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.
CharlieM,
Bananas.
In other words you can’t provide the proper interpretation, thus supporting my original point.
the author himself, That is true whether you are talking about God or grandma
Since the author of Scripture is God he knew this by definition.
peace
I’m still waiting for that list of “take literally” and “is poetic” for each line in the bible. They can never seem to decide what is literal and what is not.
walto,
Do you understand now why I take the approach I do in these conversations?
Or do you think that talking about penises is especially helpful win discussing epistemology?
peace
There is no need to wait theologians spend a lot of effort answering that question.
If you are interested I would recommend this to get you started.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Or, for that matter, the author of Scripture.
Like most else you say, Does Not Follow. If the author of Scripture is God, he’s a pretty poor communicator. In my opinion. That, or not that interested, possibly interested but not very far-sighted … the possibilities are many.
What makes us think the author of Scripture is God anyway? It says so … nope, no way that can be anything other than true, then! On another topic, I received an email from a Nigerian prince today …
I agree to some extent, but here (as usual) I prefer to follow a more Hegelian response to Hall’s more Kantian stance.
That is: I quite agree that as we begin to reflect, we become aware of our having categories that constitute the intelligibility of our experience. (I would not want to conflate categories in this sense with “axioms,” however.) I think that Kant and Hegel are basically right that there are functionally a priori concepts for beings like us, e.g. “space”, “spaces,” “time,” “times,” “thing”, “quality”, “relation”.
On the other hand, I think that the categories that can seem necessary to one in the course of becoming aware of them can also come to be understood as contingent. They are ‘pseudo-necessities’, or if you will, artifacts of contingent developmental histories: evolutionary, cultural, and epigenetic (individual). Categories are neither transcendental nor necessary; they are ways of navigating the social and physical environments at a time and place. And they are, most importantly, revisable.
I’ve recently been trying to rethink the whole problem of epistemology from the perspective of the naturalistic account of rational cognition I’ve been tinkering with. Here’s what I think so far: the most serious problem for a cognitive system like ours is to avoid being trapped in local optima. More on that later.
We’ve already moved on. It’s about when LUCA went bananas now.
Try to keep up
We’re the best long distance runners on the planet.
Soylent Green has it I think.
Maybe but it seems at some point a case can be made for being visible
It’s called the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
I think the realization that scripture is from God is the main indicator of regeneration. I can tell if you are a Christian when I see what you think of God’s word.
I don’t expect you to recognize God’s voice in the Bible. He told me you wouldn’t and I believe him
quote:
but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
(Joh 10:26-27)
and
and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
(Joh 10:4b)
end quote:
peace
It is a presupposition not an argument or claim.
Kantian Naturalist,
Double thumbs up on all of that.
You are indeed (nearly) a presuppositionalist. 😉
peace
Bananas… Penises… At least we are talking about things that actually exist.
Refreshing, really.
keiths:
fifth:
No, the problem is simply that you can’t take two steps without contradicting yourself.
A child can see that if the regress terminates, it does not continue forever. I think even you can see it, now that I’ve pointed it out.
Your predicament is obvious. See if you can figure out how you got yourself into it, so you can avoid such silly mistakes in the future.
We don’t need to look to the Bible for this. Just a little bit of thinking makes this an obvious conclusion. Nowhere does it say that animals are made in the image of God. The essential difference between us and animals is not in our bodies, it is in our consciousness. If you cannot see this then you haven’t thought much about consciousness.
Yes other animals are conscious, but they do not have human level consciousness. If you believe that some do then find one, get it to tell you its life history and its plans for the future, its views on life and death. You will make a lot of money if you can do such a thing.
Yes, there’s good evidence that human beings are excel at endurance running. A human being in peak physical condition can chase a deer for miles until the animal drops from exhaustion.
Human beings also have the greatest number of neurons of any animal (about 86 billion) and the greatest number of prefrontal cortical neurons of any animal (about 16 billion), according to new estimates by Suzana Hercualno-Houlez.
There are actually lots of things that make human beings just another unique species.
There’s a nice quip from Dobzhansky: “all species are unique, but humans are the uniquest”. For a long time I thought that quip expressed a deep insight, but not one that can vindicated by natural science. Lately I’ve come to think that natural science can vindicate that insight after all – or more precisely, that natural science can vindicate this as a partial truth.
When you revise something normally you are trying to make it more correct or better.
If nothing is transcendental on what basis do make this determination?
peace
Oh, I agree with all that. The trouble is that if we switch–and I agree with you that we can–we can’t prove the new ones either. The desire for proofs and refutations is a confusion, I think. I take it from your post that you agree with me about that.
