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.
What empirical evidence do you have for for this?
peace
According to Psalm 14:1, we’re fools, not liars.
Important difference!
That’s not how the spherical nature of the earth was discovered. Nor how metallurgy advanced.
To be sure, “practical knowledge” was generally considered to be less important than reason and what it supposedly could conclude, but it’s not really possible to live without using at least some empirically-discovered information. It was necessary for empiricism to be well developed, but that’s not just because reason was generally held above it, but also because it wasn’t at all easy to figure out the regularities existing in earthly complexity and chaos. Looking to the heavens assisted immensely in developing physics to be a science, Newton, especially.
Glen Davidson
What empirical test do you appeal to to validate the notion that empirical tests are the way to validate notions?
be specific please
Fools AND liars. That’s for sure.
Why haven’t you answered my question: Do you know god exists?
At this point you’ve become a caricature of yourself. And you were comical enough already
According to Psalm 14:1, we’re fools
Btw.:
“They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.”
KN, are you corrupt? Have you done nothing good?
The evidence of all of your comments on the topic in this forum. If you think there’s one I missed, please point it out.
Now that I’ve directly answered your question, how about you stop with the bullshit and support your claim for once. Re-read the goals of this site and decide if you want to abide by them or just continue to spew your presuppositions.
I’d love to see a logical argument from fifthmonarchyman supporting his claim that his god is necessary for knowledge. As we see in this thread, he immediately retreats to asking questions that reveal nothing more than his own assumptions.
Hahahah! Shift that burden Patrick! It’s your claim. Support it with objective empirical evidence or retract it.
I guess I didn’t communicate. FMM’s pronunciamentos about his god are AXIOMS. They are premises. If you dispute his premises, then communication is moot, a waste of time. Being axioms, they are by definition proof against any sort of empirical test or even logical argument. They are GIVENS. Until and unless you accept them, all he can do is keep repeating them.
Atheist recidivism?
Yeah, I trusted him. And like most people around here, I don’t like being wrong about stuff. Quite disappointed, actually: I thought he’d do his brethren prouder, but no doubt I’ll get over it if I ignore him for awhile.
I’m sorry, but this is false. One can demonstrate that knowledge is in fact possible without God, and that would falsify his premise. That would be quite an accomplishment and would probably shut FMM up. 🙂
You would not consider FMM to be objective empirical evidence? Over at UD, every permitted contributor is another obvious datum. Childhood indoctrination has deprived every last one of them of the ability to think, question, or test. This sort of indoctrination is like foot-binding or neck-stretching – it sets up permanently, long before the child has any options, and can never after be corrected.
Now, there certainly have been those who find positive value in foot binding (it’s beauty, who CARES if the victim can’t walk) or neck stretching (it’s beauty, who CARES about the lifelong side effects (during a short life)). And so foot-binding and neck-stretching are like religious toilet training – they are parasitical, whereby the parasite is communicated from one generation of cripples to the next, all of whom rejoice in their defects and cannot see their condition.
Nope, sorry but you are wrong. If you demonstrate knowledge to FMM (to his satisfaction that it IS knowledge), then he will KNOW his god has stuck it into you. The very fact you know anything is proof of his god. He has crawled into a hole and pulled the hole in after him.
The problem I have with presuppositionalism is that it presupposes that every non-theistic world-view is incoherent.
Suppose the non-theist sets out to examine his or her worldview, taking the presuppositionalist’s bait, and concludes that it is internally coherent after all.
Would the presuppositionalist then say, “wow, I wasn’t expecting that to happen! Looks like I was wrong!”?
I don’t think so.
Instead, the presuppositionalist would have to say, “sorry, I know your worldview looks internally coherent to you, but I know that it cannot be, because it isn’t based on God. Go back and check again!”
And if asked how the presuppositionalist can be so supremely confident that no non-theistic world-view can be internally coherent, all she can do is point to Scripture.
Which of course is not epistemically authoritative for those who don’t already affirm that God exists.
The “logic” of presuppositionalism is therefore, “you must concede that I am right and that you are wrong, because I am right and you are wrong”.
It’s basically argument by bullying.
Kantian Naturalist,
What if instead, she points to a living cell or an atom?
Then she’s not an presuppositionalist, according to the logic of that position. Evidentialists can argue that way. Presuppositionalists can’t. They are distinct and incompatible theological positions.
Kantian Naturalist,
Is this what we call circular reasoning? 🙂
No there are lots of reasons for my confidence.
One of them is the fact that no one has been able to give an answer to the question “how do know this?” that is not itself subject to the very same question
peace
I don’t know that God exists, and I don’t know that God doesn’t exist, and I surely don’t know what “God exists” means.
But I also don’t really care, at the end of the day.
Talking about God might be a useful metaphor for boot-strapping some cognitive architectures into appreciating the moral point of view or the idea of objective reality.
That’s about it.
No. Is it really that hard to google what it means?
Hah. I’ve personally answered it here scores–if not hundreds–of times. Others have as well. Interest in truth isn’t really your thing, o TRVTH lover.
How do you know stuff?
Revelation!
How do you know that “revelation” is true?
Revelation!
How do you..
Revelation! Revelation! Revelation! Revelation!Revelation! Revelation! Revelation! Revelaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaation!
See Bill?
THAT’s circular reasoning
Evolution is true, the fittest do survive the best.
What’s the definition of fit?
Those that survive !
See Dazz?
You need to read more carefully. I explained in some detail why I consider what Sal is doing to be child abuse. I am willing to consider other points of view. Got one?
