How do atheists explain Eucharistic Miracles

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How do atheists explain Eucharistic miracles? Stigmata? Incorruptible bodies of saints? Weeping/unnatural things happening with statues? Saints having visions, levitating, etc? Miraculous healings?

Many of these can even be pulled up with multiple pictures {look up Eucharistic miracles & incorruptible saints!} & sources online?
 
christismylord said:
How do atheists explain Eucharistic miracles? Stigmata? Incorruptible bodies of saints? Weeping/unnatural things happening with statues? Saints having visions, levitating, etc? Miraculous healings?

Many of these can even be pulled up with multiple pictures {look up Eucharistic miracles & incorruptible saints!} & sources online?
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We try not to. It’s an enervating experience.
 
Have you a list of those where belief in their miraculous nature is compulsory for Catholics?
 
Please refer me to a miracle which has been investigated by independent scientists who have published their findings for peer review.
 
@FiveLinden Many eucharistic miracles have been evaluated by independent scientists who were not told the source of the material until after they did their examination and reported their findings.

Dr. Zugibe, a pathologist from NYC is the scientist who examined a host from Buenos Aires in the 90’s. A nonbeliever, like yourself, he converted to Catholicism after he learned the source of the sample sent to him as he literally saw with his own eyes the truth of the eucharist.

He wrote a book on his experience and there are many articles about him. Here is one I was able to search for quickly.

 
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christismylord said:
How do atheists explain Eucharistic miracles? Stigmata? Incorruptible bodies of saints? Weeping/unnatural things happening with statues? Saints having visions, levitating, etc? Miraculous healings?
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How do you explain “miracles” that happen in other religions, especially Hinduism which has a history of such events that are often similar to and just as impressive as Catholic ones?

An atheist would attribute miracles of any sort to misinterpretation of natural events, pareidolia, coincidence, suggestibility, altered mental states, piety-generated delusion, illusion, pious fraud, con artistry, wishful thinking and gullibility.
 
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If you are going to link to ‘evidence’ you should link to evidence and not unsubstantiated claims, especially about the World Health Organisation carrying out testing on eucharistic ‘miracles’.
 
@FiveLinden If you are sincerly interested I would encourage you to specifically look into the story of Dr. Frederick Zugibe and his work with the sample from Buenos Aires. I’m sorry that article wasn’t great, it’s early here and I tried to find something quickly before my kids woke up.

He checks all the boxes you asked for, independent scientist with published findings that are open to review.
 
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Atheists simply dismiss these things as either having a natural cause, or being faked or made up.

The Church even recognizes that most of the phenomena you listed can have natural causes and that everything on your list with the possible exception of incorruptibility can be faked, which is why the Church conducts very thorough investigations and withholds its official approval from most such claims. Incorruptibility is no longer relied upon as evidence of a saintly life (and with modern embalming has become irrelevant).

Even if the Church does a big peer reviewed investigation and concludes in favor of the miracle or vision or whatever, skeptics will always claim the Church investigation was flawed or biased.
 
Um, you do know the Church hires experts in their fields, including non-Catholics, to do investigations, right? Like for an alleged medical miracle, the Church gets a bunch of highly qualified doctors to examine the case. They might not even know why they’re looking at it. They’re just given the medical file and asked for their opinion on what could have caused the cancer to disappear or whatever.

I would suggest you actually do some research on how the Church does its investigations before you try to discuss the subject.

As for why the Church does investigations, it has to do them in order to canonize saints. If the Church wants to canonize Padre Pio and he’s alleged to have had stigmata, the Church will investigate that to try to find out if he was faking the stigmata by putting acid on his hands. If the evidence suggested he was faking, he couldn’t be a saint. The Church also does investigations in order to protect its faithful from fake apparitions and the like.

The Church doesn’t do investigations for the benefit of the atheists of the world who aren’t going to believe anyway. And the Church certainly doesn’t care what some atheist thinks of their decision to investigate.
 
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Good, I’m glad you’ve made yourself aware of the process. As I have already explained above why the Church does investigations, I don’t think any further response is needed on my part here.
 
christismylord said:
How do atheists explain Eucharistic miracles? Stigmata? Incorruptible bodies of saints?
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Like everything else, they say it’s fake.

