Praying to saints

SpareOom (New Messages)
21

Mike, I disagree with you. This was precisely what made Lewis acceptable by all Christians, as we ourselves in SpareOom are witness. In the preface to “Mere Christianity” Lewis said this: You will not learn from me whether you ought to become an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian or a Roman Catholic. This omission is intentional (even in the list I have just given the order is alphabetical). If he had taken the position you are defending, he would have automatically become alien to Roman Catholics and Orthodox. Is this what you want? A C.S. Lewis admired only by protestants?

I think we, as admirers of C.S.Lewis, should focus mostly on what unites us, rather than what separates us.

By the way, to change the focus again, how do protestants explain the miracle of Fatima, which was witnessed in 1917 by tens of thousands and had been announced by the Virgin Mary to three children several months before it happened? Do you deny it, as atheists who weren’t there do, by resorting to “mass hallucination,” which by the way is a concept expressly created for this purpose? Or do you offer some other explanation?

Apart from “the sun miracle,” the Virgin Mary told Lucia that the Pope should consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. Otherwise, there would be a second war, even worse than the first world war, and many people would die. Nothing was done until 1984, when Pope John Paul II made the consecration on the feast of the Annunciation. Seven years later, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (December 8) the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.

I wrote about Fatima in this post in my blog, https://populscience.blogspot.com/2021/07/collective-hallucinations-and-fatima.html, which also mentions Lewis.

I think this should give food for thought to all those who deny the usefulness of praying to God through the Virgin Mary.

Regards,

22

Really, Manuel? You are inviting me to show the entire realm of SpareOom why I am Lord High Heretic? If you insist!

Because, I simply cannot resist! Especially when you seem to think you are actually throwing down the gauntlet…actually giving me a difficult assignment! But it is a ridiculously easy challenge to meet that which you have given me.

But first: re Lewis himself. I do not respect and admire C.S. Lewis because he was a bland thinker who offended no one, and thus is one who all Christians of all opinions can embrace. No. I admire him because MOST OF THE TIME he was a man of impressive logic and reasoning (a la Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, etc.). And I reiterate that the subject of praying to saints or to the Virgin Mary is an example where his vaunted reasoning powers were not in top form.

This does not make me anti-Catholic any more than it makes me anti-Lewis. I do not condemn Catholics. I may disagree with some of them (or many of them), but I do not condemn them. If they wish to condemn me, that is their prerogative. I wish to be “unified” with Catholics…and Protestant sects…and Mormons…and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Orthodox, and Russian Orthodox, and Coptic…ONLY to the extent that unity is justified by reason and truth. Many individuals of all of these belief systems are, I am sure, accepted by God as his genuine children, genuine followers of Christ. Far be it from me to attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff before the divine sifting at the end of the age.

Now: on to your challenge. How can I “explain” the so-called Miracle of Fatima? Yawn. Too easy. There was OBVIOUSLY no miracle. Nothing happened at Fatima that cannot be MORE EASILY explained by science and reason than by resorting to miracles. I am rather surprised, Manuel, that this has escaped you, scientist that you are.

First, let us set aside the visions of the children. No one else ever saw the Virgin Mary or the Baby Jesus (!!!) except those three, even at the Fatima mega-gathering. Must I point out that children of that age are frequently subject to hysteria (assuming it was not something more malignant than mere hysteria) such as that which occurred at the Salem Witch Trials and so many other similar incidents in history? So that is a big fat zero, in terms of evidence.

Second, let us dismiss utterly that any kind of miracle occurred in the sky or in the celestial realm. Why can and MUST we dismiss this possibility? Because among the tens of thousands of people who gathered at Fatima due to the hype surrounding the children’s claimed visions of the Virgin, very many IN THAT VAST CROWD, including many sincere believers, saw nothing unusual at all. NOTHING. And in both nearby and far-flung regions around Fatima. Zero. Nothing. Now, I ask you: if the sun was really “dancing around” in the sky, taking on all kinds of colors and halos and coming closer to earth and retreating again — really doing that — would NO ONE ELSE ANYWHERE ON EARTH notice it? So…nothing was actually happening to the sun. Period. Logic. Reason. Truth.

So, you challenge me: do I claim that it was mass-hysteria? Of course not! If I had to rely on mass-hysteria, then you would have me! I would be defeated.

But instead, I shall defeat you right now, on the field of battle. But will you yield? I predict not. Yet you will indeed be entirely defeated. But I predict that you will be like the Black Knight in the Monty Python skit, and say to me: “Tis but a scratch!”

