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.
exactly!!!!!!!!!!!
God is not a belief. God is truth
peace
There are red objects and there is a range of wavelengths of light that correspond to the color red. Is that what you mean by red existing?
No, I’m trying to make the point that your statements that other people don’t know their own beliefs are arrogant and rude.
The concept of the abstraction may exist in brains but the abstraction itself does not. That’s the essence of why your mantra of “god is truth” is nonsensical.
I’m not trying to demonstrate anything.
Almost everyone here complains that I don’t spend time trying to demonstrate that God exists and instead simply acknowledge that he does.
You guys need to get together on this one your side is all over the map 😉
peace
That’s clearly your belief, nonsensical as it is. There is no reason for you to not follow KN’s recommendations on courtesy when discussing your beliefs.
I mean that red exists. The rest is simply irrelevant to the point
I never said that anyone does not know their own beliefs.
I said that everyone knows God exists
Are you even able to see the difference?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Basically, you think that I am being disrespectful to God when I just don’t identity God with truth — is that it?
I gave a reason you just don’t like it. I find his recommendations to be highly offensive and prejudicial
Why can’t you follow my suggestions?
It does what you want with out making God’s existence contingent in any way.
What is the problem with it?
Better yet. Why not just ignore my statement all together if it offends your sensibilities
Just don’t bring it up and we will be fine.
We are all adults, why does this bother you so?
peace
And you’re wrong about that. I have no belief in any gods. You may believe that I really do, but your belief is wrong.
If you followed KN’s recommendation and said something like “It is my belief that everyone knows God exists.” then we wouldn’t be having this discussion. It is your arrogance and rudeness that is the issue.
Once again it’s not about what you believe it’s about what you know.
as in
You may not believe that truth exists but by calling my belief “wrong” you demonstrated that you know it does.
peace
You find the fact that others don’t share your beliefs offensive. Perhaps you could introspect on that for a bit and maybe think about how others feel when you denigrate their beliefs.
We’re not talking about any gods because you haven’t demonstrated in any way that any such things exist. We’re talking about your beliefs and how rude you are about them.
I find your arrogant pronouncements about my beliefs to be obnoxious, unfounded, and unnecessary. When you insult me I will respond. Stop telling me what I believe and we’ll have no problem.
I have no knowledge of the existence of any gods. Your belief that I do is wrong.
no I find it offensive that you want me to act as if this is just about sharing belief in common. It’s not, not by a long shot
that is exactly why KN suggestion is offensive.
recall my analogy
You are standing with the native on his sacred mountain and demanding that he concede that his mountain is not god unless he can convince you that it’s somehow worthy of your worship.
That is the epitome or rudeness and arrogance
It makes you the judge of what God is and his existence. You are not and it’s not about you
I can’t understand why you don’t see that
peace
I just feel like he’s ignorant and none-too-bright.
It’s the irritation of dealing with his ignorance and attempts to impose it onto everyone else that annoys me, mainly because there could be useful discussion going on rather than his authoritarian BS.
Glen Davidson
This is the first and probably the last time I will do this. I’m in a great hurry and don’t have time to see what the moderators will do
quote:
Address the content of the post, not the perceived failings of the poster.
This means that accusing others of ignorance or stupidity is off topic
As is implying that other posters are mentally ill or demented.
end quote:
peace
I don’t really care, why don’t you start dealing with the issues rather than trying to force your evidence-free garbage down everyone’s throat?
Unfortunately, addressing the content of your posts involves your ignorance and inability or unwillingness to learn. That’s why the rules break down with egregiously rude people like yourself.
The problem is that you exhibit no respect or decency toward others, let alone assuming that the other is posting in good faith. You’re a flagrant violator of the latter rule.
Glen Davidson
It doesn’t “demonstrate” anything. It asserts something. Maybe someday you’ll learn the difference between those two.
That you are having difficulty understanding that is most of the problem. This discussion is about your beliefs and how you present them. Nothing more.