I get that. It does appear to be incompatible with the goals of this site. One wonders what fifthmonarchyman’s purpose is in participating here. Rational, mutually respectful discussion and challenging one’s own positions doesn’t seem to be part of it.
Now this is reversing the burden of proof. FFM is asserting that knowledge is only possible if his particular god exists. That’s a claim that requires support.
A number of people have replied to that question. You have addressed none of them.
More importantly, you have utterly failed to make a positive case for your claim, ever. When challenged to do so you retreat to asking questions in an attempt to shift the burden of proof.
Show us a Christmas miracle. Support your claim with a detailed, stand alone argument.
Patrick,
I have one. A moderator who incites insults and poor behavior shouldn’t be a site moderator, unless your site is intended as as neo-nazi site.
Another point of view is, don’t claim your site invites open discussion, when you say its Ok for one side to say “I feel like someone is dumb” because its what they feel, but when someone else says the exact same thing (but doesn’t share the site operators worldview) , delete their post because you say its against the rules.
But you are demanding rational support, not religious support. Religious support is post-truth, and consists of repeating a falsehood so many times one comes to believe it, AND convincing converts that repetition creates meaning.
Unfairsies, I called it. I am so butthurt, and it’s all someone else’s fault. I’m going to go back to where MY viewpoint is supported by censorship, and everyone plays fair.
The Sophisticated Evolutionist.
The foundation of the scientific consensus.
I asked for objective empirical evidence and you gave me your subjective opinion. The burden is still yours. Support or retract.
You need to read more carefully. I was correcting a false claim that Flint made. Flint claimed that fifth’s premises cannot be challenged, and that is simply wrong. I also explained how his premises could be challenged. That’s not reversing the burden of proof.
If you believe in miracles you believe that God exists. 😉
Merry Christmas!
We’ve been assured right here at this very site that repeating something until people believe it is what makes it true. So don’t fault us for going all repetitious on you.
If so, then I have not seen it. I have seen repeated SUPPORTED truth claims, but the truth of these rests on the support and not on the repetition. This distinction is important.
(Here is a hint: In science, there is plenty of dispute at the leading edge, but always it leads to cross-cultural agreement as the scope and accuracy of the relevant data become sufficiently clear and complete. In religion, there are competing claims but there is no underlying reality to act as arbiter of these claims. What you get is schisms which can’t be resolved. Reality cannot be appealed to as judge, because religious claims do not qualify.)
Let me try something different. From my perspective your “answers” look like this
FMM—How do you know stuff?
walto—-by X
FMM—-how do you know X is is the proper way to know stuff?
walto—-by Y
FMM—-How do you know that??
walto—–silence
What exactly am I missing?
I’m looking for something solid a foundation that can serve as a justification knowledge. To be such your answer needs to be axiomatic and complete so that nothing is beyond or in back of it.
peace
Except my claim was not false. FMM’s claim can NOT be challenged, for the reason I explained – because his premises cannot be challenged. They are AXIOMS. Axioms can be accepted or rejected, but not corrected. You simply cannot provide FMM any knowledge not based on his god, because he DEFINES knowledge as based on his god. If it’s knowledge, his god did it. If his god did not do it, it is not knowledge. Period. No possible challenge.
Exactly!!!!!!! Nothing is in back or beyond revelation. When it comes to knowledge in my worldview revelation is all there is. It’s axiomatic.
Therefore revelation is a complete and solid foundation for knowledge. The only one I know of.
If you ask the “How do you know?” question a thousand times and you get exactly the same answer every time.
Get it??
That is one of the reasons I why I have the confidence I do.
peace
The sort of knowledge we’re talking about is practical knowledge – that is, consistent with observation, consistent with relevant predictions, consistent with related bodies of knowledge, supported by empirical examination, and such.
I notice that since you are alive, you don’t walk in front of speeding cars. How can you KNOW there’s an actual car there? What axiom supports it? Given that you claim to reject empirical knowledge as unsupportable, WHY don’t you walk in front of apparent speeding cars? Could it possibly be that you regard the probability of an actual car to be high enough not to chance it? Could it be that you think nobody here understands this?
Your continued existence simply flat refutes your sophistry.
Right, you can’t correct an axiom but you can replace it. The first step in that process to show that the axiomatic system itself in incoherent or incomplete.
You can easily do that by simply by showing me that knowledge is possible with out God. Are you up to the challenge?
peace
It’s a neat gig. You are infallible because you SAY you’re infallible, and you can say it because it’s true. What’s amusing from the viewpoint of the outside world is that such circular reasoning militates against any sort of rational thinking, and you illustrate this with every post. Why bother to either think or learn, when your god crams you full of Truth without you making the slightest effort to do either one.
no we are talking about knowledge in general.
But if you like How do you know that “practical knowledge” is gained in the way you suppose?
revelation
No it’s because I trust the revelation that I receive about the car.
You know things like it’s speed and distance from me.
peace
Science has being doing exactly that for centuries. But not even the entire global enterprise of science can show you what you REFUSE to see. Possibly the “simply showing” could be done with a lobotomy, but nothing short of that could open eyes that don’t want to see.
Good thing that in your daily life, your revelation matches empirical reality so closely. You can personally thank your god that his efforts are completely unnecessary.
The thing is, I don’t think that knowledge requires what you insist it requires. I don’t think that knowledge requires any such “foundation”. In fact I think that the very idea that knowledge requires a “foundation” has been the source of much nonsense in the history of philosophy, and a great many dead-ends.