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.
revelation. and if they weren’t universal we could not trust our science.
Here is one way.
If it was not 100% consistent our experiments would at times yield contradictory results that could not be explained away.
In this context basically it’s the idea that there is no compelling reason to trust that natural law is consistent and universal.
Peace
Since he has not done this he is obviously as SSB
peace
Yes, expansion of space is causing objects to move apart . The ballon analogy
Anti-skeptical you say? Land sakes alive
Yes
No it doesn’t follow, it could be static, it could receding.
My understanding is this:We analyze light of distant objects in all directions then determine the amount of redshift(observation). If universe is static,there should be generally no redshift. If it was contracting light would shift to shorter wavelength, expanding towards the longer wavelength,red.
Guess which one we observe? Red
Astronomers then measure the redshift of the light from those objects that have known distances determined by luminosity of supernovae and cepheids. It turns out the recessional velocity as measured by the red shift is proportional to the distance. Greater distance equal greater velocity.This leads to the inference that the universe has accelerating expansion.
The knowledge of this relationship between redshift and distance allows us to measure the distance to objects by the red shift.
It is even worse than that,one of the ramifications of this theory is a Hubble’s Sphere . It is imaginary sphere beyond which objects are accelerating away faster than the speed of light, so the light can never reach us. It is smaller than the theoretical observable universe.
Possible, what is your explanation for the observed red shift?
newton,
In the balloon analogy, is there anything in the middle of the balloon?
That the universe was expanding sometime in the past.
If there’s an observation that we can make to establish that the portion of the universe we cannot observe is still expanding, what is it?
How can we test the hypothesis that the galaxies at the limits of our power to observe are no longer receding from us? How do we even know that they still exist?
See, even dazz knows that we can’t observe what we can’t observe. Now maybe dazz well tell us how we can observe that the universe is expanding.
Sure. Hot air. 🙂
revelation!!!11!11!!one
Obvious to you. Obvious to me. Obvious to Mr. Objective Moral Values.
You forgot to sign off with “peace out.”
How long before you become a flat earther, Mung? Come on man, you know you want it
Haven’t you seen those photos of the earth from space? It’s both flat and round!
Mung,
It’s always flat when no one is looking
Mung,
Did you mean observable universe or the universe as a whole there?
lol.
shorter fmm: The world is as we observe it because jesus.
I think we have to believe our 3 dimensional world is 2 dimensional for the analogy to make any sense at all.
They conveniently never mention that part.
All you have to do is imagine the balloon is solid. Space stretches tri-dimensionally like the balloon’s surface while inflated
Yeah, the darwinist conspiracy
dazz,
Yes I am imagining. Do stars and galaxies exist inside the ball, or only on the surface?
Inside, OBVIOUSLY. FFS, phoodoo…
dazz,
Then there is a center, and thus all stars are not moving away from each other the same in every direction.
LMFAO
This is what home-schooling does to you, kids
dazz,
Maybe you will need someone home schooled to explain it to you.
Dazz, tell Patrick to stop banging his head; the brotherhood is just using their God to justify induction. It’s nothing new. Just one of the many gaps for them to stuff something into. The thing happens to always be same thing–an ancient Hebrew with a nice beard and sandals, but I understand that ancient Hebrews were excellent gap-fillers. And this one was particularly great at it, apparently.
I classify “scripture” as fiction because I’ve never seen any evidence supporting the idea that the contents are anything else. Care to provide some?
It is assumed that one is aware the universe is in fact not a ballon and has some experience in the use of analogies.
Glen Davidson writes about the evidence for the resurrection:
That would be a telling point, if (a) the Jews living in Jesus’ day had an alternative naturalistic hypothesis of their own for what happened, and (b) that hypothesis remained plausible, in the light of what we now know. However, an examination of Jewish-Christian polemics shows that again and again, the charge that hostile Jews leveled at Jesus was that he practiced magic, and that he healed people by calling upon supernatural forces of evil (i.e. demons). See here:
http://wasjesusamagician.blogspot.jp/p/accusations-of-magic.html
Also, the evidence for the resurrection was explained away by hostile Jews by the hypothesis of fraud: the apostles stole Jesus’ body. We have excellent evidence from Josephus of the martyrdom of James the brother of Jesus, and pretty good historical evidence from a variety of sources for the martyrdom of Peter and Paul. (There may well be lots of legendary traditions about the manner in which they died, but that’s another story.) So I think we can confidently rule out fraud, as a plausible hypothesis, and I defy any fair-minded person who reads 2 Corinthians 11 to conclude otherwise. Paul’s sincerity is obvious.
