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.
This
Richardthughes,
Plus the 70,000 Vince told us about. Don’t forget them! X>{
Or the 500 for the flying priest.
Also Steiner’s lamb bladder and Yuri Geller’s spoons.
Oh, and the Bermuda Triangle and St. Joan’s military prowess and all those alien abductions in the U.S. Plains.
Gosh, if you want proof it’s like everywhere!
Acartia,
The best one is KF’s witnessing of “nearly levitation” where a levitation was stopped by some other super-natural force….
It reminds me of the doctrines of depravity and grace.
Apparently humans are totally depraved which means they are ‘enslaved to the service of sin‘ and ‘unable to refrain from evil‘.
So the question that immediately springs to mind is if all the above is true how come everyone isn’t constantly murdering, raping, dancing etc?
“Aha” says the theologian, “it’s only through the grace of God that all that bad stuff isn’t happening!”
Which is as dumb as it sounds – assert X exists and in the same breath assert its negation in order to explain why there’s no actual evidence for X.
Might as well posit the doctrine of Total Cancer.
Theologian: Everyone has cancer!
Sane folk: Um, no they don’t.
Theologian: Exactly! Praise God!
I urge all of you to take a look at the article that VJT references above (if you aren’t terminally bored by the Christian apologetic method). It is a shining example of how to construct a must-have-been out of a hundred could-have-happeneds.
In particular, read the text from the Matthian gospel (Matthew 28:9-10, 16-20) and ask yourself: what would you need to believe to read that passage as confirming the 500 story? Read the rest of Thompson’s article and count up the “mays” and “possiblys” and “quite likelys”.
If this is a standard for religious historical analysis, it is unsurprising that we get flying priests, solar catherine wheels and weeping statues. Can the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch be far behind?
What is “religious historical analysis”?
Why what’s wrong with this sort of thing?
It seems to be what you’d expect from an atheist’s perspective
I realize that God has constructed the world so that it is impossible to rationally deny his existence. Every single thing in the universe points to God. Everything
That is what makes rebellion so silly.
It’s not question begging at all. It’s who God is
God is in fact Truth so if anything is the case God exists by definition.
If Truth did not exist then God would not exist.
Praise God that he does exist so somethings can in fact “be the case”
I have no problem with you believing that in fact that is what I’d expect.
I only wish you would take the time to actually examine and perhaps defend your beliefs.
peace
FMM: “I realize that God has constructed the world so that it is impossible to rationally deny his existence.”
Then he has done a piss poor job in constructing the world. Child cancer, ISIS, rape, murder, starvation, racism, sexism, the Westboro Baptist church, Hitler, Stalin, the holocaust, Hiroshima, AIDS, Donald Trump, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,…
What rational god would have allowed any of this? If the world is constructed such that it would be impossible to rationally deny his existance, then it would be equally irrational to deny that, if he exists, he must be one sick, sadistic bastard.
Hi everyone,
I just found a very interesting link on the solar miracle at Fatima. It has interesting information on the size of the crowd, the sailors who witnessed the event from afar, and the people who are alleged not to have seen the miracle. Check it out:
http://crc-internet.org/our-doctrine/catholic-counter-reformation/whole-truth-fatima/10-the-dance-of-the-sun-october-13/
Infinite love, dude.
Here is probably more than anybody wants to read about Fatima, by one skeptical that a supernatural event took place then and there–but not skeptical that Joseph of Cupertino levitated. The various sun events at other times and places certainly are of interest.
Glen Davidson
Sorry, Fifth, but as I’ve explained to you many times before, the claim that God is truth is nothing but gibberish, so the rest of your view collapses like a stack of badly piled up cards.
As I said, though, you find it comforting, so that’s nice anyhow.
Right back atcha. That it makes you feel good, doesn’t make terrible reasons good.
