Apparitions from heaven???

[Catholic_Lady]

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.

[pocaracas]

[emjay]

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.

[Cyberman]

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."

[Catholic_Lady]

[deleteduser12345]

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.

[abaris]

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.

[pocaracas]

[abaris]

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.

[emjay]

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'.