So it seems that neither condition (a) nor condition (b) is satisfied.
Acartia writes of the suffering in this world: “What rational god would have allowed any of this?” and concludes that “if he exists, he must be one sick, sadistic bastard.” I can see where Acartia is coming from, and I’ve certainly had periods in my life when I wanted to yell at God. But when I’m in a normal frame of mind, the existence of God seems luminously self-evident. It’s literally as simple as this: open your eyes and take a look around you, wherever you are. I find it staggering that I can enjoy the vision of the world at all, even for a moment, and find it beautiful. Just tonight, as I was walking home, I stopped to look at the stars. It’s moments like that that make you aware of transcendence. I wouldn’t expect subjectivity in a godless world. I wouldn’t expect breathtaking feelings of pleasure. And I wouldn’t expect to find creatures who experienced the Transcendent, on a regular basis, even if they disagree about what labels to put on this larger Reality.
Nevertheless, the problem of suffering is a real one, and Acartia has every right to raise it. May I make a suggestion? Try this. Imagine that you know for a fact that there is a loving God. Then try to reason backwards. What could possibly prevent a loving Deity from getting us out of the mess we’re in? The only plausible answer I can come up with is that at some point on the past, the human race told God in no uncertain terms to get lost, and quit being a busybody – even if that meant they’d stumble on their own. We’ve been living with the consequences ever since. I may be wrong, of course, but that’s my guess.
Mung: “Since we’re judging folks, I have some confessions to make.
I have not given away everything to help cancer research so that cancer in kids can be prevented, and I guess that makes me a sick sadistic bastard.”
If you knew that giving money would guarantee that it would result in no kids getting getting cancer, and you made the conscious decision not to do so, then yes, you would be a sick, sadistic bastard.
“I also didn’t do anything to prevent the holocaust, and I guess that makes me a sick sadistic bastard.”
If you had the power to prevent the holocaust at no risk to yourself and intentionally did not do so, then yes, you would be a sick, sadistic bastard. If there would have been some risk to you and you still did not prevent it, you would only be a selfish, bastard.
“Never did anything to prevent a mass killing either. I’m an SSB.”
If you had the power to prevent one with no risk to yourself and you refused to, then you are a sick, sadistic bastard.
“I hope you all can forgive me.”
I only pass judgment, only your priest can forgive you.
FMM: “I would also like to confess that I did not do anything to punish Mung for not doing anything to prevent a mass killing because I thought he should not be punished for an evil that he did not himself do.”
Yet, we punish people all of the time for having the power and opportunity to prevent an “evil” and not intervening. In fact, in Quebec (a province in Canada to all those with a xenophobic bent), there is something called the Good Samaritan Act which makes it against the law not to provide aid when it is needed.
Just your intelligence.
First of all, they did have an alternative naturalistic hypothesis. So why the whole bit about Jesus practicing magic?
Yes, that’s the claim. What does it have to do with the purported resurrection? Did they think that demons could raise people from the dead? If so, why didn’t they resort to that hypothesis? I’m guessing that they didn’t think demons could raise people from the dead, or at most, they could only raise them as sorts of “zombies.”
I don’t know why I’m to believe the Gospels with respect to Jewish reactions to the purported miracles anyway, though. I believe that later Jewish claims do echo what the Gospels say about Jewish leaders’ reactions to the miracles, but I really don’t know if it had much of anything to do with what was said in Jesus’ time, and I don’t know what it’s supposed to have to do with the resurrection at all.
That’s a Jewish claim from rather later times. So if that matters, why did you bother with the whole demon bit? At least the later Jewish sources didn’t claim that demons resurrected Jesus.