Then faith is unnecessary
Seeing someone like you, Vincent, exceedingly smart and well educated, believe that crap, reminds me of Sam Harris’ argument that education can’t fix religious extremism. I’m not comparing you with any terrorists here, of course, it’s just that I used to believe that Harris was wrong
It is probably a euphemism for “making up stuff as you go along.”
So God is meaningless.
We suspected as much.
Glen Davidson
why? So far there is nothing in dark matter or dark energy to suggest any kind of inconsistency or locality in natural law AFAIK.
But we do have a baseline, and in our baseline the laws are consistent and universal. Despite there being no reason that this should be the case from the atheist perspective AFAIK.
By the same token there are many possible universes with laws that are a little less than consistent and universal and we just happen find ourselves one of the very few with laws that are consistent with a trustworthy God like Yahweh and not a capricious one like Zeus or Allah.
That seems to be quite a coincidence and I find that to be interesting, that is all
peace
Once again for probably the twentieth time.
For the Christian faith is simply trust in one who has proven himself faithful. It’s not belief in spite of the evidence regardless of what you have seen in cheesy Disney movies.
peace
Only if you assume to know more than God does and that he can’t possibly have any good reasons for allowing these things to happen that you haven’t thought of.
Peace
yes,
The same way they do now. The only reason that you might think they did not hold is because you don’t fully understand the laws. Our understanding of the laws gets a little muddy when we are near a singularity. but the laws themselves still hold.
No but 10 thousand more that appeared out of nowhere for no reason would make it more likely.
No the late heavy bombardment was perfectly consistent with natural law. A fresh bombardment like that happened with out warning or reason would make atheism more likely.
What ever gave you that Idea? From the Christian perspective there are no violations of natural law ever. There are simply gaps in our understanding of those laws.
Well there it is
Once again someone here attacks a straw man instead of what Christians actually believe. It’s almost as predictable as the laws themselves.
peace
Hebrews 11:1
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”
The thing that really tells against the irrefutable claim that 500 people saw Jesus after the resurrection and were quite available to attest to it (presumably without serious contradiction, etc.) is that apparently not too many people were convinced by it when the witnesses actually were alive. Yes we know, Pentecost and all of that (no really good reason to doubt significant numbers of conversions early on, even if the given figures might be suspect), but the supposedly extraordinary miracles caused by Jesus followed by a resurrection supposedly attested by a great many people living at the time didn’t actually cause Christianity to grow as quickly Islam did. Why not?
The author of the article to which VJT linked doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, since he basically dismisses anyone who is “liberal” or not Christians (his italics where he was basically trying to erase anything written by the wrong sorts). He doesn’t have to like “liberals” or non-Christians, but he should treat their arguments seriously, which he really does not. To be sure, I think it’s entirely possible that the Matthew text refers to the same narrative to which Paul was also referring, but the evidence for it is rather tenuous. Still, what if both the gospel of Matthew and Paul were using the same narrative? It would hardly represent a second testimony to the 500, rather a repetition of the same testimony to the 500.
But back to the matter of people apparently not being convinced by 500 purported witnesses to Jesus after resurrection, again, why were relatively few convinced? Why are we supposed to believe that the resurrection was so thoroughly well-attested that we should believe now, while a whole lot of people then were not? Shouldn’t those in Jerusalem have been convinced, or in any case, those without a good deal to lose? Why the tale of Doubting Thomas in John? Even given the late authorship of John, there should yet have been a good many witnesses to Jesus’ appearance after the resurrection (to be sure, had he never died this wouldn’t prove much other than that he was living after crucifixion and the assumption that he died) around at the time. Would Thomas have really doubted his fellow disciples, especially after Lazarus had been (reportedly) resurrected? I doubt the story of Doubting Thomas, true, but that narrative in John seems to exist to quell doubts that Christians and potential Christians might have about the resurrection, and why would that be any trouble with so many witnesses to his resurrection (assuming he died, of course) around, probably with a good many accounts having been written of it?
