Mass delusion or genuine miracle?

[Candide_West]

So you are assuming that testimonies are as “objective” as a measurement from an instrument?

Nope, again I’ve been quite clear on this, I’m assuming people are being honest - that their testimony matches what they experienced.*

I did when I made my like schematic or when I used my “giant” example.

Again I’ve re-read your posts and have not found any alternatives as yet. As far as I can see the possibilities are*- Either the sun was not dancing and God caused people to believe it was. Or the sun was dancing and God caused people to believe it was not. (Assuming it was a miracle of course). Once again I am not use the term “cause” to application of any kind of mind control or force, but the common everyday use of the term.

Again if you believe you have identified an alternative please would you repeat it (repeat it means write it out again or quote the text that you believe presented the alternative).

Are you an involuntarist?

Doxastic involuntarist would be closer actually (i recognise that some beliefs are not chosen). But not completely as there are areas where people can and do refuse to accept a fact even though they can present no reason to refute it (in truth it is generally because the individual cannot accept the point because it contradicts*or is perceived to contradict a deeply held belief). This is of course a form of self-deception. When an individual does this I’ve noticed that they would tend to make arguments which do not answer the point which they’re trying to refute and evade or ignore points to which they cannot reply.

In any case it is only an extreme circumstances this applies to people’s immediate senses. It’s a lot easier for somebody to fool themselves with regards to more complex ideas than something that they can see front of them.

No, not necessarily “mind control”… you are simply using an involuntarist view of origination of belief, which is incompatible with morality, Free Will, and also Faith.

So you are saying that you are a pure voluntarist? You believe that when you see something in front of you that you must “choose” to believe it is there? In other words you are claiming that you can choose to believe something which is in direct contradiction to what you can see before you?*

Again, if so this shows a worrying capacity for self deception. If that isn’t what you’re saying then there’s no problem to my argument.

It is incoherent because you hold to a theist hypothesis while maintaining an involuntarist view of origination of belief, which are incongruent.

In fact it is not. There is no conflict between the fact that we do not choose some beliefs and theism. Indeed pure epistemic voluntarism conflicts with a number of theistic positions including the idea of natural law (with regards to morality).

If you notice carefully you have changed the first assumption. Your previous assumption clearly said that “God caused beliefs”, while this one does not assume the same thing.

I’m afraid there is no difference unless you are using “cause” to refer to some kind of mind control or similar enforcement of beliefs. I think I’ve been adequately clear that I am not using the word in that manner.

Your current assertion does not conclude that God is deceptive.*

Well I haven’t been making assertions, I’ve demonstrated a line of logic. And that line of logic works just fine with those assumptions. As it always has.

So “Fatima was a miracle”, “God is Omniscient” and “God is perfect” → “God is deceptive”?
Nope… still doesn’t work.

Then why not demonstrate this instead of just asserting it (again). I’ve demonstrated the logic leading to the conclusion. To date you’ve only raised one objection - a perceived conflict with free will, but your objection there only works if you believe that epistemic voluntarism is required for free will, which you have not yet demonstrated. It’s also worth noting that if you genuinely hold this position then you’ll have to abandon any ideas you have about natural law, and indeed any relationship between your beliefs and external reality.

Of course it matters what you mean when you use those terms. Words are not meaningless. The meaning is what conveys information. Unfortunately I do not have the time to provide with a clear definition of all those concepts. Maybe you could check the Catholic Encyclopedia for better understanding.

Okay dokey. If something comes up which challenges how I use the terms I’ll post the relevant information.

No, I said premise 6 was wrong because it assumes an impossibility, that “God caused people to believe the sun danced”*

… And why is that an impossibility? You keep asserting things without offering any support for them. It really doesn’t help in rational discussion.*

The fact is that people can and regularly DO cause other people to believe things which are not true. Why would God struggle with doing something that people can do?

and that I didn’t like the wording in premise 7 because you are using premise 7 with too many complex premises in it which makes it hard for me to accept your understanding of them.*

??? Like what? The point is a really simple one, either God can do things without intending to or he cannot. 7. simply says that he cannot.

If you disagree with 7. then you are saying that God sometimes does things accidentally. I don’t think you disagree with 7. really, but you don’t seem to want to answer the question.

 

[Candide_West]

It seems “ok”, but what does this implicate to your understanding of Free Will and concept of time?