Yes, and Paul’s sincerity appears to stem largely from a vision, not from meeting Jesus or any such thing. He may have been bolstered in his sincerity by claims of the resurrected Jesus, but there’s no reason to think he’d be exactly skeptical of such claims after believing the voice from heaven. So the apostles believed. I don’t know why they couldn’t have stolen the body and believed for various reasons (seeing visions of Jesus, for example), and I also don’t know why some couldn’t have stolen the body while the others believed because of an empty tomb. Nor do I have any reason to think that Jewish sources had any inside information about what the disciples did, hence it could well be that someone totally from outside of the followers of Jesus stole the body (grave robbers hoping for jewelry or what-not on the body) and the apostles believed. But I also don’t know if the body disappeared at all, even though I’m inclined to think that something weird happened that led to Christian beliefs in the resurrection (empty tomb could be it, to be sure).
I wasn’t saying that it was a fraud by the disciples. Why is the claim about that important to you?
What you haven’t touched on is why large numbers of Jews (and others, but Jews were primarily those near the events of the crucifixion, etc.) were not convinced by 500 witnesses to the resurrected Jesus (assuming that there could be quite good confidence that he indeed died). If they’re supposed to convince me, why didn’t they convince most of those who could actually meet and talk to those 500 witnesses? Weirdly, you’re off about some later Jewish claims, not discussing the fact that the 500 witnesses who are supposed to convince me failed to convince so many of those who purportedly could actually interrogate those witnesses.
So it seems that you can’t tell me why I should believe 500 dead witnesses, of whom I have no information about other than some bare claim by Paul, when most Jews in Palestine at the time that these 500 witnesses supposedly were alive and accessible were not convinced. Why you’re off about later Jewish claims I have no idea.
Glen Davidson
Canada’s that frozen land north of Alaska, isn’t it?
A province is sort of like a county, I believe.
Glen Davidson
I woke up this morning and the North Pole was warmer than it is here in Ottawa. But if my choice is this or have Trump as my country’s leader, down coats and natural gas are cheap.
He actually thinks the galaxies are inside the balloon. Too much Men In Black.
Why would I waste my time with someone who thinks every event and character mentioned in the bible is a fictional character or fictional event. Seriously.
You could save my soul! Don’t you get brownie points (or extra brownies) in church for that?
Somewhat lacking nuance. Take “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” – some of it is accurate (war time England). If you’re looking to deceive and be believed you should wrap your lies in truth.
So Patrick ought to claim that he is well aware that some of the bible is factual? Or should he stick with all scripture is fiction.
Erik was right all along.
Are “we” the standard of morality now?
“We” also have actively participated in the commission of evil at times.
“We” certainly are a fickle lot.
I just received training at my workplace where I was informed that I was under absolutely no obligation to offer any assistance of any kind to those in distress and If I do I my company will not in any way assist me with any legal troubles that might follow from my actions.
If I choose to be a good Samaritan at work I’m on my own with out the support of my company.
By the way, you do realize that the very idea of a Good Samaritan was introduced by that SSB you hate so much don’t you?
For most of history and in most of the world it’s an alien idea It’s apparently not something “we” would come up with on our own.
peace
Mung,
It’s set in a real place*
*some of it.
But the fact you’re arguing on the edge of absurdity shows us how strong the evidence for the important bits must be..
What if you knew that stopping cancer would result in a far worse evil. Would you be a sick, sadistic bastard if you allowed the lessor evil to continue?
By the way do you know that stopping cancer will not result in a far worse evil?
What if the only way to stop cancer is to stop all mutation and thereby make it so that humanity could never arise in the first place.
peace
I’d rate the veracity of Scripture as somewhere between that of the Iliad and Plato’s Republic: sure, maybe parts of it were based on true events and people, but that’s surely the least interesting and important parts of those texts!
FMM – “Yes Herr Officer, she’s hiding in the attic!”
The skeptics here seem to be all about judgeing, both scripture and the moral failings of others but when it comes down to it they base these judgements only on their own limited subjective opinions.
What I would like to know is why anyone is supposed to care?
peace
Please explain. How is this example supposed to be preventing a far worse evil?
A better example from World war 2 would be something like this don’t you think?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie_(film)
peace
Acartia,
Seems like it is Dazz you have the disagreement with, not me.
So the middle of the balloon has no stars and galaxies, yes?
It’s so easy to reframe this argument in the opposite direction, just substitute the word “theists” for the word “skeptics.”
Theists are good, skeptics are bad.
You care so much that you spend an awful lot of your precious life here.
Peace.
Do you know that lying to the Nazis will not result in a far worse evil?
Then you better not take the risk, right? Auf Wiedersehen Anne!
Skeptical theists are bad-good!