Yeah, we know the excuses, people love their sins and hate God even though sin causes death and God is all Truth and Life. We don’t care, that’s BS. People today would be quite interested in a well-attested resurrection, and 500 witnesses to a guy living after a certain death would convince a whole lot of people–even if it was from the “wrong religion.” People almost certainly were not more skeptical at that time, on average. If your average Jew in Palestine wanting badly to win through God against the Romans isn’t convinced by a few hundred witnesses, am I supposed to be convinced because supposedly people at the time had the opportunity to meet a few hundred witnesses, yet comparatively few actually were convinced? No, sorry, if the supposedly irrefutable evidence wasn’t convincing enough to your average Jew and at least the lower level religious leaders of the day to convert at least a majority of those, it is far less convincing 2000 years later.
Yes, I really do think that 500 witnesses showing that an authentically-dead person had been resurrected it would be highly important and very convincing to the people of the time. That is why I do think that claim is rather dubious.
Glen Davidson
exactly.!!!
looking up the page just 15 short verses.
quote:
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
(Heb 10:22-23)
end quote:
peace
Jihad maybe? That’s the reason that most Muslims give anyway
peace
fifthmonarchyman
Do you even know what a reasonable response would be?
Glen Davidson
Oh God, not that old nonsense again.
Of course that’s not the response they give, and a great deal of conversion wasn’t coerced per se. They weren’t opposed to forcing conversion, any more than Christians were, but it’s absurd to pretend that either religion won out primarily via violence.
As usual, your God provides you with no insight, let alone decent knowledge.
Glen Davidson
To what?
In about 300 years the message of some fisherman living in a unimportant backwater overturned the entire cultural system of the known world.
They did this despite having no military backing and while being declared an enemy of the most powerful and farthest reaching empire that had ever existed at that time. They did it with out the benefit of television or the internet or even the printing press.
To say that not too many people were convinced is simply and laughably incorrect.
peace
I’m sorry but I personally have been told that by Muslims.
They feel that the Muslim conquest is evidence of Allah’s favor and the superiority of Islam’s message.
peace
Known by whom? Europeans? What about the rest of humanity living in Asia and Africa ?
Did you fail to notice that emperors Constantine and especially Theodosius had something to do big time with fostering the faith?
Religion and politics have been closely intertwined in historical times. And probably as long as there have been societies.
What do you have against people who are mentally handicapped?
We love you, but we don’t always take your opinions literally.
I just love how you’re an expert on anything and everything. Now you’re an expert on the history of Islam.
Neither Jews nor Christians were required to convert to Islam, so forcible conversion of Jews and Christians is a non issue. Perhaps you could share what you know of the fate of atheists under Islam.
Saudi ambassador – Atheists Are Terrorists
I wonder if that’s why I couldn’t locate the offices of the Freedom From Religion Foundation during my visit to UAE.
No military backing? There was the small matter of Constantine and the Roman imperial army. In any case, the Parthians, Indians and Chinese might chortle a little at your European biases.
ETA: apologies to pedant for repeating his/her points.
The folks in the “civilized” Roman world mostly.
They were for the most part unknown and very very different culturally from those in the “known world” .
It took a little longer for the Gospel to reach them in any meaningful way . They are right now in the process of converting to Christianity in numbers that are simply astounding.
check it out
By the time Constantine converted the overthrow of the old “heathen” world order was pretty much a feta complete. From my perspective the conversion of the emperors was perhaps the worst thing that could have happened.
The pure message of the Gospel gets very confused when government tries to hone in on the action in my opinion. It’s taken a very long time to untangle that particular knot.
peace
Surely you know that Constantine did not come along till 3 hundred years after the facts in question. By that time Glen Davidson’s argument about not convincing many folks “early” is completely discredited by the facts.
peace
Not so fast if you please. What is your estimate of the total number of Christians in the Roman world at the time of Constantine, and what is your estimate of the total number of non-Christians? From where do you derive your figures?
Wasn’t Constantine the first Christian emperor to launch a crusade against the Muslims? LoL.