God is outside of time, and he knows in advance the result of (but does not interfere with) any act of free will.

Not at all, only that your description of “what the miracle was” was incorrect.

Well I’m only going by what the witness testimony said. The witnessed said they saw the sun dancing etc. I am guessing that the miracle was what caused people to see the sun dancing etc.*

I am not obfuscating. Notice that you said now that you believed it because of something you perceived. Does this make me the cause of the belief or what you perceived?

You are the cause. The chain of causality started with you. It makes no sense to halt at some point on the chain of causality other than the start. What do you suggest? We stop at the pie and say the pie was the cause? Or the light coming from the pie? Or my eyeballs for receiving the light? No. This is just silly. You caused it by your action. There’s nowhere else we could assign that cause.*

Well, it was an analogy… not the exact same thing, there are points where the analogy makes sense, others where it doesn’t. I pointed out that it was the Supernatural understanding of the event not being understood by all the testimonies that made sense.*

Yes… Rather a lot of places it doesn’t make sense I fear. But never mind.*

If you don’t believe that “deception” is “immoral” or “evil”, then your questions on the consequences of the “deception” do not make sense.

I said deception is not NECESSARILY immoral. Let’s not go dropping key words out of sentences. And my questions make sense just fine without reference to evil, as you’ll see for yourself if you read the context of them.

There are relationships, but they do not necessarily need to be exactly the same.*
Atheists believe that morality exists in a Godless world… although this belief (that morality exists) is completely fabricated.

Incorrect, this is one of the stranger errors that I’ve noticed theists regularly make. Morality works just fine without any Gods (you can observe this for yourself by going to talk to some real atheists if you like). I’ve covered this in detail elsewhere, let me know if you’re interested and I’ll dig you out a link.*

The problem lies with the concept of “belief”. You seem to think “belief” = “perception”, while this is not always the case.*

Indeed, and I’ve covered that too. Sometimes you believe things without having perceived them, and sometimes (in extreme cases) you can disbelieve things you have perceived. This doesn’t affect my argument at all of course.*

Well, it is their own “fault” of the belief as the liar cannot make you believe. It is not their fault that the other person lied. The creator of the lie is the liar.

Correct, he cannot make you believe (as in force you to using mind control or something similar) however the liar can and does cause you to believe something by telling you the lie. As you said, the creator of the lie is the liar. In the same way the creator of a deception is the deceiver. Well done.

Of course not, but that doesn’t mean that the belief was created by an external agent.

Great, so we have indeed dealt with your objection to 6.*

I asked you to read the Old testament. Without it it is hard to explain anything about this topic.

Well I’ve asked you a lot of questions you’ve not answered while have answered all those you asked me (except this one). How about a spot of quid pro quo? You answer my question and I’ll answer yours.*

Do you believe God sometimes makes mistakes or not?*

No… but He did not “cause” you to believe as a force applied to you. That’s where the Free Will argument comes from.

Sure, but I’ve never tried to claim any kind of force being applied. Hence why your free will argument doesn’t apply. You don’t lose your free will when someone deceives you, whether that someone is another human or God.*

You built the hypothesis that “it was a miracle” = “God caused people to believe the sun was dancing”. That is what I am arguing against.

That isn’t a hypothesis, it’s a logical argument. I’m not trying to explain the event, I’m simply demonstrating a line of logic leading to a conclusion. Hence why there’s no need for me to explain the oddities of the event.*

May the good God save you,*
D.

Ahh, righto. So presumably you only use the word as an adjective describing God then yes? You could never say a person was good or a film was good, or a child’s drawing was good etc. Correct?

 

[Candide_West]

The point is interesting is because in the technical sense deception is NOT intrinsically immoral, according to natural law principles. Outright lying is. But not deception. So perhaps you have a point here.

Hmmm, interesting. Why do you say lying is intrinsically immoral? Are you saying that in the case of the armed burglar (in your house asking with evil intent if your wife is in) that the moral course of action is to inform him that she is? Personally I’d say the exact opposite.*

 

[dskysmine]

I apologize for not having replied earlier.
I got married in October and then with the honeymoon and changing places I really did not have time to dedicate here.

Nope, again I’ve been quite clear on this, I’m assuming people are being honest - that their testimony matches what they experienced.*

But you do know that it is subjective? Their experience I mean.

