Let me begin with a confession: I honestly don’t know what to make of the “miracle of the sun” that occurred in Fatima, Portugal, on October 13, 1917, and that was witnessed by a crowd of 70,000 people (although a few people in the crowd saw nothing) and also by people who were more than 10 kilometers away from Fatima at the time, as well as by sailors on a British ship off the coast of Portugal. On the other hand, no astronomical observatory recorded anything unusual at the time.
Rather than endorsing a particular point of view, I have decided to lay the facts before my readers, and let them draw their own conclusions.
Here are some good links, to get you started.
Neutral accounts of the visions and the “solar miracle” at Fatima:
Our Lady of Fatima (Wikipedia article: describes the visions leading up to the solar miracle). Generally balanced.
Miracle of the Sun (Wikipedia article). Discusses critical explanations of the miracle, and points out that people both in Fatima and the nearby town of Alburitel were expecting some kind of solar phenomenon to occur on October 13, 1917: some had even brought along special viewing glasses. Also, the solar miracle on October 13 was preceded by some bizarre celestial phenomena witnessed by bystanders at the preceding vision on September 13, including “a dimming of the sun to the point where the stars could be seen, and a rain resembling iridescent petals or snowflakes that disappeared before touching the ground.” In short: the “solar miracle” of October 13, 1917 didn’t come entirely as a bolt from the blue.
The Fatima Prophecies by Stephen Wagner, Paranormal Phenomena Expert. Updated April 10, 2016.
Catholic, pro-miracle accounts:
Meet the Witnesses of the Miracle of the Sun by John Haffert. Spring Grove, Pennsylvania: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, 1961. John M. Haffert is a co-founder of the Blue Army of Fatima. He interviewed dozens of witnesses of the solar miracle at Fatima, and carefully records their testimonies in his book.
The True Story of Fatima by Fr. John de Marchi. St. Paul, Minnesota: Catechetical Guild Educational Society, 1956. Fr. de Marchi is an acknowledged expert on Fatima, whose account is based on the testimony of the seers, members of their families, and other acquaintances.
The Sixth Apparition of Our Lady. A short article containing eyewitness recollections, from the EWTN Website Celebrating 100 years of Fatima. (Very well-produced and easy to navigate.)
The Apparitions at Fatima. A short account of the visions and the solar miracle.
Catholic attempts to rebut skeptical debunkings of the solar miracle at Fatima:
Debunking the Sun Miracle Skeptics by Mark Mallett, a Canadian Catholic evangelist and former TV reporter. The author’s tone is irenic, and he evaluates the evidence fairly. His blog is well worth having a look at.
Ten Greatest (And Hilarious) Scientific Explanations for Miracle at Fatima by Matthew Archbold. National Catholic Register. Blog article. March 27, 2011. Rather polemical and sarcastic in tone.
Why the solar miracle couldn’t have been a hallucination:
Richard Dawkins And The Miracle Of Sun by Donal Anthony Foley. The Wanderer, Saturday, November 5, 2016. Makes the telling point that it was seen by sailors on a passing ship, who knew nothing about the visions.
A Catholic account by a scientist-priest who thinks that the “miracle” was a natural meteorological phenomenon, but that the coincidence between the timing of this natural event and the vision can only have a supernatural explanation:
Miracle of the Sun and an Air Lens (Theory of Father Jaki) by Dr. Taylor Marshall. Blog article. “Fr Jaki suggests that an ‘air lens’ of ice crystals formed above the Cova in Portugual. This lens would explain how the sun ‘danced’ at Fatima, but not over the whole earth. Thus, it was a local phenomenon that was seen at the Cova, and by others who were not present with the three children of Fatima within a 40 mile radius.” An air lens would also explain how the muddy and wet ground at the site of the apparitions suddenly dried up, after the miracle.
God and the Sun at Fatima by Fr. Stanley Jaki. Real View Books, 1999. Reviewed by Martin Kottmeyer. See also the attached footnote by Joaquim Fernandes, Center for Transdisciplinary Study on Consciousness, University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal, who argues that on the contrary, it was a UFO.