So, the ones who saw it “witnessed” the event. But the ones who didn’t, were “alleged” not to have witnessed the event.
You don’t sense a bias in your assertions?
Yup. That must be it.
If he justifies this level of suffering, then I don’t have to “assume” anything. Only a sick sadistic bastard would try to justify it. If he things he can, I am all ears.
faith is trust in someone who you know is trustworthy, and why is that a virtue?
You have obviously never had someone doubt you for little or no reason. In order to have a relationship with anyone you need to trust them. Marriages are built on trust. So are partnerships and friendships and society
If it weren’t for this sort of faith we would forever be trapped in a paranoid subjective bubble of our own mind. That is what I imagine hell to be.
But you said you were fine with that. 😉
Check out this musical interlude
peace
Of course we can’t know for sure but if my memories serve me professing Christians made up about 10% of the empire before Constantine. That is huge considering that the movement was highly illegal and marginalized.
That is roughly the percentage of Copts in Egypt today and that dynamic causes almost constant friction and apprehension in the majority population.
Unlike with the Copts early Christianity was diffuse and extensive and It was also growing very rapidly.
I would not be surprised that it is close to the maximum we would see in a persecuted religious minority without major societal upheaval .
If fact I would not be surprised if this is about the number of truly committed rather than cultural Christians in America today.
Mostly from this book and others like it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Christianity
peace
1) By what authority do you presume to judge God?
2) Do you honestly think there is no possible reason to justify his allowing these things?
3) Why do you think God is obliged to explain himself to someone who has already prejudged him like you just did?
4) Do you really think that there is vastly more bad than good in the universe? In your own life?
5) Did you listen to the musical interlude? 😉
peace
(in a David Attenborough voice)
And here we see the resident atrocity apologist dusting off his Book of Job for another round of defending the indefensible…
We observe the universe expanding , it does not follow from what we know, therefore we speculate an unknown cause to account for this ” violation of natural law” , an alternatively this could be a indication that the laws of nature are not consistent and universal
We assume that is true , a law of nature might be things are inconsistent and nonuniversal, the consistency we experience may be atypical.
For an atheist the reason laws of nature are consistent is because laws are what we call things that are consistent.
Or little more consistent and universal.
First If life requires stabilty then we did not just happen to find ourselves in such a universe. Second , we don’t know if those other universes exist , if they don’t exist,we could not find ourselves in them. Not very remarkable
Each explains why the model of reality the believers accept exists. Each act according to its nature, each bring order and meaning.
That your version of God does what you believe He does?What is interesting is other versions of God do the same thing, consistently and universally.
peace
Hi Glen Davidson,
Thanks for digging up that comment of mine on Fatima, which I wrote four years ago in response to a post (not mine) on Uncommon Descent. One thing I would like to highlight here is that as I mentioned briefly in the OP, the solar miracle on October 13, 1917, didn’t come as a bolt from the blue. There were preceding “miracles.” I should mention that I visited Fatima in 1995. I bought a book while I was there (unfortunately I don’t have it now) which had a collection of historical documents relating to the solar miracle. One thing I should point out is that the solar miracle on October 13 wasn’t the first one to be witnessed at Fatima. There was another, smaller one in Fatima on August 13, even though the children were not present. (They were being held in a prison.) To quote from Ti Marto’s account (which I had forgotten about,), which is reproduced in Fr. de Marchi’s authoritative book on Fatima:
Again, on September 13, many thousands of people witnessed supernatural phenomena related to the Sun. To quote again from a letter written in 1932 by Monsignor John Quaresma, Vicar General of the diocese of Leiria, in which he recalls the events of that day (once again, quoted in Fr. de Marchi’s book):
Fr. de Marchi adds:
If you scroll down from my 2012 comment, you’ll notice that after StephenB raised some rather telling objections, I wrote another comment to StephenB, in which I retreated somewhat from my skeptical position:
Well, as they say, that was then, this is now. I’ve made a couple of interesting discoveries. To be continued…