Again I’ve re-read your posts and have not found any alternatives as yet. As far as I can see the possibilities are*- Either the sun was not dancing and God caused people to believe it was. Or the sun was dancing and God caused people to believe it was not. (Assuming it was a miracle of course). Once again I am not use the term “cause” to application of any kind of mind control or force, but the common everyday use of the term.

Again if you believe you have identified an alternative please would you repeat it (repeat it means write it out again or quote the text that you believe presented the alternative).

I presented the case when I made my little drawing.
The presence of the Supernatural in that place caused people to experience things that are not explainable through Natural Science. Since their brains are not supernatural they explain it the best they can.
You seemed not to understand it, or at least seemed to change it to fit your scenario.

Doxastic involuntarist would be closer actually (i recognise that some beliefs are not chosen). But not completely as there are areas where people can and do refuse to accept a fact even though they can present no reason to refute it (in truth it is generally because the individual cannot accept the point because it contradicts*or is perceived to contradict a deeply held belief). This is of course a form of self-deception. When an individual does this I’ve noticed that they would tend to make arguments which do not answer the point which they’re trying to refute and evade or ignore points to which they cannot reply.

In any case it is only an extreme circumstances this applies to people’s immediate senses. It’s a lot easier for somebody to fool themselves with regards to more complex ideas than something that they can see front of them.

According to your definition then you would believe in Limited Doxastic Voluntarism, not Doxastic involuntarism (see Doxastic Voluntarism and Epistemic Deontology by Matthias Steup as an example).
I asked my question because you seem to think that the only possibility is that their sensorial experience was false or everybody else’s that did not see “the sun dance”.
If I see “a car coming towards me” I ought to believe that “a car is coming towards me” unless I have reasons to believe otherwise, like for example being in a Hollywood set where they have holographic technology.
In this case you have to use the same kind of reasoning… If someone saw “the sun dancing” they ought to believe “the sun danced”, that doesn’t mean that “the sun actually danced” (as meaning that the star from the Solar System dislocated from its axis).

So you are saying that you are a pure voluntarist? You believe that when you see something in front of you that you must “choose” to believe it is there? In other words you are claiming that you can choose to believe something which is in direct contradiction to what you can see before you?*

Again, if so this shows a worrying capacity for self deception. If that isn’t what you’re saying then there’s no problem to my argument.

I would say that I am Doxastic Voluntarist, but that most of our doxastic attitudes are not under categorical voluntary control.
As I said before, just because you see something, doesn’t mean that what you see is “true”. In an “optical illusion” you “see” that 2 squares have a different color although they are the same color because of the way your brain works. In the same way I expect that the encounter with the Supernatural can be hard for our brain to grasp.

In fact it is not. There is no conflict between the fact that we do not choose some beliefs and theism. Indeed pure epistemic voluntarism conflicts with a number of theistic positions including the idea of natural law (with regards to morality).

Not at all. After all how would you be responsible for your beliefs?

(continued)

 

[dskysmine]

(from before)

I’m afraid there is no difference unless you are using “cause” to refer to some kind of mind control or similar enforcement of beliefs. I think I’ve been adequately clear that I am not using the word in that manner.

There is a difference because there is a difference between considering something as the sole direct cause and as a partial indirect cause.
Example: If I shoot you, I am directly responsible for your death. If I tell someone who asks me where you are and they shoot you I am a partial or indirect cause of your death. And in only one of those cases I would be accused of murder.

Well I haven’t been making assertions, I’ve demonstrated a line of logic. And that line of logic works just fine with those assumptions. As it always has.

You have and I quoted you on that.
You can try to deny it, but everybody who read it knows where you were trying to get to.

Then why not demonstrate this instead of just asserting it (again). I’ve demonstrated the logic leading to the conclusion. To date you’ve only raised one objection - a perceived conflict with free will, but your objection there only works if you believe that epistemic voluntarism is required for free will, which you have not yet demonstrated. It’s also worth noting that if you genuinely hold this position then you’ll have to abandon any ideas you have about natural law, and indeed any relationship between your beliefs and external reality.

Not at all. It is because I consider the evidence around me and external reality that my beliefs get changed and reinforced, or weakened.
When I was 5 if somebody would have asked me to explain something about the Bible I did not yet understand it could have shaken my belief in the Word therein, but now I can consider and weigh the evidence much better.
Before I came into contact with “bad Christians”, “Christians” were in my head “good”. Now I know better. There are good and bad Christians.
I weigh the evidence, and take a doxastic attitude.