In this instance I strongly disagree and I think I have shown why I’m correct and you are not.
Where does that leave us?
peace
So switching is just based on the fickle desires of the moment and nothing tangible?
Are we really left with the Christian God or relativism?
peace
Air can exist without the animal life, the goat or the goat kidneys. So it must go back to at least two.
Asked and answered probably a hundred times. (And you say you read people’s posts.)
I know you have
I just read this from you and I wanted others to understand the magnitude of the admission
quote:
The trouble is that if we switch–and I agree with you that we can–we can’t prove the new ones either.
end quote:
It seems that you are agreeing with me about every possible worldview except Christianity.
however
You already granted that if God exists then he could bring the relativism to an end simply by revealing stuff so that I could know……
And he has done just that. That is the good news
peace
I certainly agree that it’s nonsense to think of categories as the sorts of things that can be proven or refuted. I’m ambivalent about the idea that some set of categories can’t be better or worse than another.
However, I do think that reality does not have a preferred categorical status of its own. The function of categories is to help us ultra-social primates coordinate our actions, not to disclose the intrinsic nature of things in themselves.
There seems to be lots of relativism coming from Christianity.
Good thing you weren’t saying anything worthwhile in the first place, I guess.
Glen Davidson
I wouldn’t have expected anything else.
So?
Oh please. He was claiming God is made in our image, which is the exact opposite of what the text says.
You say that like you know it’s true. When in fact you just admitted you do not at the very same time.
That seems to be an obvious bare and blatant contradiction
peace
🙂
Such as?
peace
Get a couple of friends and you don’t even need to be Olympic class.
As an aside, as if this poor thread hasn’t suffered enough, Born to Run is a fun read. I switched to flat shoes (Vibram Five Fingers, until I got tired of paying $12 per pair of socks) and haven’t had a running-related knee or hip injury since. Plus my foot shrank from a 12 to an 11 1/2.
I still have no urge to run an ultra marathon, though.
TSZ must be the site for Atheist Apologetics.
I’m glad we agree on that. “Revelation” as proof is a crock.
I think we want them to be non-contradictory, parsimonious, not redundant, explanatorily fecund, etc. And if they are, they’re better.
Here’s where I get ambivalent. I think I have a mystical strain or something that probably ought to be removed. (But the operation is SOOOO expensive, and the co-pays are really high now.)
Revelation.
Glen Davidson
Perhaps the fault is yours. You ought to know that to understand a text it needs to be approached from the perspective of those to whom it was written. A biologist reading a paper written to physicists might well think the author is a poor communicator, while another physicist might not think so. You would think this could go without saying, but for some reason common sense flies right out the window when it comes to scripture. Why is that Allan?
Probably because no physics book claims to be the word of an omniscient being
I don’t quite understand.
Are you saying that revealing information is a relativistic process or are you simply saying that folks have the ability to choose to understand revelation in a way that was not intended .
Peace
Actually any physics book that claims to be true does just that
peace
You’d think a God could come up with a timeless message that didn’t need one to spend decades researching ancient history and culture so that one could properly and in an informed way, try to put oneself in the place of people that lived 20 centuries ago.
In fact, thinking about it, the bible should be instantly comprehensible to anyone and everyone, and everyone should agree on what it says. You pick up a bible, doesn’t matter what language you speak or if you have even learned to read, an omnipotent God could make a book anyone who opens it could understand with no training or education. He could also make it indestructible. That way you’d also avoid the problem on relying on other fallible men’s translations and interpretations.
The fact that religious scriptures are so easily misunderstood and taken out of context (and that there is vehement disagreement on what the correct context and interpretation is), is evidence against the book’s claimed divine origin.
Mung,
I think it’s people’s desire to Believe It’s True, come what may.
Christians, Jews or anyone can debate all they want about its meaning, but to me the explanation which most suitably fits the context is that humans were endowed with an ego at this point. Up until then evolution had not produced any creatures with this ego. Do you agree that there was a time in the history of life that consciousness did not rise to self consciousness, but that it came with the passage of time?
So I guess you do just that with other holy books, or astrology books. And you must find them all convincing considering who they were written for
Such as accepting fake news as true.
fifthmonarchyman,
He knows a thing or two, this God … he can spot an atheist a mile off. Excellent work.
Watch out sounds a bit like a claim or an argument. If I say I am at the gym, I am claiming to know everything possible from the beginning to end of time?
However if you are saying the Bible is provisionally the word of God as understood by the author at the time and place, then yes it is the same.