A Catholic, “anti-miracle” account by a scientist who thinks it was an optical illusion:
Apparitions and Miracles of the Sun by Professor Auguste Meessen, Institute of Physics, Catholic Univeristy of Louvain, Belgium. Paper given at the International Forum in Porto, “Science, Religion and Conscience,” October 23-25, 2003. Excerpt:
“So-called “miracles of the sun” were observed, for instance, in Tilly-sur-Seuilles (France, 1901), Fatima (Portugal, 1917), Onkerzeele (Belgium, 1933), Bonate (Italy, 1944), Espis (France, 1946), Acquaviva Platani (Italy, 1950), Heroldsbach (Germany, 1949), Fehrbach (Germany, 1950), Kerezinen (France, 1953), San Damiano (Italy, 1965), Tre Fontane (Italy, 1982) and Kibeho (Rwanda, 1983). They have been described by many witnesses and from their reports we can extract the following characteristic features, appearing successively.
“· A grey disc seems to be placed between the sun and the observer, but a brilliant rim of the solar disc is still apparent…
· Beautiful colours appear after a few minutes on the whole surface of the solar disc, at its rim and in the surrounding sky. These colours are different, however, and they change in the course of time…
· The sun begins to ‘dance’. First, the solar disk rotates about its centre at a uniform and rather high velocity (about 1 turn/s). Then the rotation stops and starts again, but now it is opposite to the initial one. Suddenly, the solar disk seems to detach itself from the sky. It comes rapidly closer, with increasing size and brilliancy. This causes great panic, since people think that the end of the world has come, but the sun retreats. It moves backwards until it has again its initial appearance…
· Finally, after 10 or 15 minutes, the sun is ‘normal’ again: its luminosity is too strong to continue gazing at it. But after about another quarter of an hour, the prodigy can be repeated in the same way…
“…It is shown that the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial intervention is not sufficient to explain all observed facts, while this is possible in terms of natural, but very peculiar physiological processes. The proof results from personal experiments and reasoning, based on relevant scientific literature.
“…Dr. J.B. Walz, a university professor of theology, collected over 70 eye-witness reports of the ‘miracle of the sun’ that occurred in Heroldsbach [an ecclesiastically condemned apparition – VJT] on December 8, 1949. These documents disclose some individual differences in perception, including the fact that one person saw the sun approaching and receding three times, while most witnesses saw this only two times! The ‘coloured spheres’ that were usually perceived after the breathtaking ‘dance of the sun’ are simply after-images, but they were not recognized as such, since the context of these observations suggested a prodigious interpretation.
“…The general conclusion is that apparitions and miracles of the sun cannot be taken at face value. There are natural mechanisms that can explain them, but they are so unusual that we were not aware of them. Miracles of the sun result from neurophysiological processes in our eyes and visual cortex, while apparitions involve more complex processes in our mind’s brain. The seers are honest, but unconsciously, they put themselves in an altered state of consciousness. This is possible, since our brain allows for ‘dissociation’ and for ‘switching’ from one type of behaviour to another.”
Meessen’s own explanation of the miracle as an optical illusion is based on experiments which he performed on himself, while looking at the sun under carefully controlled conditions (so as not to damage his eyes). However, I should point out that Meessen’s exposure to the sun’s optical effects was fairly short in duration (30 seconds), whereas the solar miracle at Fatima lasted far longer (over 10 minutes) and didn’t damage any of the spectators’ eyes.
Catholic blogger Mark Mallett also points out: “Professor Meesen’s logic further falls apart by stating that the dancing effects of the sun were merely the result of retinal after-images. If that were the case, then the miracle of the sun witnessed at Fatima should be easily duplicated in your own backyard.”
However, Meessen does a good job of debunking the “UFO hypothesis”: he points out that had it been a UFO covering the sun, it could not have been seen 40 kilometers away. Also, at least some witnesses would have reported seeing a “partial eclipse,” but none ever did.
A paranormal explanation of the solar miracle at Fatima:
The First Alien Contact And UFO Sighting Of The 20th Century by Tob Williams. Blog article. April 10, 2011. Updated June 18, 2016.