Okay dokey. If something comes up which challenges how I use the terms I’ll post the relevant information.

… And why is that an impossibility? You keep asserting things without offering any support for them. It really doesn’t help in rational discussion.*

The fact is that people can and regularly DO cause other people to believe things which are not true. Why would God struggle with doing something that people can do?

Because God is not the sole causer of belief (notice I am not saying He didn’t cause the event). People’s experiences, their health, their proximity to the event, and many other causes can influence a belief, why should I blame God for everything?

??? Like what? The point is a really simple one, either God can do things without intending to or he cannot. 7. simply says that he cannot.

If you disagree with 7. then you are saying that God sometimes does things accidentally. I don’t think you disagree with 7. really, but you don’t seem to want to answer the question.

I don’t know if I disagree because as I said it uses a lot of complex issues.
In the Old testament for example you can see passages where it is stated that God says He regrets something. It doesn’t mean he made a mistake… it conveys a deep Mystery about Trust and fidelity.

God is outside of time, and he knows in advance the result of (but does not interfere with) any act of free will.

I would say God does interfere… or else I would be a Deist, just not all the time.

Well I’m only going by what the witness testimony said. The witnessed said they saw the sun dancing etc. I am guessing that the miracle was what caused people to see the sun dancing etc.*

Yes. But now you are saying it was the miracle that “caused”. Before you said it was “God”. God is a subject. The miracle is an object.

(continued)

 

[dskysmine]

(from previous)

You are the cause. The chain of causality started with you. It makes no sense to halt at some point on the chain of causality other than the start. What do you suggest? We stop at the pie and say the pie was the cause? Or the light coming from the pie? Or my eyeballs for receiving the light? No. This is just silly. You caused it by your action. There’s nowhere else we could assign that cause.*

This means that you can only assign “causality” to a subject?
So if an earthquake happens who is the “cause”? Or do you call the earthquake a subject? Or what if you get poisoned from exposure to a radioactive material? Are you the cause or the material?

Yes… Rather a lot of places it doesn’t make sense I fear. But never mind.*

I said deception is not NECESSARILY immoral. Let’s not go dropping key words out of sentences. And my questions make sense just fine without reference to evil, as you’ll see for yourself if you read the context of them.

Well, in the Catholic understanding deception is immoral. You know who is the father of all lies?

Incorrect, this is one of the stranger errors that I’ve noticed theists regularly make. Morality works just fine without any Gods (you can observe this for yourself by going to talk to some real atheists if you like). I’ve covered this in detail elsewhere, let me know if you’re interested and I’ll dig you out a link.*

Please do…
Every atheist I have talked to about it hasn’t even answered the question “If morality really exists, what would be the test to disprove it?”

Indeed, and I’ve covered that too. Sometimes you believe things without having perceived them, and sometimes (in extreme cases) you can disbelieve things you have perceived. This doesn’t affect my argument at all of course.*

It does, you are just not being honest on how it affects it, as demonstrated before.

Correct, he cannot make you believe (as in force you to using mind control or something similar) however the liar can and does cause you to believe something by telling you the lie. As you said, the creator of the lie is the liar. In the same way the creator of a deception is the deceiver. Well done.

I would say that can be an abuse of language.
Who is the cause of your belief that the Earth is a planet? Who is the cause of your belief that there is no God? Who is the cause of your belief that tomorrow you will be alive?
The outside world presents us with evidence to form our beliefs. The liar is the cause of the lie, not my belief in him.

Great, so we have indeed dealt with your objection to 6.*

Of course not. I said “it doesn’t mean”… which means that the belief is the doxastic attitude taken by the deceived person.
If I create the lie that “there is a pink Unicorn in the trunk of your Camaro”, that doesn’t mean I created a belief in you that “there is a pink Unicorn in the trunk of your Camaro”.
I present you with my “evidence”, which can be my word or something else more. You have to believe in me to create the belief that “there is a pink Unicorn in the trunk of your Camaro”.

Well I’ve asked you a lot of questions you’ve not answered while have answered all those you asked me (except this one). How about a spot of quid pro quo? You answer my question and I’ll answer yours.*

Do you believe God sometimes makes mistakes or not?*

I don’t believe God makes mistakes in the sense of a subject making a doxastic attitude towards φ at time t that is “not φ” at time t+δ.

