I think a good book to read is ‘Meet The Witnesses’ by John M Haffert. It deals with eyewitness accounts at Fatima in 1917 and speaks to people there who were farmers, labourers, doctors, lawyers, aristocrats, media, politicians, priests and scientists.
That is why it is interesting to hear their testimony and read the accounts, before and after the proclaimed miracle that was predicted by three ignorant children who presided over 100,000 witnesses (as esimated by the eyewitness Doctor Jose Garrett, a professor from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Coimbra) as well as many others in nearby areas.
I think in the interests of fairness it should be mentioned that Portugal was the first country to fall to the soviets (although now we associate soviets with Russia, which was the second country to fall).
As such, the rulers had publicly committed themselves to get rid of religion within two generations. Hundreds of priests were jailed or exiled, church property seized and church sacraments like marriage, were banned by the state in many parts of the country.
So lots of people who were there that day had more self interest in exposing the whole episode as a fraud, including politicians, soldiers who were under orders to forcibly turn people away, and the press who were also present and who understandably had made fun of the whole episode in the media up to that day. The church, under pressure from the state were also not supporting the claims and under fear of further repression, spoke out against attending on the day in all of their churches that were still left open. The family members too, understandably, and in obeyance to the Church, did not want the attention. These 3 kids, for whatever reason, battled on alone, including being put in prison. The attitude by the church, the conversions of a great many atheists there on that day, and the change of attitude by the press in their reporting the next day cannot be so easily dismissed as blind loyalty and auto suggestion.
Especially when you consider that the phenomenum, as yet, cannot be explained by science and was seen by people over a radius of 40 miles, who were so dis-interested in the whole thing, they had not even bothered to go.
Many people in the crowd, as their testimony recalls in the aforementioned book, took precautions against any sort of mass suggestion such as not expecting to see any miracle, turning away, focussing the eyes and then turning back to view the events.
Also, i am not aware what the science would be in projecting a certian image into peoples minds who were taking such precautions and avowely atheist to begin with.
And the phenomena reported was not just a mere dancing of a multi coloured ‘sun shaped object’ in the sky but also a plunging of the same to earth to such an extent that it’s heat could be felt by the onlookers who all thought the world was going to end. It also was widely reported by eyewitnesses to have instantly dried the ground of inches of mud that had gathererd from the incessant rain of the past few hours. This was widely reported by eyewitnesses including those suffering from ailments such as bronchitus for whom the previous damp conditions were especially troubling. The so called ‘sun’ got so big and so close to the tree where the children reported the lady was appearing, that the onlookers thought they would be crushed to death.
I am very open to ‘non miraculous’ explanations, although i have not been able to find a skeptic’s rebuttel that fully addresses all of the widely reported claims of that day.
Personally Fatima and Quantum Physics are large reasons why i accept God/Catholism. (observer effect, Bells inequality, quantum zeno effect, uncertainty principle, dual nature of matter).
But this is just me and grounds my faith in logic and reason and as such is a good rebuttel against atheists who try to claim both for their arguements.
As far as convincing atheists, yeah Fatima may convince some but i also have great sympathy with the view expressed about living a Holy life as an example. Perhaps sometimes we are so caught up in ‘winning the arguement’ that we don’t do the most important and effective action.
