The undeniable miracle at Fatima

[pocaracas]

Given the posts in this thread, why do you find it so difficult to accept as a natural phenomenon?

The skeptical consensus can be roughly summarized as: There was a local atmospheric phenomenon (haziness that encouraged people to look at the sun, maybe a sun dog, and it was a very hot day) that caused some people to perceive the sun as 'moving around' when it actually wasn't. The effects of staring at the sun too long combined with this to cause more people to perceive the sun as 'moving around'. Combined with 'miracle fever', this sounds pretty plausible to me, and explains discrepancies like why astronomers didn't notice the sun moving, why the sun moving wasn't a disaster, and why some people present did not see the sun move. Why does it sound implausible to you?

You must be joking. If you aren't, you obviously haven't been reading the posts in this thread.

In July 2017 the 3 children publicly foretold that a lady told them she would perform a miracle 3 months later on October 13, at 12 noon at the cova, so that "the people would believe" (referring to believing the Catholic message she was giving to the children during that 6-month span). 70,000 people show up and there just HAPPENS to be a "local atmospheric phenomenon" at the SAME time, and that the SAME location, only visible in a 20 mile radius? Give me a break. Also, it was not a hot day, it was a day where it had been pouring rain all day. Also, if you read the testimonials, everyone says they know of no one who didn't see anything.

What a lame skeptical consensus.

Dude, we've established 30 to 40 thousand. not 70 thousand! Stop using that exaggerated number.

Also, you've clearly never been in Portugal in October.... It's still Summer time, worth going to the beach to catch some rays.... if only you don't have to be stuck in some office.
If it rains, the humidity levels spike and it gets almost tropical.

[Joods]

You must be joking. If you aren't, you obviously haven't been reading the posts in this thread.

In July 2017 the 3 children publicly foretold that a lady told them she would perform a miracle 3 months later on October 13, at 12 noon at the cova, so that "the people would believe" (referring to believing the Catholic message she was giving to the children during that 6-month span). 70,000 people show up and there just HAPPENS to be a "local atmospheric phenomenon" at the SAME time, and that the SAME location, only visible in a 20 mile radius? Give me a break. Also, it was not a hot day, it was a day where it had been pouring rain all day. Also, if you read the testimonials, everyone says they know of no one who didn't see anything.

What a lame skeptical consensus.

Dude, we've established 30 to 40 thousand. not 70 thousand! Stop using that exaggerated number.

Also, you've clearly never been in Portugal in October.... It's still Summer time, worth going to the beach to catch some rays.... if only you don't have to be stuck in some office.
If it rains, the humidity levels spike and it gets almost tropical.

Hey Poca - 

Does it ever snow where you live? Just curious.

[pabsta]

I've had discussions here before about the miracle of the sun. I find it very convincing and impossible to explain away as something other than a supernatural phenomenon. Someone here even said it was a conspiracy by the government (who was somehow able to predict that the sun would do weird things on that day at that time, months ahead of time) and they had the kids involved.

Before this thread I had heard the phrase miracle at Fatima but besides that I knew nothing about what was claimed to have happened.  In reading this thread and learning about it for the first time I find it to be such a low bar for even the word interesting, let alone miracle.  It left no lasting impact, everything returns to normal(as if nothing happened) and nothing changes, that is the definition of ordinary.     

It's shocking to me that adults can think this has some kind of meaningful impact in the world.

It's not only the miracle of the sun that has left a "meaningful impact" on the world, it is the messages the 3 children relayed as coming from this lady over a 6 month period that I've had the most impact. We have not talked about the messages in this thread so far. The 3 children stated that they saw this lady monthly for 6 months leading up to the miracle. After each meeting the children relayed her message to their parents and the locals in Fatima. Each time the messages were entirely Catholic, and contained predictions of things to come in the Catholic Church. The messages were beyond what the children could've known, and all the events later happened. One of the primary messages was that people should pray the Rosary, for example. So these events had the most impact on people who were already Catholic. The miracle of the sun itself was primarily for non-Catholics, but it just confirmed things all the more for those already Catholic.

