdes.

(November 2, 2016 at 3:28 pm)abaris Wrote:

(November 2, 2016 at 3:24 pm)pocaracas Wrote: It wouldn't take much to make those kids believe in what they were being told... Rural Portugal was pretty much pastoral - no sophistication of any kind... Very religious to begin with, so, by default, gullible.

That's why I even draw the skeptics into question. I guess it would have been hard to find any skeptic in rural Portugal at that time. Or any rural part of Europe for that matter.

So do I. I mean who would go? If say Drich 'prophesised' on here that something was going to happen at a certain time and place, what right-thinking athiest would actually go there just in case or just to prove him wrong? The more likely response would be 'yeah, whatever'.