Sure, but I’ve never tried to claim any kind of force being applied. Hence why your free will argument doesn’t apply. You don’t lose your free will when someone deceives you, whether that someone is another human or God.*

You lose your free will if your beliefs are caused by external agents, and not evidenced by them, as Doxastic Voluntarism states.

That isn’t a hypothesis, it’s a logical argument. I’m not trying to explain the event, I’m simply demonstrating a line of logic leading to a conclusion. Hence why there’s no need for me to explain the oddities of the event.*

Ahh, righto. So presumably you only use the word as an adjective describing God then yes? You could never say a person was good or a film was good, or a child’s drawing was good etc. Correct?

I could, as God’s goodness is evidenced by His Creation.
God bless,
D.

 

[LEMAITRE]

Very interesting discussion dsky and CandideWest. Please continue. :clapping:

 

[Candide_West]

I apologize for not having replied earlier.*
I got married in October and then with the honeymoon and changing places I really did not have time to dedicate here.*

Hi Dskysmine,*

Nice to hear from you again and congratulations on your wedding. I wish you every happiness for the future.*

I’m afraid I don’t have as much time at the moment either so how about we try something different, let’s try a hypothetical.*

Dave and Sarah are happily married. Sarah has a friend Steve who secretly has a magical power to create illusions.*

One night Sarah is out for the evening having dinner with her sister and through the window they see Dave walking along on the street outside with another girl and then passionately kissing her. What they don’t know is that in reality Dave is back at home tucked up in bed and what they have seen is an illusion created by Steve. Obviously this has a radical affect on Dave and Sarah’s relationship.*

I would say that Steve has deceived Sarah and her sister. Given our discussion thus far I suspect you will disagree? Please confirm this if correct and (if you can) why in simple terms you don’t consider Steve’s actions to be deceptive before we go any further.*

Hopefully this simpler hypothetical should make the discussion more simple. If not then (when I get enough time) I’ll go through and respond to all the points you asked about.*

 

[zro_x]

I haven’t read all the posts, but everyone I’ve read seems to be taking for granted that the sun dance did not actually happen. Why is that? If God could make the sun dance, he could also cancel any negative effects of this action.

 

[Candide_West]

I haven’t read all the posts, but everyone I’ve read seems to be taking for granted that the sun dance did not actually happen. Why is that? If God could make the sun dance, he could also cancel any negative effects of this action.

It doesn’t actually matter for the argument I presented, if it was a miracle then either the sun did not dance and people (some of those at Fatima) were deceived into believing it did or the sun did dance and the people (everyone else of that side of the planet) were deceived into believing it was not dancing.

 

[Giants]

I haven’t read all the posts, but everyone I’ve read seems to be taking for granted that the sun dance did not actually happen. Why is that? If God could make the sun dance, he could also cancel any negative effects of this action.

If God actually did make the sun dance, wouldn’t it be visible to everyone where the sun was out at that moment?

 

[Farsight001]

If God actually did make the sun dance, wouldn’t it be visible to everyone where the sun was out at that moment?

Why would it need to? If you say because it would violate the laws of nature otherwise, I would suggest you might be misunderstanding the concept of a miracle.

 

[Giants]

Why would it need to? If you say because it would violate the laws of nature otherwise, I would suggest you might be misunderstanding the concept of a miracle.

In the strictest sense, it wouldn’t need to. But look at what’s being suggested at this point: That God actually made the actual sun actually move, but that he also used his power to negate the negative consequences of a giant ball of flaming gas getting that close to the Earth, but he ALSO limited the experience of the miracle to those people standing in a field in central Portugal. As for everyone else living in daylight at that moment, he orchestrated a mass delusion that NOTHING unusual was going on.

Now, this is what you have to believe to claim that God made the sun actually move.

 

[Farsight001]

But look at what’s being suggested at this point: That God actually made the actual sun actually move, but that he also used his power to negate the negative consequences of a giant ball of flaming gas getting that close to the Earth, but he ALSO limited the experience of the miracle to those people standing in a field in central Portugal.

Whoever said it literally moved? It appeared to move. That can be just as much of a miracle.

As for everyone else living in daylight at that moment, he orchestrated a mass delusion that NOTHING unusual was going on.

Technically speaking, if it actually moved, then the people who didn’t see it move are suffering the delusion.