[LadyForCamus]

I wonder what the Christian explanation is for 'incorruptible' bodies of people who weren't Christian.

Sorry, none exist. There is an excellent book called "The Incorruptibles" by Joan Cruz that covers the subject. Spoke to her myself about the subject before she died. But that's right, I forgot, you guys don't except research, books, or testimonials on such things unless it fits YOUR definition of acceptable. What a shame.

Wow.  The amount of straw getting tossed around here is amazing.  Did you ever consider actually asking people questions, rather than telling them what it is that YOU think they think?  Oh, of course bot.  Because you're a troll.  

[Brian37]

Before this thread I had heard the phrase miracle at Fatima but besides that I knew nothing about what was claimed to have happened.  In reading this thread and learning about it for the first time I find it to be such a low bar for even the word interesting, let alone miracle.  It left no lasting impact, everything returns to normal(as if nothing happened) and nothing changes, that is the definition of ordinary.     

It's shocking to me that adults can think this has some kind of meaningful impact in the world.

It's not only the miracle of the sun that has left a "meaningful impact" on the world, it is the messages the 3 children relayed as coming from this lady over a 6 month period that I've had the most impact. We have not talked about the messages in this thread so far. The 3 children stated that they saw this lady monthly for 6 months leading up to the miracle. After each meeting the children relayed her message to their parents and the locals in Fatima. Each time the messages were entirely Catholic, and contained predictions of things to come in the Catholic Church. The messages were beyond what the children could've known, and all the events later happened. One of the primary messages was that people should pray the Rosary, for example. So these events had the most impact on people who were already Catholic. The miracle of the sun itself was primarily for non-Catholics, but it just confirmed things all the more for those already Catholic.

No no no, and just, NO.

The kids were conned into selling that crap or they were in on the crap. In real science the sun DOES NOT behave like that.  Gravity at the point the sun formed has ALWAYS kept it in that spot. It does not dart around the sky. PERIOD!

Gullibility is very easy to sell to the masses when the masses are far too trusting. There are other people who believe in vampires, other people who believe in the Loc Ness monster, other people who believe in crop circles. Other people who believe in the JFK conspiracies and others who believe in the 9/11 conspiracies. It still amounts to if you want to believe it bad enough you will.

I am sorry someone sold you that junk, but the only real thing about it is that lots of people fell for it, nothing more than that. 

Tell me why you would buy that crap, but not this......

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Or this? I bet all those Muslims would claim that floating minaret was not a trick too.

[Harry Nevis]

Are you actually attempting to compare the above story to the stories of Bernadette and Fatima?!

Do you even notice why your above story is a flawed analogy? Probably not, huh...

Let me clue you in.

Exhibition baseball games can be proven to exist.

Baseball players can be proven to exist.

Baseball players can be proven to have charged the mound in the past.

It can be proven that an exhibition game pitting the Yankees against the Red Sox on the day in question took place.

There are zero parts of your story that are in the least bit extraordinary, therefore, it can easily be believed on the word of the person that witnessed it.

But your stories about Fatima or Bernadette's incorrupt body, are not even in the same ballpark (pun intended) as the mundane story about a baseball game, and therefore, require much better evidence to be believable, by those of us with a modicum of critical thinking skills, to be supernatural events.

Unless of course, one were to set there bar for the validity of evidence as low as you have. But then, some of us actually care whether we have good reasons for our beliefs, and others (cough...) don't.

So, you've already knocked over the chess pieces and crapped on the board. All that's left is for you to fly back to your flock and claim victory.