The Fatima UFO hypothesis by Lon Strickler. February 11, 2012.
https://www.paranormalnews.com/article.aspx?id=1562
“Live Science” debunking of the solar miracle:
The Lady of Fátima & the Miracle of the Sun by Benjamin Radford. May 2, 2013. Ascribes the miracle to “an optical illusion caused by thousands of people looking up at the sky, hoping, expecting, and even praying for some sign from God,” which, “if you do it long enough, can give the illusion of the sun moving as the eye muscles tire.” Also suggests that mass hysteria and pareidolia can explain some features of the visions.
Skeptic Benjamin Radford on the Fátima Miracle by Dr. Stacy Trasancos. A response to Radford’s debunking. Points out that plenty of dispassionate observers at Fatima also reported seeing the sun move. Promotes Fr. Stanley L. Jaki’s carefully researched book on Fatima. Acknowledges that there may be a scientific explanation for what happened with the sun that day, but argues that this doesn’t explain the timing of the event, and why it coincided with the visions.
Virulently anti-Fatima accounts:
Solar Miracle of Fatima and
Fraud at Fatima. The author places too much reliance on discredited sources, such as Celestial Secrets: The Hidden History of the Fatima Incident by Portuguese UFOlogist Joachim Fernandes (critically reviewed here by Edmund Grant). The author also tries to argue, unconvincingly, that only half the people at Fatima actually witnessed the miracle, whereas in fact there were only a few people who saw nothing. See Jaki, Stanley L. (1999). God and the Sun at Fátima, Real View Books, pp. 170–171, 232, 272. The author is right in pointing out, however, that Lucia’s own published account of her visions at Fatima is highly retrospective (being written over 20 years after the event) and contains a lot of added material. Also, the seers didn’t all see the same thing: Lucia, for instance, saw Our Lady’s lips move while she was speaking, while Francisco (who saw Our Lady but never heard her speak), didn’t see Our Lady’s lips moving – a point acknowledged by Fr. de Marchi (see above). Finally, some of the prophecies associated with Fatima turned out to be false.
My own take:
Given the evidence that the solar miracle was witnessed by passing sailors and also seen at several different locations within a 40-kilometer radius of Fatima, I cannot simply dismiss it as a hallucination. Professor Meessen’s arguments (discussed above) appear to rule out the possibility that it was a UFO. The theory that it was an optical illusion founders on the fact that nobody reported any damage to their eyes, subsequent to the miracle. The hypothesis that it was a natural, local meteorological phenomenon sounds promising, but the fortuitous timing of the “miracle” (which coincided with the seers’ visions) would still point to supernatural intervention of some sort. Finally, if it was really a miracle, then one has to ask: what, exactly, was the miracle? After all, no law of Nature was broken: no-one seriously suggests that the Sun actually hurtled towards the Earth, as witnesses reported. The notion of God messing with people’s senses sounds pretty strange, too: why would He do that? On the other hand, the testimony of 70,000 witnesses is very impressive, and the event clearly meant something … but what? Beats me.
Over to you.
Non-sequitur.
Even if God is the foundation for ‘thought and discourse’ it doesn’t follow that anyone thinking or talking therefore knows God.
Quantum mechanics may be the ultimate foundation of football but that doesn’t mean footballers therefore know quantum mechanics.
fifthmonarchyman,
premise 1) truth is the foundation for thought and discourse
premise 2) God is truth
conclusion God is the foundation for thought and discourse
1) falsified by people having divergent thoughts and discourse.
2) naked (unsupported) assertion.
Logical jibberish.
is that a true statement?
Is that true?
With out truth everything is gibberish——. In fact gibberish can be defined as the complete absence of truth
peace
I could also spend a great deal of time defending the bible, but again I choose not to. Would it really help if I did. Is that what folks want to see?
Attack atheism. Defend theism. We see how those discussions seem to go here, lol.
Mung: The Atheist Delusion is powerful.
That’s all part of the Atheist Delusion.
🙂
I am offended. This thread has gone completely off the rails. Can we get back to where the train first left the track and resolve the claim that god is a sick, sadistic bastard? 🙂
Therefore you know that God exists. See.
Valid.
Not sound.
Glen Davidson
Therefore you know that God exists. See.
Therefore you know that God exists. See.
When are you folks going to learn, lol.
If you try to use logic, you just show that you know that God exists!
That was uncanny.
Do your John Wayne!