 

[Giants]

Whoever said it literally moved? It appeared to move. That can be just as much of a miracle.

zro x was suggesting the sun could’ve literally moved. That’s who and what I was responding to.

If it only appeared to move, that’s fine. But then you’re that much closer to this being a mass delusion. And it would still not address the problematic elements of the event. Like, why did some people in the crowd report seeing nothing unusual? Why did some people report the vision from miles away, while others, again, saw nothing unusual? An honest inquiry from a truly objective, scientific mind would have no problem asking these questions, yet they are routinely dismissed and ignored by those who believe in the Fatima miracle.

Technically speaking, if it actually moved, then the people who didn’t see it move are suffering the delusion.

Which is what I said.

 

[boomerang]

70,000 people “witnessing” the event, vs 1.8bn other people not noticing a darn thing. Delusion, by any measure. Probably an atmospheric thing, probably inflated numbers of witnesses, probably “massaged” predicition dates, probably embellished witness statements and reportage.

Not a miracle.

How could three illiterate children “massage” the exact date of the miracle? How did they massage it so that 70,000 people made it there on that very day? All trains going to Fatima were packed to the rafters on the day before the miracle, everyone knew the 13th was THE day. The newspaper reporters admitted they saw it, too. And they were atheists. People 20 miles away saw it. And Our Lady predicted a strange light in the sky would appear immediately before the next war (WW2). Sure enough, the Great Aurora of 1938 preceded Hitler’s annexation of Austria by 6 weeks. My mother saw that light. The visionary of Fatima, Sister Lucia, said it was the light Our Lady had predicted. Believe, Oh ye of little faith!

 

[Candide_West]

…And Our Lady predicted a strange light in the sky would appear immediately before the next war (WW2). Sure enough, the Great Aurora of 1938 preceded Hitler’s annexation of Austria by 6 weeks. My mother saw that light. The visionary of Fatima, Sister Lucia, said it was the light Our Lady had predicted. Believe, Oh ye of little faith!

Yes indeed. Of course this would have been rather more impressive if she had made her “prediction” in 1917 when the alleged miracle happened, instead of in 1941 after the events she was “predicting” had already occurred.

I think that by 1941 most people in Europe (your mother included) could have predicted that there would be a great war preceded by a strange light in the sky.

 

[zro_x]

It doesn’t actually matter for the argument I presented, if it was a miracle then either the sun did not dance and people (some of those at Fatima) were deceived into believing it did or the sun did dance and the people (everyone else of that side of the planet) were deceived into believing it was not dancing.

hmmmm… I suppose that’s true.

 

[zro_x]

why did some people in the crowd report seeing nothing unusual? Why did some people report the vision from miles away, while others, again, saw nothing unusual?

at a guess, I’d immagine that those who reported that were in the minority. Perhaps these people were somewhat like Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. which is to say, they saw something amazing and spectacular, but chose to deny it. Of course, this idea could be discounted if those who reported nothing were a significant percent of the crowd.

 

[Giants]

at a guess, I’d immagine that those who reported that were in the minority. Perhaps these people were somewhat like Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. which is to say, they saw something amazing and spectacular, but chose to deny it. Of course, this idea could be discounted if those who reported nothing were a significant percent of the crowd.

Sure, but this brings me to my bigger point. I don’t see any reason to trust any particular assumption of fact in this matter. It’s assumed that there were 70,000 people in the field that day - even though I’ve heard the cited figure as being as high as 100,000, and as low as 10,000. To say nothing of the number of people in the crowd reported seeing nothing. It’s claimed that the newspaper journalists in the fields were atheists, and they saw something. I don’t know on what basis these assumptions are made, and at any rate, the newspapers are written in Portuguese. Do we have any of these newspapers handy? Can anyone translate what they actually say? And as far as I know, the first serious scholarship of the purported events of Fatima were not even attempted until some 25+ years after the fact, by John de Marchi, an Italian Catholic priest.

The larger point I want to make is that, no matter what the truth is, it will always withstand honest inquiry. Water is 2 parts Hydrogen and 1 part Oxygen. If the stakes for proving it were as high as validating Catholicism, then no chemist in the world would miss an opportunity to prove the truth of water to you, even if they thought it had been established countless times before. But frankly, I don’t see the same sort of honest inquiry among people who believe the miracle at Fatima happened.