Yes, and the 3 children can be proven to have existed, as can their public prediction of a miracle 3 months beforehand, as can thousands of people showing up at the Cova, as can the newspaper articles the following day, as can the countless number of testimonials that were submitted afterward. But ALL of that should be completely ignored and swept under the carpet simply because you don't believe what they're testimonials had to say? Absurdity. Like any jury would ignore all of that!

Not ignored.  Perused and rejected as evidence for anything supernatural.  There are other explanations for all of this.

Do you believe in witches?  With all the eyewitness testimony, confessions and such from witchcraft trials, how could you not?  There is more eyewitness testimony and documented evidence for witches then there is Jesus. So why doesn't everybody believe?  By looking past the evidence to human motivations.  Which you seem to not be able to do.

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I wonder what the Christian explanation is for 'incorruptible' bodies of people who weren't Christian.

Sorry, none exist. There is an excellent book called "The Incorruptibles" by Joan Cruz that covers the subject. Spoke to her myself about the subject before she died. But that's right, I forgot, you guys don't except research, books, or testimonials on such things unless it fits YOUR definition of acceptable. What a shame.

No, we "except" them all the time.  The word you want is "accept".  You see to think no one can lie or misunderstand what they experience.  What a dork.

---

Given the posts in this thread, why do you find it so difficult to accept as a natural phenomenon?

The skeptical consensus can be roughly summarized as: There was a local atmospheric phenomenon (haziness that encouraged people to look at the sun, maybe a sun dog, and it was a very hot day) that caused some people to perceive the sun as 'moving around' when it actually wasn't. The effects of staring at the sun too long combined with this to cause more people to perceive the sun as 'moving around'. Combined with 'miracle fever', this sounds pretty plausible to me, and explains discrepancies like why astronomers didn't notice the sun moving, why the sun moving wasn't a disaster, and why some people present did not see the sun move. Why does it sound implausible to you?

You must be joking. If you aren't, you obviously haven't been reading the posts in this thread.

In July 2017 the 3 children publicly foretold that a lady told them she would perform a miracle 3 months later on October 13, at 12 noon at the cova, so that "the people would believe" (referring to believing the Catholic message she was giving to the children during that 6-month span). 70,000 people show up and there just HAPPENS to be a "local atmospheric phenomenon" at the SAME time, and that the SAME location, only visible in a 20 mile radius? Give me a break. Also, it was not a hot day, it was a day where it had been pouring rain all day. Also, if you read the testimonials, everyone says they know of no one who didn't see anything.

What a lame skeptical consensus.

We ARE reading the posts.  The fact that you think we should accept everything you post as fact shows how little you actually think about these things.  You like what something says, so you call it truth.

[pabsta]

As someone who doesn't appear to believe in the incorruptibles, and given this phenomenon only occurs with devout Catholics, the question you should be asking yourself is how even a single incorrupt body could exist. It completely defies science no matter who's incorrupt body we are speaking about. They are on display all over Europe for you to go see. I am not the one having a problem understanding and believing in them, so it is up to you to go and see them. Next time you schedule a vacation, make it in Europe so you can go see them.

As for differentiating between ordinary and extraordinary claims, that is relative. Atheists seem to categorize many things as extraordinary that others wouldn't. Again, let's assume for the moment that the sun never bobbed up and down in the sky. The question then becomes, why did thousands of people submit testimonies saying they think it did?

---

"on display" are the key words here. If you can only see them, you're only taking the word of a believer. Many so-called "incorruptibles" are accented or even made, of wax.  At least one was found to have been a recent body instead of the saint they were identified as.

Why the testimonies?  You answered your own question.  They THINK they did.

Nice try Harry. Body examination testimonials exist for the incorruptibles. You can ask about them when you visit them - they are not all online.

You must also realize that there are incorruptibles, partial incorruptibles, and wax effigies. They are all different. Incorruptibles are full bodies that mysteriously don't corrupt even without embalming, whereas a partial incorruptible would be only part of the body that has not corrupted. Wax effigies are not incorruptibles at all, but wax images of a Saint who has otherwise decayed but his/her relics are placed inside, and it is put on display for veneration.