Only if you define God as ‘logic’ with no further entailments. In which case you might as well stick with ‘logic’ to avoid confusion.
Calvinball it is for FMM.
If he says it–and misattributes it to God–it is so.
No need to find out meanings, FMM will define everything to fit his prejudices. That should be good enough for anyone.
Glen Davidson
And admit it, we’ve all done what FMM is doing.
Of course, for most of us it was over and done well before before high school.
Glen Davidson
Logic when properly understood has lots of entailments.
quote:
In the beginning was the Word (logic) , and the Word (logic) was with God, and the Word (logic) was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
(Joh 1:1-5)
end quote:
peace
Is it true that it’s not sound?
peace
Is (2) supposed to be an entailment of (1) or is it a logically separate thought?
It would have to be a logically separate thought from (1) in order to function as a premise. In that case the syllogism is valid, if there are no equivocations.
But if it is a logically separate thought — that is, if (1) and (2) are both premises — then there’s no problem with someone arguing as follows:
Truth is the foundation for thought and discourse,
2′. But, God is not truth, therefore
3′. God is not the foundation for thought and discourse.
And while you can assert until you’re blue in the face that “God is truth”, you have no argument for this, as your repeated appeals to “revelation” amply attest.
And what is asserted without argument can be rejected without argument.
And since (1) and (2) are logically separate thoughts (and they must be, otherwise they are not distinct premises in the initial syllogism), then one can assert (2′) without rejecting (1).
Hence it is utterly false that the atheist cannot rely on a notion of truth in rejecting (2). There is no reason why an atheist cannot affirm the value and importance of truth while denying that God (in any sense) is truth.
For a naturalist who does affirm a correspondence theory of truth (as I do, though most others here do not), the relata of that relation will themselves have to be processes that can be found in the order of nature.
But I don’t see a difficulty here with saying — as a first pass — that the relata are states of the organism and states of the environment. The correspondence relation obtains when these relata are dynamically coupled to one another (as in successful coping with a familiar situation) and not when they aren’t.
This approach even allows for the normative role of correspondence, insofar as the proper function of neurophysiological processes is to be as dynamically coupled to the environment as possible, so that the organism is able to satisfy the needs and interests it has in order to be persist in being as the kind of organism that it is.
(Those who insist that one cannot talk about “proper function” without abandoning naturalism should read Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories by Millikan. The short version is that proper functions just are the results of past natural selection.)
For those who insist (perhaps rightly) that truth can only be a property of statements and not of neurophysiological processes, then one could say that the correspondence relation I have described here to be “picturing” rather than “truth”. But it would still be the case that, naturalistically construed, conceptual frameworks succeed or fail to the extent that they adequately picture our physical (also social) environments.
What is truly remarkable about human beings is that we alone of all creatures can improve our conceptual frameworks and thereby arrive at better pictures of our environments. We are not “locked into” the conceptual frameworks that we have evolved (though there could be evolutionary constraints into how plastic and revisable our conceptual frameworks are!). But unless it is the case that language could not have evolved, this too is no obstacle to naturalism.
Jesus weeps at the Consecration of the Host.
God the Father is not pleased.
The Holy Spirit has no comment, but your name has been recorded.
Kantian Naturalist,
is all of that true? You can type till you are blue in the face but it’s as simple as that if you contend that your staments are true then my point is made. If you do not there is no reason I sould care.
peace
What Mung doesn’t understand is that thousands of Christians ate God’s body and drank his blood today.
And they’ll be doing it again tomorrow.
You could do so but you can’t do so by appealing to truth. That’s my God that you deny exists no fair appealing to truth while denying truth exists.
If you grant that truth is necessary then you have just ascribed to truth the primary attribute of divinity the only one that matters in the end.
It’s pretty much that simple no need to bloviate
check it out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_necessity
peace
I agree. You shouldn’t care. You should stop wasting time here and do something significant to advance your ministry.
Get out there on the Street!
Great, If you all quit bringing the subject up all the time we could get on with our lives.
peace
This is not an argument but it is a partial explanation
quote:
In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea of divine simplicity can be stated in this way: the being of God is identical to the “attributes” of God. In other words, such characteristics as omnipresence, goodness,—— truth,——- eternity, etc. are identical to God’s being,not qualities that make up that being, nor abstract entities inhering in God as in a substance.
end quote:
from here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity
peace
Is that what they teach as philosophy nowadays?