We recently exhumed a very pious Archbishop after 5 years of unembalmed burial , and he still looks like they just put him in the casket yesterday:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

But for those looking for an excuse, they’ll find one: “It’s a con. They froze the body. The pictures were taken right after he died.” (etc.)
 
Looks like I’m outta likes Deacon Christopher so I’ll give you two thumbs up.:+1:t2::+1:t2:
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Atheists simply dismiss these things as either having a natural cause, or being faked or made up
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No, we don’t. As with all theories (in this case, it’s a miracle) atheists who follow the scientific method (and lots of Catholics do, too) apply the standard approach to claims of the extraordinary - we seek evidence. We want to see the possibility of fraud excluded and we want to see other possible explanations excluded. I am perfectly happy to accept any miracle that meets normal standards of scientific evidence. And of course I will accept it until and if another explanation is made that better explains the evidence.

"Atheists’, Bear, don’t all or typically ‘do’ anything. Non belief in god(s) predicts nothing about other beliefs or conclusions
Tis_Bearself said:
Even if the Church does a big peer reviewed investigation and concludes in favor of the miracle or vision or whatever, skeptics will always claim the Church investigation was flawed or biased
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Your ‘does’ as distinct from ‘were to do’ implies that such a ‘big peer reviewed investigation’ has happened. Has it? Link?
 
There are many other things that atheists cannot explain. Dark matter and dark energy. The presence of supermassive black holes at the center of every galaxy. The stunning biodiversity of this planet. The irreducibility of a cell as a complex organism. Yet when it comes to miracles they think the explanation is simply they are fake. Talk about bias.
 
FiveLinden said:
As with all theories (in this case, it’s a miracle) atheists who follow the scientific method (and lots of Catholics do, too) apply the standard approach to claims of the extraordinary - we seek evidence. We want to see the possibility of fraud excluded and we want to see other possible explanations excluded. I am perfectly happy to accept any miracle that meets normal standards of scientific evidence. And of course I will accept it until and if another explanation is made that better explains the evidence.
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A couple of thoughts on this:
  • Miracles aren’t supposed to be repeatable, observable phenomena; they are given by God to specific people at single specific times (like when Christ let Peter walk on water). So asking to observe and examine a miracle with the scientific method probably wouldn’t be possible.
  • I’ve talked to a lot of atheists (even here) who say “we’d believe if only we could prove it wasn’t fraudulent” but then it turns out there’s no way to exclude every possible con that someone can come up with. People are creative. 100% certainty is almost impossible to meet.
Actually, there is one miracle I know of that can’t be faked: Clairvoyance. If someone can read your thoughts, there’s no way to stage that. There are two Orthodox elders in the US who reportedly have that ability (people go to one of them for confession, and he apparently knows exactly what they’re going to confess before they say it: “You’re sorry for this, you’re sorry for this, you’re really sorry for this…” Multiple people have had this experience.)

So if you’re prepared to make a pilgrimage, @FiveLinden, I guess I could PM you the names and you can examine for yourself.
 
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GordonP said:
An atheist would attribute miracles of any sort to misinterpretation of natural events, pareidolia, coincidence, suggestibility, altered mental states, piety-generated delusion, illusion, pious fraud, con artistry, wishful thinking and gullibility.
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Yes, pretty much this covers it. Thanks for the word pareidolia. I love learning new words!

I have issues with many of the miracles. There may actually be a real one in all the claims but most of the miracles from the past have stopped when we can now scientifically investigate them. I won’t state that a miracle can’t happen. I can see, however, that we get very few claims nowadays.

I want to see a Eucharistic miracle where it’s a combination of the bread and tissue. The one that’s claimed to be heart tissue is all tissue…no remaining bread. That’s a bit too convenient for my skepticism.
 
ReaderT said:
Miracles aren’t supposed to be repeatable, observable phenomena; they are given by God to specific people at single specific times (like when Christ let Peter walk on water).
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Well, some walking on water can be observed. So too could the reports of the dead rising in large numbers and walking the streets after the resurrection. Claims that bread has become human flesh can easily be tested. Of course exclusion of fraud would be needed because of Occam’s razor (the simplest explanation is usually right).

I would certainly be willing to undergo an examination by anyone claiming clairvoyance. Cold reading, easily learned from the Internet, would of course need to be excluded. Perhaps a Skype call could be arranged? I could electronically change my voice and appearance. I am assuming as a miracle there will be no issue with spacial great distance.
 
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