Also, all incorrupt bodies are not perfect and may have blemishes, so they may be touched up with wax or makeup to make them more appealing for display to the public. If you think the wax or make up makes them fake, then next time one of your family or friends dies, try and submerge their bodies in wax and set them aside and see what happens. They will decay like any other body. No amount of wax or makeup can prevent a dead body from corruption. The fact that the body of any incorrupt saint exists at all is a marvel and a miracle. Atheists ignore this because they will have to change their lives too much if they recognize it.

[Harry Nevis]

Before this thread I had heard the phrase miracle at Fatima but besides that I knew nothing about what was claimed to have happened.  In reading this thread and learning about it for the first time I find it to be such a low bar for even the word interesting, let alone miracle.  It left no lasting impact, everything returns to normal(as if nothing happened) and nothing changes, that is the definition of ordinary.     

It's shocking to me that adults can think this has some kind of meaningful impact in the world.

It's not only the miracle of the sun that has left a "meaningful impact" on the world, it is the messages the 3 children relayed as coming from this lady over a 6 month period that I've had the most impact. We have not talked about the messages in this thread so far. The 3 children stated that they saw this lady monthly for 6 months leading up to the miracle. After each meeting the children relayed her message to their parents and the locals in Fatima. Each time the messages were entirely Catholic, and contained predictions of things to come in the Catholic Church. The messages were beyond what the children could've known, and all the events later happened. One of the primary messages was that people should pray the Rosary, for example. So these events had the most impact on people who were already Catholic. The miracle of the sun itself was primarily for non-Catholics, but it just confirmed things all the more for those already Catholic.

I'm glad you put "meaningful impact" in quotes, as most people on earth have never heard about this.  And the big supernatural revelation?  Pray the Rosary.  Oooohh, I got chills just reading that!  Didn't the kids know about rosaries beforehand?  And what we these other messages? More banal bullshit.

[pabsta]

The fact remains that SOMETHING dried everyone's clothes within minutes and made them think they were going to die. Thousands of people that don't know each other, both at the site and miles away, have no reason to lie about those facts. If you think they were wrong about the sun, fine, but saying therefore NOTHING happened at all is totally retarded.

They were all believers.  Believers lie about their faith all the time.

On the contrary, they were not all believers. The book, "Meet the Witnesses" has a chapter dedicated to the nonbelievers who were at the site of the miracle and later admitted they were believers. It is also mentioned in random places throughout the rest of the book as well. Try getting a book.

[Harry Nevis]

"on display" are the key words here. If you can only see them, you're only taking the word of a believer. Many so-called "incorruptibles" are accented or even made, of wax.  At least one was found to have been a recent body instead of the saint they were identified as.

Why the testimonies?  You answered your own question.  They THINK they did.

Nice try Harry. Body examination testimonials exist for the incorruptibles. You can ask about them when you visit them - they are not all online.

You must also realize that there are incorruptibles, partial incorruptibles, and wax effigies. They are all different. Incorruptibles are full bodies that mysteriously don't corrupt even without embalming, whereas a partial incorruptible would be only part of the body that has not corrupted. Wax effigies are not incorruptibles at all, but wax images of a Saint who has otherwise decayed but his/her relics are placed inside, and it is put on display for veneration.

Also, all incorrupt bodies are not perfect and may have blemishes, so they may be touched up with wax or makeup to make them more appealing for display to the public. If you think the wax or make up makes them fake, then next time one of your family or friends dies, try and submerge their bodies in wax and set them aside and see what happens. They will decay like any other body. No amount of wax or makeup can prevent a dead body from corruption. The fact that the body of any incorrupt saint exists at all is a marvel and a miracle. Atheists ignore this because they will have to change their lives too much if they recognize it.

Then they're not fucking uncorrupted, are they?  My god, you are sooooo gullible.