Let me set the scene. Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Fatima. TENS OF THOUSANDS! How does that happen? Hysteria. Hype. Desperate Hope. Right, Manuel? And all these people are looking for promised miracles in the heavens. So they are staring into the sky, the sunny sky. Are you beginning to get the picture? Do you see where this is going?

In 1988, a scientific paper was published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology entitled “Solar Retinopathy Following Religious Rituals.” It contained numerous case examples.

One case: “A 23-year-old nurse presented to the RVEE Hospital in June 1987 … While on a pilgrimage to Medjugorie she had stared at the sun for 10 minutes in the late afternoon of a hot summer’s day. While staring at the sun it went a deep green, surrounded by a gold rim.”

Another case: “A 33-year-old woman presented to the RVEE Hospital in July 1987. She complained of a black spot in front of her right eye. In May 1987 she had been on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. She had stared at the sun at 7.00 pm intermittently for a few minutes. While she was so doing, the sun had danced and changed colour from orange to black to white.”

Many other cases of similar nature appear in the paper. This is EXACTLY the so-called “miracle” reported by many at Fatima. It was not mass-hysteria, it is WHAT HAPPENS when people stare in the general direction of the sun for too long.

Please don’t make me “go there” regarding the three (dumb) “secrets” that the Virgin supposedly revealed to the hysterical children (I call the children hysterical to be charitable). The secrets were so secret that they were not mentioned until decades after the event! And the third one, no one can agree on, including Catholic scholars, because there is virtually zero evidence as to what it actually is! (So what value is it to anyone?) Have you actually read the first two so-called “secrets” revealed by the Virgin? I hope they didn’t come from her, because it would not reflect well on the Virgin Mary. And the “predictions” regarding WWII were not “revealed” until after WWII was underway.

So, dear Manuel, if the Fatima thing is a justification for praying to the Virgin Mary, it is the weakest justification imaginable.

I stand by my previous statements.

Regards,

Michael, newly relocated to the Free State of Florida, and still Lord High Heretic of SpareOom

23


| Michael_Nicholson Lord High Heretic
May 7 |

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This does not make me anti-Catholic any more than it makes me anti-Lewis. I do not condemn Catholics. I may disagree with some of them (or many of them), but I do not condemn them. If they wish to condemn me, that is their prerogative. I wish to be “unified” with Catholics…and Protestant sects…and Mormons…and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Orthodox, and Russian Orthodox, and Coptic…ONLY to the extent that unity is justified by reason and truth. Many individuals of all of these belief systems are, I am sure, accepted by God as his genuine children, genuine followers of Christ. Far be it from me to attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff before the divine sifting at the end of the age.

Mike, I fully agree with this paragraph. It expresses my views exactly.

About the miracle of Fatima: Come on! So nothing happened? What about the atheistic newspaper men who were there, and the next day declared in their newspapers that they had seen the miracle? Were they subject to hysteria, hype and desperate hope? No, they were there to witness the non-occurrence of a miracle. And they said they had seen it.

By the way, what’s the difference between hysteria, hype and desperate hope that affects thousands and mass-hallucination? You have just given it a new name, that’s all. Your explanation is the same as that given by those atheists who weren’t there.

You say this:

Second, let us dismiss utterly that any kind of miracle occurred in the sky or in the celestial realm. Why can and MUST we dismiss this possibility? Because among the tens of thousands of people who gathered at Fatima due to the hype surrounding the children’s claimed visions of the Virgin, very many IN THAT VAST CROWD, including many sincere believers, saw nothing unusual at all. NOTHING. And in both nearby and far-flung regions around Fatima. Zero. Nothing. Now, I ask you: if the sun was really “dancing around” in the sky, taking on all kinds of colors and halos and coming closer to earth and retreating again — really doing that — would NO ONE ELSE ANYWHERE ON EARTH notice it? So…nothing was actually happening to the sun. Period. Logic. Reason. Truth.

I think you have not read my post, otherwise you’d have seen (in paragraph marked a) that The Fatima miracle was not observed only by the thousands of people gathered in Cova de Iria. There were well-documented witnesses who were not there. Furthermore in paragraph marked b) it is stated that what people saw moving was not the sun, but something else. So your argument about the sun affecting people’s eyes (all of thirty thousand, the lowest figure given) would not be applicable.

