So many things don't make sense to me, like

[Poof]

Thankyou, Sir Poof! It’s so helpful to have someone follow up on such a question!

Beautiful and powerful! This one witness seems to have been specially chosen by God to credit all the other witnesses! It was not a collective hallucination, it was not a natural phenomenon!

Like I said, the one page rebuttals just cannot account for all the facts, which are there to diligent enquirers.

No problem!

 

[davidv]

Without them,

Without what?

the bible could just be a collection of stories about the superstitious fortune tellers who got lucky.

I don’t know how this addresses my point?

 

[Julia_Mae]

i thought maybe someone here that got a sign or something could help me, too…

How could that help you? You don’t seem to believe the thousands of people who testified to other signs and miracles, why should someone posting on a forum be different? All kinds of people here have posted about their own experiences. Maybe you should do a search if you really want that information. I mean, gosh, I’d hate to see you not get what you are looking for.

 

[Edmundus1581]

I will add my other lesser know Fatima fact.

First, I will begin by asking a question…

Why would 70,000 people make the trip to Fatima - a remote place, in the conditions of 1917 - to see a “miracle” which three shepherd children had said was going to happen?

Seriously, if such were announced in your local newspaper, eg “Miracle predicted by three 10 year olds”, how many people would travel any distance? Few Catholics, especially, would do so, because we don’t like to give publicity to such things, unless they’ve earned it in some way. There are many apparitions, true and false, that draw attention around the world, but never get large numbers of observers, let alone 70,000. There have actually been other predicted miracles, and they didn’t get large crowds - just as one would expect.

The reason there were 70,000 was because there had been three previous miracles at the Cova on the 13th of the month! On the 13th of July, 13th August and 13 September a small cloud had appeared, in a cloudless sky, and moved towards the children. While the children talked with the “apparition”, the crowds could not see who they were talking to, but they did hear a buzzing sound coming from the cloud. The cloud floated away, quite quickly, when the apparition was over. (The children were not there on 13th July, but the cloud arrived and moved to the usual spot.). Because of this phenomenon, and other credible aspects of the childrens’ accounts, the crowd had grown each month, and by 13th September there were 10,000.

(The previous para is from memory. I’ll follow up the details, if anyone is interested. There may be some minor discrepancies with the full accounts, but the essentials are there).

So, the reason there were 70,000 (or 40,000 - the estimates vary) was because the apparitions of Fatima already had a following. It was because of this following that many skeptics, atheists, and even cautious Catholics, also attended on the 13th October, with the intention of debunking what was already a well known public event.

 

[empther]

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, witnesses could no longer doubt that Jesus was God.
That’s the exact moment when the Jewish leaders started plotting against him.

That’s how it works. If God appeared on the Jay Leno show, many people would commit themselves to evil that might not have if they’d been left in doubt.

Does that make sense? No. But it never makes sense to turn to evil.
People do.

 

[Edmundus1581]

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, witnesses could no longer doubt that Jesus was God.
That’s the exact moment when the Jewish leaders started plotting against him.
…

That is so interesting, and relevant to the question! I will make remember that.

 

[LJH_80]

That’s precisely the point. Three months prior to the miracle, the Virgin Mary invited everyone to go to the Cova on the prophesied day, promising a miracle so that “all may believe”. People came, some traveling for several miles, taking trains, cars, etc…and on that day, a miracle happened, yet, astronomical and meteorological observatories were unable to record it. Tbis proves that the miracle was a local and exclusive one. **It was available to everyone over a radius of 20 miles from the Cova. **God, with his power, was able to twist the laws of the universe, making such a miracle possible without any negative effects (on the earth) whatsoever.

I’m sorry, would you mind rephrasing this? The sun moved but everyone was fooled into thinking that it actually stayed in one place? Sorry.

Yet witnesses clearly state it

1. came from and went back to the location of the sun.
2. It looked exactly like the sun.
3. It was the only sun like object in the sky afterwards.

Would you mind rephrasing this as well? Are you saying that the crowd present at the Cova did not see the sun and that the miraculous drying of the muddy ground and clothes after the event was not the result of the sun or something else?

“The sun danced around, sending off great shafts of colored light which tinted objects on the ground. It plummeted towards the earth after several minutes, assuming such a gigantic nearness that the tens of thousands of witnesses thought it was the end of the world.” The sun stopped just as it was about to hit the earth and returned to the sky.