The only way I can read this is that you find it offensive that other people don’t accept your religious beliefs as fact. There’s nothing at all offensive in KN’s suggestion, unless you’re unable to even feign respect for other views.
That’s not remotely analogous nor is it what anyone arguing with you is saying. You are making the statement that “god is truth”. As numerous people have pointed out, that is nonsensical. You haven’t addressed any of those points.
It is also disingenuous because you believe in some variant of the Christian god. You are trying to go from “It’s possible to make statements that correspond more or less to reality.” to “The Christian god exists.” That’s a blatant fallacy of equivocation. You haven’t addressed that issue, either.
No one arguing with you is judging any god. It is your beliefs that are being assessed and found wanting.
Try parking your priors at the door.
As I feared, complete backslide on your promise. You were not going to put your concepts in everybody else’s mouths, remember? The polite way to say this is “As I understand truth and knowledge, one can’t assert that a belief is wrong without also asserting that truth exists.”
I really don’t know why you insist on being so assholish about this–especially after promising not to be.
The native is saying “God is the mountain” You may think it’s nonsensical but it’s not to the native.
He should not have to prove to you that the mountain is worthy of your worship before you acknowledge that it exists.
To act as if he does is offensive and rude
peace
IMO, it’s neither desirable nor even possible for one to “park one’s priors.” But it is eminently possible and extremely desirable to recognize both that one has them and that other people may not share them.
I’m not being an ahole and I did not promise to place follow KN’s suggestion if that is what you are implying.
I offered a perfectly reasonable alternative that I thought you had agreed to.
I’d like to know why it’s not good enough for you. and instead you insist on complete submission to the atheist premise before one can be called “civil”?
peace
White Explorer: God’s don’t exist
Native : The Mountain is God and he exists
White Explorer: OK I’ll grant that your God exists I just don’t feel that it’s worthy of my worship.
Native: Oh, well you just don’t know him like I do. lets go fishing
Why Is that so hard???
peace
God is life.
I am life.
I am God.
Why is this so difficult?
It’s not
I grant that you are your own god I just don’t find you to be worthy of my worship.
See it’s no problem
Peace
The difference, and the reason why your analogy doesn’t hold, is that the mountain is a physical entity that can be observed by anyone. When you say “my god is truth” you aren’t even grammatically correct. Again, you have yet to address that problem despite it being pointed out repeatedly.
Nope.
Explorer = I’ll grant you the mountain exists and I’ve no reason to doubt you believe the mountain is God. But you have yet to provide any evidence that the mountain is in fact God.
Yeah, we both agreed to it, and you’ve violated it about seven times since then. I take that to be assholish.
How history actually played out:
Native: “The mountain is god”
Explorer: “m’key, what does the mountain do?”
Native: “It keeps us safe from diseases”
Explorer: “Heresy! God is none of that, God is truth!”
Natives not killed by explorers but forced to convert to “truth” and kept as slaves: “Damn I’m dying off of unknown diseases brought by those damn explorers!”
Mountain: “Derp”
And you are saying “God is truth,” just as the native says “God is the mountain.” It’s just one more idiosyncratic picture of God. That’s fine–so long as you stop saying “God is X” and start saying “MY God is X. ”Stop saying “You believe in God” and start saying “You believe in what I call ‘God’”
It’s very simple.It’s civil.It’s been requested of you many many times over the years.And you won’t do it.
That’s assholish.
To chime in here:
If the mountain-worshiper were to say, “this [pointing to mountain] is Taranaki, who once fell in love with a beautiful volcano”, the polite thing for the Euro-American tourist (or anthropologist) to do would be to ask respectful questions as appropriate but mostly shut the hell up and listen.
If one wanted to say that Christians are in the exact same position relative to atheists as the Taranaki people are to Euro-American tourists, that’s fine. That leads to a rather interesting version of postmodern relativism about worldviews — and one that is of course completely inconsistent with presuppositionalism.