You say:

Let me set the scene. Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Fatima. TENS OF THOUSANDS! How does that happen? Hysteria. Hype. Desperate Hope. Right, Manuel? And all these people are looking for promised miracles in the heavens. So they are staring into the sky, the sunny sky. Are you beginning to get the picture? Do you see where this is going?

But you are wrong! People weren’t looking for promised miracles in the heavens. They had no idea what the miracle would be. Yes, now in Medjugorje people look at the sun and their sight is affected, because they remember what happened in Fatima, but in Fatima it wasn’t this way. They only looked up when Lucia cried “Look at the sun!” after the miracle had started. Look at the last paragraph in my post.

And in case you want to look at the full article I quoted in my post, you can find it here:
https://dadun.unav.edu/bitstream/10171/62540/1/mirka%2C%2BSetF%2B9%281%292020%2B-%2B01%2B-%2B15-04-2021.pdf

I didn’t include the link in my post because it’s a long article (37 pages).

Did I mention the secrets? Or did you?

Regards,

24

I’m glad we agree on that paragraph, Manuel.

Nothing happened at Fatima. And I am not saying the atheist journalists in attendance either “saw nothing” or were swept up in mass hysteria. They were in attendance due to the hype, that is for sure. I am saying that nothing happened because a huge number of attendees SAW NOTHING. If you have tens of thousands of people scanning the skies for a miraculous sign (now it is my turn to say, “Come on,” if you think they were staring at the ground looking for a sign…signs are ALWAYS “in the heavens”, and besides: it WAS expected by the crowd, that much is clear) then a good portion of those people are ACTUALLY going to see weird things based upon the SCIENCE of how optics in humans are affected when they spend many minutes exposed to direct sunlight! It is SCIENCE, it is not mass hysteria. I suppose you could call it mass hallucinations but the better phrase would be mass optical illusions. The accounts are extremely conflicting because everyone was seeing something slightly different, depending upon how their optic nerves were affected and how much exposure to direct sunlight their optic nerves experienced.

Your post is unconvincing. People saw lots of different things. Most described it as the sun “dancing” or “spinning” or changing colors, throwing off sparks, etc. I’m sure many people thought the thing they were “seeing” in the sky was something other than the sun. Everyone’s experience was different, unlike the orderly phenomena postulated in the dadun.unav.edu article you provided the link to, which egregious errors immediately turned me off.

Nothing happened. This is not me blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Did only some of the disciples see Jesus walking on the water? Did the Pharisees even TRY to say “that man was not really born blind, he was faking it for 50 years”? No. The FACT of Jesus’ miracles were not in dispute. Some people just said, it was done by the power of the devil. I am not so wicked or so stupid to say such a thing.

Regards,
Michael, Lord High Heretic

25

OK, so you have chosen the third option of my trilemma, the same usually chosen by atheists. I’ll only add two considerations:

a) You are so sure nothing happened. How can you? Is it not possible that you have reasoned as follows? “The Virgin Mary could not have made a miracle. Therefore there was no miracle. Now let’s find an explanation.” So you found it. In other words, couldn’t your position be a priori, whatever the evidence? Just think about it.

b) Beware! The same reasoning could be used to prove that the resurrection of Christ never happened. I dealt with that case in this post: https://populscience.blogspot.com/2018/09/what-does-science-say-about-miracles.html. I am assuming that in this case you’d choose the first option of my trilemma.

Regards,

26

Manuel, I’m with you on Fatima. And as I’ve mentioned before, I also believe in the apparitions of Medjugorje, which began in 1981 and continue to this day.

Dimitry

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)

27


<Manuel_Alfonseca>
| Manuel_Alfonseca
May 7 |

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You are so sure nothing happened. How can you? Is it not possible that you have reasoned as follows? “The Virgin Mary could not have made a miracle. Therefore there was no miracle. Now let’s find an explanation.” So you found it. In other words, couldn’t your position be a priori, whatever the evidence? Just think about it.

No, that is not my reasoning. I am saying that there is simply NO NEED to postulate unprovable miracles when virtually ALL the recorded information about the event — and especially the varying and even contradictory accounts – and the fact that so many “witnesses” saw absolutely nothing at all – is completely explained by the science of Solar Retinopathy. Why reach into the Bag Of Miracles when no miracle is needed to explain any aspect of it?

I by no means think it would be impossible for Mary to conjure miracles any more than I would say an apostle could not do so. Although, since neither are alive and present on earth I might think it highly unlikely. I simply see no reason to jump that shark when it comes to this very suspect incident in 1917.

b) Beware! The same reasoning could be used to prove that the resurrection of Christ never happened.

