You've lost, Pabsta. Give it up and GTFO, or I'll implant a posthypnotic suggestion in your brain that causes you to imagine Mary shagging Satan every time you hear "Ave Maria." *evil grin*

(August 7, 2017 at 2:18 pm)pabsta Wrote:

(August 6, 2017 at 11:01 pm)Whateverist Wrote: But there were whole bunches of people making the same claim, so they claim.  I mean, how you gonna go against the numbers???[/sarcasm]

Everyone reading this knows very well that if one person were to point you out as someone who robbed a bank, people may not believe it right away. But if a CROWD of people point you out as the culprit, your goose is cooked, plain and simple. The more testimonials, the heavier the weight of those testimonials. Let's not play dumb people!

On the other hand, if a group of people pointed me out as someone who had walked across some water in order to raise someone from the dead, all but the gullible would assume they were having a lark.

(August 7, 2017 at 2:38 pm)pabsta Wrote:

(August 6, 2017 at 11:12 pm)Kernel Sohcahtoa Wrote: I don’t think it is a refusal to believe; rather, IMO, it is more like wanting to think freely and openly.  IMO, for some people who choose not to interpret reality through a theistic lens, an important question to ask, especially as it pertains to miracles, is whether belief is a necessary pre-condition in order to observe these miracles.  In other words, can people of all particular mindsets objectively arrive at the truth of these miracles via methods that do not rely on any pre-existing biases? Thus, is it possible to verify a particular religious truth via an approach that is independent/outside of that particular belief system or religion/theism in general? 

The event we are discussing has NOTHING to do with looking at something "through a theistic lens". It has to do with the sun doing something that it has never been seen to do before or since, and a human being predicting the exact time and location months ahead of time. That, in itself, has nothing to do with religion. The antireligious newspapers the following day agreed it happened. Thousands of eyewitnesses agreed it happened. So far, again, this has nothing to do with religion. It's the cowardly atheist who looks at all of this, notices that the conclusion shows the event can only be of supernatural origin, and then simply shakes his head and dismisses it all because "he won't go there". Cowardly is all I can say.

Sure it's looking at it through a theistic lens.  The sun couldn't have acted that way without the solar system breaking apart.  So, if a supernatural being didn't prevent this, how did it not happen?

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(August 7, 2017 at 2:18 pm)pabsta Wrote: What a lame argument. I can't believe you are trying to equate alien sightings to Fatima. Alien sighting testimonials are ONE person at a time - they are very easy to dismiss because the person may not be mentally stable, may be lying, may be paid etc. You cannot say that about THOUSANDS of witnesses at Fatima all at once, most who did not know each other, and many who had different religious beliefs. C'mon now.

They all came there to see the miracle.  They decided it was real before they got there.  And who, in the middle of a crowd of people proclaiming a miracle, wouldn't be hesitant to disagree?  Just like them, you WANT it to be true.

(August 7, 2017 at 4:00 am)pocaracas Wrote:

(August 6, 2017 at 9:52 pm)pabsta Wrote:  
Isn't it funny that all the testimonies gathered in 1960 from people all over the world but didn't know each other, all coincided and said the same thing?
 
By the way, after the miracle in 1917, it took the Catholic Church 13 years and thousands of pages of testimonials to investigate the matter. If they were out to just scam the world to somehow draw attention or make a profit, they wouldn't have spent so long looking into it. In the end, in 1930, the Catholic Church made an official pronouncement approving of the authenticity of the miracle.

Tell me... why do you present us with testimonies gathered in the 60's, when you know there are testimonies that were gathered in the few years after the event? Why not give us those that convinced the catholic church?

But, even if you had those, what is the level of evidence required for the Vatican to conclude that a miracle has indeed occurred? And do remind me how much of an uninterested party they are.

Also, if you want funny, isn't it funny that the reporter on the scene didn't see anything? But saw a few people claiming they'd seen something...
Memory is a fickle thing... I advise you to listen to the Serial podcast: https://serialpodcast.org/season-one You might learn something before it's done. HEY HEY HEY!

And if you had the thousands of pages of testimonials reviewed by the Catholic Church, would that convince you? Of course not, if you don't believe the 10 pages of testimonials gathered by the author in his book I mentioned, then presenting more testimonials to you is not going to convince you any further.

The Vatican not an interested party in this? Of course they are an interested party - they need to confirm miraculous claims are authentic before they approve or denounce them. They spent 13 years researching it as previously mentioned.

