Professor's Proposition: Only Two Logical Choices

[System of Solace]

Ah, the Miracle of the Sun. Given too much credit. This event was apparently predicted. Not everyone saw it. And when you have thousands of people staring at the sun for hours, it's bound to cause vision problems. The reports were also inconsistent on what exactly was seen. Many were there and said it happened but never saw it. They say they were temporarily blinded or they were not looking correctly (see my conformity link). A few hundred used solar filters and saw-nothing. Here's a few theories:

Joe Nickell, a skeptic and investigator of paranormal phenomena, claims that the position of the phenomenon, as described by the various witnesses, is at the wrong azimuth and elevation to have been the sun[30]. He suggests the cause may have been a sundog. Sometimes referred to as a parhelion or "mock sun", a sundog is a relatively common atmospheric optical phenomenon associated with the reflection/refraction of sunlight by the numerous small ice crystals that make up cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. A sundog is, however, a stationary phenomenon, and would not explain the reported appearance of the "dancing sun". Nickell suggests an explanation for this and other similar phenomena may lie in temporary retinal distortion, caused by staring at the intense light and/or by the effect of darting the eyes to and fro so as to avoid completely fixed gazing (thus combining image, afterimage and movement). Nickell concludes that there was

likely a combination of factors, including optical and meteorological phenomena (the sun being seen through thin clouds, causing it to appear as a silver disc; an alteration in the density of the passing clouds, so that the sun would alternatively brighten and dim, thus appearing to advance and recede; dust or moisture droplets in the atmosphere, imparting a variety of colors to sunlight; and/or other phenomena).

Paul Simons, in an article entitled "Weather Secrets of Miracle at Fatima", states that he believes it possible that some of the optical effects at Fatima may have been caused by a cloud of dust from the Sahara[31].

Kevin McClure claims that the crowd at Cova da Iria may have been expecting to see signs in the sun, as similar phenomena had been reported in the weeks leading up to the miracle. On this basis he believes that the crowd saw what it wanted to see. Kevin McClure stated that he had never seen such a collection of contradictory accounts of a case in any of the research he had done in the previous ten years[32].

Leo Madigan believes that the various witness reports of a miracle are accurate, however he alleges inconsistency of witnesses, and suggests that astonishment, fear, exaltation and imagination must have played roles in both the observing and the retelling. Madigan likens the experiences to prayer, and considers that the spiritual nature of the phenomenon explains what he describes as the inconsistency of the witnesses[33].

Author Schwebel claims that the event was a supernatural (but non-miraculous) extra-sensory phenomenon. Schwebel notes that the solar phenomenon reported at Fátima is not unique - there have been several reported cases of high pitched religious gatherings culminating in the sudden and mysterious appearance of lights in the sky[34].

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/ind...49860.html

One other:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4110

This is the conformity link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_confor...xperiments

The reason atheism is not a logical choice is because it cannot be upheld with any manner of proof.

Atheism does not claim something, it denies a claim. And there is proof to justify the denial.

Faced with an absence of evidence of God, assuming one rejects all the evidence of miracles which I have described, it is not rational to say that there MUST be no God simply because there is no evidence that there is.

Miracles=/=proof. Especially considering all recorded miracles (in recent years) have been debunked.

It seems to me that many atheists are willing to believe in plenty of other things without any proof, like the existence of intelligent life around other planets.

Once again, you generalize. That's a completely different topic. It is not irrational to think that life exists on other "Goldilocks" planets. The existence of these planets is more proof then theism has for any of it's claims.

An agnostic knows there is no evidence either way, so he logically chooses to say there is no way to know and takes that position.

I'm an Agnostic Atheist because I acknowledge I can be wrong. I think, however, that it is most rational to deny the existence of a god.