I have been doing some research about the miracle of the sun at Fatima, and I cannot find a good website which lists what happened. In fact, all I can find are naysayers providing reasons as to why it was a solar flare or peer pressure, these sites can be found
here and
here.
I was curious if anyone had links to any apologetic works regarding this miracle and if anyone knew of a good site which lists the details of what happened?
Despite occurring approximately a century ago, people at the time knew a lot about solar phenomena, so the criticism that 70,000+ people were somehow fooled by a solar flare is insulting to their intelligence.
Moreover, what the people described was
not the action of a solar flare. The report is that the sun rapidly spun, changed color, danced in the sky, and then appeared to rush towards the earth. All the while, people were somehow able to stare at this solar activity without burning out their retinas. Solar flares don’t do this. Solar flares don’t instantly dry an entire field of mud, either.
In terms of “peer pressure”, 70,000+ people is an awful lot to try to persuade through peer pressure! And how exactly would one even go about trying to convey the “talking points” to such a big crowd spread out over the territory, not to mention certain people in other towns? There were no microphones, speakers or leaflets in use. People in that crowd came from all over the world, so they didn’t even all speak the same language!
As someone with a degree in psychology, I can tell you that trying to test this theory by duplicating the original conditions and then trying to sway people through some kind of peer pressure application would be a logistical nightmare.
We must also keep in mind that among those who reported the miracle were atheists and reporters from Communist newspapers who went there initially for the purpose of debunking any reports of a miracle that arose. They wanted to be able to honestly say, “I was there and nothing happened!” But then they saw the miracle and were converted, and probably faced ridicule and even persecution as a result. In other words, there was pre-existing peer pressure for some in the crowd to actually
deny the miracle. In light of all this, a theory based on the crowd being swayed by peer pressure to lie about witnessing a miracle seems very flimsy, at best.