And I notice people love to try and say there were no photos taken at Fatima that day. Look again - there are photos online. You also need to keep in mind that not many people had cameras in 1917, and the ones that did certainly weren't walking around with them like they do today. For the few people that brought cameras, taking photos of the actual sun during the height of the event when people were all screaming it was the end of the world and that they were going to die, was obviously not a priority. In 1917, taking photos is the last thing I'm concerned about if I'm truly thinking I'm seconds from death.

(August 7, 2017 at 6:50 am)Mr.wizard Wrote: [quote pid='1598297' dateline='1502070773']

[quote pid='1598038' dateline='1502032570']
 Of course, every rational human being asks themselves the questions you mentioned. I don't know if anyone will ever be able to answer those questions because only God could know the answers. But these questions don't take away from the fact that an incident certainly occurred that was beyond what any human being could do.

[/quote]

It doesn't matter if an incident occurred that no human being could do, that doesn't mean god did it. "God did it" is not an answer, you haven't even established it as a possibility until you can establish that this god actually exists.  You also must establish the fact that an incident occurred, which in the case of the sun moving around sky you have not done. You keep wanting to use that 70,000 person figure as your evidence, but you ignore the fact that the same sun was visible to millions of people who didn't see anything.

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Man, I really butchered that reply, it was directed at PABSTA.
[/quote]

Can you predict an event months ahead of time to exact location and time of day? Of course not. If someone does, the supernatural must be involved. As for the incident actually occurring, I've already posted the text from the newspapers the following day. They were in no hurry to print those articles because they were both known to be anti-religious newspapers. And I already gave samples of testimonials of people who saw the event remotely.

(August 7, 2017 at 2:18 pm)pabsta Wrote: What a lame argument. I can't believe you are trying to equate alien sightings to Fatima. Alien sighting testimonials are ONE person at a time - they are very easy to dismiss because the person may not be mentally stable, may be lying, may be paid etc. You cannot say that about THOUSANDS of witnesses at Fatima all at once, most who did not know each other, and many who had different religious beliefs. C'mon now.

Not lame at all.

First of all, there are reported cases of multiple abductions from the same incident.

There are also MANY cases of multiple mass sightings.

But lets look at a just a few problems with the Fatima incident:

There were many people, a sizable minority,  there that reported nothing unusual at all.

There was a known giant sandstorm over the Sahara desert several months before, that was know to have caused many unusual atmospheric events all over the world leading up to the time of Fatima.

The interviews done, were done many years after the alleged event, by a Catholic Priest. No, not to much bias there. No sir, none at all.

No one in any other part of Europe noticed a thing in the sky. No astronomer noticed a thing. Nothing catastrophic happened to the Earth and solar system. Oh, but that is part of the 'miracle', right?

I could go on, but why bother.

There's also the fact that what was described can be attributed to either parhelia, or people trying to stare at the sun, or both. And that the accounts don't line up very well at all. And that the church had a vested interest in perpetuating the story, not just in general but because of the political climate in that particular place. And that, no, the newspapers that reported it weren't anti-religion... quite the opposite in at least one case.

And on and on.

OP: just admit you were suckered and move on. It's getting embarrassing.

Quote:I could go on, but why bother.

Indeed.  When dealing with a fucktard like this there is only so much effort required.

It's amazing that you say "thousands" report seeing it but none of the newspapers or anything else report anything happened until some time later. We all know how some people are capable of switching off rational thought when it comes to belief.

All it takes is one or two people to claim they have witnessed something and others around them will often convince themselves they've seen it, too. I provided an example of the phantom vicar of London.

It's the type of thinking that allows a convicted conman to make the claim of being visited by an angel who showed him golden tablets, (which, conveniently, disappeared almost immediately) and creating a religion around himself.

It's the same kind of thinking that allows a mediocre writer, who once said, "If you want to get rich, start a religion", to do just that, with bad science fiction elements, yet attracts thousands of followers and is today a very dangerous cult.

(August 7, 2017 at 4:05 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: It's amazing that you say "thousands" report seeing it but none of the newspapers or anything else report anything happened until some time later. We all know how some people are capable of switching off rational thought when it comes to belief.

All it takes is one or two people to claim they have witnessed something and others around them will often convince themselves they've seen it, too. I provided an example of the phantom vicar of London.

It's the type of thinking that allows a convicted conman to make the claim of being visited by an angel who showed him golden tablets, (which, conveniently, disappeared almost immediately) and creating a religion around himself.

It's the same kind of thinking that allows a mediocre writer, who once said, "If you want to get rich, start a religion", to do just that, with bad science fiction elements, yet attracts thousands of followers and is today a very dangerous cult.

That's why I said above that we'd need to see who published what exactly immediately after the fact.