You cannot prove a negative. You cannot prove that the resurrection never happened. That’s impossible. But the totality of evidence can demonstrate that it is a compelling conclusion that it did happen, and even that the resurrection is the “most likely” or “most reasonable” conclusion. That is not the case with Fatima, where the claims made are neither compelling nor the most likely nor most reasonable explanation of the incident. In the end, belief in the resurrection of Christ is a matter of faith, as is the belief in the ability of Mary to do miracles from beyond the grave. I believe the evidence for the former far outweighs the evidence for the latter.

Regards,
Michael, LHH of SpareOom

28

I don’t know what’s going on. My posts are posting as code or something. When Manuel suggested I might be arguing from a position of assuming the Virgin Mary cannot do miracles, so therefore nothing happened at Fatima, I tried to reply:

No, that is not my reasoning. I am saying that there is simply NO NEED to postulate unprovable miracles when virtually ALL the recorded information about the event — and especially the varying and even contradictory accounts – and the fact that so many “witnesses” saw absolutely nothing at all – is completely explained by the science of Solar Retinopathy. Why reach into the Bag Of Miracles when no miracle is needed to explain any aspect of it?

I by no means think it would be impossible for Mary to conjure miracles any more than I would say an apostle could not do so. Although, since neither are alive and present on earth I might think it highly unlikely. I simply see no reason to jump that shark when it comes to this very suspect incident in 1917.

29

I did receive your first message correctly, Mike.


| Michael_Nicholson Lord High Heretic
May 8 |

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I by no means think it would be impossible for Mary to conjure miracles any more than I would say an apostle could not do so. Although, since neither are alive and present on earth I might think it highly unlikely. I simply see no reason to jump that shark when it comes to this very suspect incident in 1917.

Well, that’s your privilege. Believing in the Fatima miracle is not an obligation, not even for Catholics. Bishop José da Silva declared the miracle “worthy of belief” on 13 October 1930, permitting “officially the cult of Our Lady of Fatima” within the Catholic Church. Permitting, not requesting.

Of course, Christ’s resurrection is different, as it is requested belief for all Catholics (and many more).

I just wanted to point that my trilemma can be applied to both. I choose the first option in both cases; atheists choose the third option in both cases; and you choose the first option in one case and the third in the other.

You cannot prove a negative. You cannot prove that the resurrection never happened. That’s impossible.

So you cannot prove that the Fatima miracle never happened, right?

In the end, belief in the resurrection of Christ is a matter of faith, as is the belief in the ability of Mary to do miracles from beyond the grave. I believe the evidence for the former far outweighs the evidence for the latter.

I agree that the resurrection is more important for Christians. About the “weight of the evidence,” your should listen to atheists. I agree with you that “[i]n the end, belief in [both miracles] is a matter of faith.”

Regards,

30

I did not claim to have proved that no miracle happened at Fatima. I stated my belief that the totality of the evidence, looked at dispassionately, strongly weighs against the necessity of a miraculous explanation.

31

And if my point is not obvious: there really is nothing quite so useless and unnecessary as a “miracle” with an easily understood, prosaic, and thoroughly scientific explanation.

Surely everyone can agree with that! What is the point? Jesus did not do miracles where only a percentage of the witnesses saw anything at all.

Michael
Lord High Heretic

32

Mike, you are repeating what you had already said and I had already answered.

You said some time ago that you don’t find my arguments convincing. I don’t find your arguments convincing. Let’s leave it there.

Regards,

33

Just a couple of thoughts here

As a general rule, I don’t believe in praying to the saints. Either canonized (especially not those canonized), or to the more general use of saints to refer to those who have died in Christ.

If a person finds comfort in it, and is not devoting their energies toward an expectation of something “magical”, I would leave it alone.

Much has been said here in reference to the afterlife. We really don’t have much of an idea of what that’s going to look like. Personally, I subscribe to “The Great Divorce” as a model.

But here’s what I do hold. The afterlife, like God, exists outside of our normal concepts of space and time. God will break those barriers in creating the new heaven and new earth. But for the interim, whatever mode God has us in is unknown.

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34

I agree that The Great Divorce paints a compelling picture of what heaven can be like – the love emanating from the Bright Spirits. This corresponds to a dream which I once had, where I went to heaven, which was a big library room, filled with people sending warm rays of love into me.

Dimitry

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)

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