In any event, Christians and non-Christian theists and non-theists within modern Euro-American societies all have to work together to figure out a tolerable modus vivendi acceptable by all. So the smile-and-nod-politely attitude of the Euro-American tourist towards the Taranaki islander is simply not going to work.
It’s not as if the Taranaki islander were appealing to her knowledge of the true nature of the mountain to justify abortion restrictions or denying same-sex marriage that would apply to the Euro-American tourist.
In any event, my strategy here from now on will be to happily talk about truth and falsity as I always have, and every time FMM says, “oh, so you do know that God exists after all!”, I’ll just smile and nod politely.
Since you will not able to discern from the Internet whether I am in fact smiling and nodding politely, you will have to use your imagination.
Native: That mountain is God.
FMM: Are you saying that’s the truth?
Native: Yes, because it is God.
FMM: Then you just showed that you believe in the real, Christian God, because that is the true God, and God is Truth. You can’t even discuss truth without tacitly acknowledging that you’re wrong and I’m right.
Native: You know, I didn’t go insulting your God, and you’re just insulting me, my culture, my religion, and making claims that you can’t back up at all.
FMM: See, I’m right.
Native (one sort of hopes, or at least that FMM shuts up and leaves): How do you like the truth of my spear sticking in your gut?
Glen Davidson
Kantian Naturalist,
You’re right, when he says “You believe in God” we have to read, “You think some statements are true.”
It’s kind of ridiculous. It’s purposely misleading on his part, I believe, since he well knows that most people do NOT equate the existence of true statements with the existence of God. I hate agreeing with Patrick about this but I think it’s obno to act that way, especially considering one doesn’t know whether everybody reading these will be familiar with FMM’s heterodoxical meaning for these terms.
Haha. Excellent.
Beautifully shows the category error of making truth into….something.
Truth is fiction!
But they don’t really correspond because red does not really exist.
ETA: Wavelengths probably don’t really exist either.
From
How to Convince Someone When Facts Fail:
Why worldview threats undermine evidence
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-convince-someone-when-facts-fail/
Therefore the universe is not expanding
I saw multiple interviews with Trump supporters. The sequence was:
Interviewer: Why do you support Trump?
Voter: Because of X, Y and Z.
Interviewer: But every one of those was checked, and they were all false.
Voter: They were checked by the MSM, which can’t be trusted.
Interviewer: How do you know they can’t be trusted?
Voter: Trump said so!
Shermer’s optimism is touching, but the article is accurate. CORRECTING false statements only hardens belief in them. No matter how polite, understanding, or patient you may be, your facts are a THREAT. People respond defensively to threats. Whether the threats are guns or facts doesn’t matter.
Said the evolutionist….
Actually it seems to me that if some one believed truth was something nonexistent then wrong would be the lack of something nonexistent, so you would know something nonexistent isn’t wrong .
My view would be that prefacing a remark with “I just feel like…” avoids the charge of an accusation – just! It implies that Glen is inclined to think X rather than being an outright accusation “… is X”.
ETA:
See moderation issues
Of course if your feeling is true this should end up in guano.
Of course my God is truth. But since you claim not to have a God to qualify God with the term “My” is just silly. I might need to qualify if I was having a discussion with the native but not so with you.
AG Bell— The telephone is really just a way to communicate over long distances
Atheist —You have to say that “Your” telephone is really just a way to communicate over long distances. I don’t have a telephone “telephone” has not been defined to my liking and you are rude to not qualify your telephone like I demand you do.
AG bell —- You have got to get out more
peace
phoodoo,
Presumably that’s what you also think about reality.
Say that three times fast while keeping a strait face, I dare you 😉
peace
Weird isn’t it.
Moved a post to guano
I think you are supposed to say “I feel like that is assholish” .
Or, “I feel like some assholish” for some of the listeners here.
Its not easy keeping up with the rules when you have two standards. One for the posters who are have the same view as the moderators, and one for everyone else.