Rephrasing what I said:

The sun must have done one thing or another. It must have either danced or not danced.

If the sun danced, then the other 3 billion people on the planet, who didn’t see it move, must have seen some kind of illusion.

If the sun did not dance, than the 70k people at Fatima saw something that wasn’t the sun.

Note: I am not saying that they made it up. They could have legitimately seen something that looked like the sun, but wasn’t. Perhaps it was the Virgin Mary in her heavenly form. Perhaps it was an angel. Perhaps it was a sign that God simply created.
Even if we say that what they saw was not the sun, that doesn’t mean the miracle is faked, just that it wasn’t the sun.

Is that clearer?

 

[Edmundus1581]

Rephrasing what I said:

The sun must have done one thing or another. It must have either danced or not danced.
…

Your post is intelligent and respectful, so I will treat it seriously.

Let’s begin with the above statement. Do you think that’s a law of logic, or of science? For instance, “John is an android, or he is not an android” is logic, but “John will die evenutally” is science.

Happy to continue when you answer this question. BTW, I’m no PHd in philosophy, and I don’t know where this is going

 

[empther]

If the sun danced, then the other 3 billion people on the planet, who didn’t see it move, must have seen some kind of illusion.

God probably sent the light photons needed to make the 70,000 see the sun dance.
It you think about it, that is a miracle as amazing as actually making the sun dance. No natural phenomenon could explain it.
What actually happens seems irrelevant.

 

[Mijoy2]

John 20-29 “Blessed are those who believe without seeing”

This I do not understand.

In all other aspects of life we are considered prudent (a virtue) if we do not take things on face value.

We do not believe many things we are informed of in life. We are considered prudent to question apparitions, to question self-proclaimed prophets etc. However Thomas is chastised for doubting. Wasn’t he simply being prudent? Aren’t we being prudent to quesiton Jesus, His existance, His life, His death on the cross, His resurrection?

Why are we to “believe”? There is evidence to believe, but there is also evidence to not believe. Should we not quesiton throughout our lives, always searching for truth?

 

[Lochias]

Rephrasing what I said:

The sun must have done one thing or another. It must have either danced or not danced.

If the sun danced, then the other 3 billion people on the planet, who didn’t see it move, must have seen some kind of illusion.

If the sun did not dance, than the 70k people at Fatima saw something that wasn’t the sun.

Note: I am not saying that they made it up. They could have legitimately seen something that looked like the sun, but wasn’t. Perhaps it was the Virgin Mary in her heavenly form. Perhaps it was an angel. Perhaps it was a sign that God simply created.
Even if we say that what they saw was not the sun, that doesn’t mean the miracle is faked, just that it wasn’t the sun.

It very well could have been the Virgin Mary, or an angel, or a sign, yes. Does it really matter one way or the other, though? What’s the point you’re getting at, here? Curious and would like to know.

 

[JNdoum]

This I do not understand.

In all other aspects of life we are considered prudent (a virtue) if we do not take things on face value.

We do not believe many things we are informed of in life. We are considered prudent to question apparitions, to question self-proclaimed prophets etc. However Thomas is chastised for doubting. Wasn’t he simply being prudent? Aren’t we being prudent to quesiton Jesus, His existance, His life, His death on the cross, His resurrection?

Why are we to “believe”? There is evidence to believe, but there is also evidence to not believe. Should we not quesiton throughout our lives, always searching for truth?

Sometimes we simply must take things on faith, because it is the only way we are to know something. For instance, you’ve heard tell of many scientific theories: let us take the solar system as an example. How on earth could you know that that is a real theory? You’ve never been in space (presumably) and you have never come to some sort of conclusion outside of the theory itself which proves to you without doubt that the solar system exists. When you think about it, we take most of what we know on faith, from trivia on koala bears to the societal systems of the Aztec people. We must have faith, because it is irrational and impossible to prove everything that must be known for yourself.

 

[PumpkinSeed]

Lots of prophecies are being fulfilled right now. Lots of prophecies have started being fulfilled the moment Jesus left this world. We’ve been in the ‘end times’ since he died.

If you’re talking about the second coming, well I don’t know what that will be. I assume probably a long time from now. But who knows. You should be ready at all times.

Also, I don’t know about the Mary part of her appearing to people. I guess she only did it when she felt it was necessary,