In the Lamb’s Book of Life. Yay!
Hear! Hear!
Apparently the only problem with those discussions is with theists who are not civil(read subservient) lol
peace
I saw what you did there 😉
peace
I agree that atheists care about what is true and what is not true. Most appear to despise lies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations as much as any theist. I’m just a bit fuzzy on why.
What is the atheist notion of truth, and is there more than one?
You say a lot of things repeatedly fifth, repetion does not make them true.
Sure but if you do it pretty much makes my point.
newton: What does revelation tell you? If someone else breaks a rule it is ok for you to break a rule?
Then don’t engage, that is neither a lie nor denying the truth. and you respect the wishes of the host whose guest you are.
You’ve been stripped of your “skeptic” badge. We’ve been assured here at “The Skeptical Zone” that repetition is what makes something true.
Oh brother, you can be as uncivil as Frankie if you want. Embrace it .
I thought believing in a certain version of God is all it takes to make something true.
Jeez mung keep up, there is no such thing as an atheist.
If we claim that is false does that mean God is false?
No, it just means that you are acknowledging that truth exists as witnessed by it’s negation.
So in order to be “civil” I only need to let inflammatory and false statements made to me stand with no comment?
Is that really the sort of “civility” you want here?
Folks can say what ever incendiary thing they want as long as it’s directed toward a theist? But let a theist respond by sharing the truth with respect and he is being uncivil.
quote:
Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?
(Gal 4:16)
end quote:
peace
Mung,
Could you explain why theists have a dislike to all the things you mention? It can’t be because of any holy texts, as they are full of all the things you mention. Plus your particular chosen text is full of atrocities, both in the new and old versions.
What particular reason do theists have to despise lies? After all, many theists constantly lie. Every single child abusing priest is a theist for example.
No, rather, you are a bit “fuzzy on why” because you are not fully human. If you were the question does not even arise. Real human beings realize that despising lies comes from within from the person as a whole, not as an instruction from outside. So what you are actually wondering is why atheists behave morally without the threat of eternal punishment making them do so.
How would you behave if the threat of eternal damnation and torture was not hanging over you Mung? Would you lie and murder? If so, well, that’s who you really are. If not, well, now you understand the atheist way.
fmm,
Tails I win, heads you lose.
If god is truth does that mean the devil is lies?
For someone someone who thinks that God is both logic and truth (never mind that logic and truth CANNOT be identical), FMM is abysmally bad at logic.
Well, that exchange was a useless waste of my time.
Time to take a break from TSZ. This place has become completely toxic.
yes, lies personified
quote:
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
(Joh 8:44-45)
end quote:
peace
Well, unsurprisingly, that is extremely confused. Attributes aren’t parts to begin with. Mereology is not the study of characteristics. Start out confused. End up confused.
Furthermore, you could get a great argument for God’s non-existence starting with that confusion. I leave to you the mopping up.
fmm,
Out of interest, how do you find this works in the real world? Is this how you win arguments at work? Simply define your terms such that you automatically win any argument?
Your arguments are of the quality of a five year old’s.
That is quite a claim. Please elaborate.
I’d love you to show where I fell off the rails. I’ve tried to limit myself so it should not be difficult to point to the exact place. Please don’t make a charge like that and run away.
Is truth necessary for thought and discourse or not?
Is truth God or not? (According to the doctrine of divine simplicity).
peace
Do you at least acknowledge that this is a very old doctrine that was held by some pretty smart folks through the ages?
peace
That’s also completely wrong. The atheist need only deny that God is truth, not that truth is the foundation for thought and discourse. And the atheist is completely right about this. Calling God truth is a silly mistake, scriptural quotations, notwithstanding. This has been explained to you many times.
That is the point. There is no real argument here. At least none has been made by your side.
There is simply some complaining that you don’t like the way things are.
At work I deal with arguments, there is no argument about God’s existence. God’s existence is necessary and self evident. Like it or not
peace
Just as truth acknowledges untruth exists? Everything depends on God for existence,right?