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Moonstruck888
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Maybe you and I are alike after all…
What is the standard skeptics use for "mass hallucination"?
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Marc_Anthony
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I’m not quite sure why, but this makes me laugh.
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AntiTheist
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Well, the entire history of evaluating claims demonstrates this fact. People who try to evaluate, for example, claims about the world outside of their heads by using only their precious feelings are often wrong.
Logic would suggest that claims about the world outside of our heads are best supported by data from the world outside of our heads. The evidence of our history of evaluating claims appears to support this quite adequately.
Then there’s no way we’ll ever know that they were hallucinating, and it’s irrelevant.
Now, if you have some evidence that suggests that they were hallucinating – for example, satellite images of that area during the supposed “game” that reveals that there were actually no players on the field – then maybe we could talk.
You and the Netherlands, buddy.
No, it’s not. We know that the sun didn’t move at all. It’s a correct conclusion to say that all the eyewitness testimony in the world couldn’t establish that it happened when we know that it didn’t.
Because if they were not mistaken, we would be able to observe – today, right now – the devastating effects of a moving sun on the planetary orbits of the solar system (i.e. there wouldn’t be a solar system any more).
Haven’t you read anything that I’ve written?
I wasn’t there when Washington crossed the Delaware or when the diversity of life evolved from simpler organisms, but that doesn’t mean I wander around in a clueless fog without any knowledge on these subjects, mumbling things about the Matrix movies and saying, “What if this is all a dream…dude???”
You see, we have this marvelous thing called evidence that actually lets us determine what is likely to be true and likely to be false. And, thanks to evidence, we know that the odds that the sun moved from its position in the solar system are hovering somewhere around zero.
I have yet to see you adequately address this point. Your pal StevieD writes the following:
So…are you saying otherwise, dostoyevskyfan?
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AntiTheist
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If we all think we see the sun wheeling about the sky and there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the sun actually moved (if people on other parts of the earth don’t see the sun move, and if there’s none of the devastating astronomical effects we’d expect to see – i.e. the destruction of the orbits of our solar system)…then yes, whatever it is that we saw was not the sun wheeling about the sky.
That’s the textbook definition of a hallucination!
Well, obviously, in that situation your prediction was true. It wouldn’t demonstrate that you had supernatural aid in making your prediction – you or somone else might have (consciously or unconsciously) contrived events to bring the prediction to pass; you might have gotten lucky; or evil Hindu spirits might have given you those visions, in the guise of characters from Christian mythology, just to mess with you.
Sure, I admit that people find things credible that I don’t (lots of people seem to believe that psychic powers are real, even though the only “evidence” for it is weak anecdotal nonsense…it fails every time that it is tested under controlled conditions).
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StevieD
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You’re missing my point, it WOULD have been what you describe if only those expecting to witness the miracle had done so. It was a miracle not an hallucination. If there had been a physical explanation it would have been neither.
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Moonstruck888
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I don’t see what was miraculous about it at all. Even supposing it was the handiwork of God, what was the point of it? He created an amusing light show that only a handful of people in one location could see. What was the point of it?
In the context of it’s being miraculous, it simply has no reason behind it. It’s much easier to understand it being a product of a lot of credible people seeing freaky retinal effects after being silly enough to stare at the Sun before the days of SHE legislation.
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StevieD
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OK, Moonstruck, I understood your position you now understand mine - that a physical occurrence would have excluded a miraculous interpretation. As for the rest well, it all depends on whether you call thousands ‘a few’. That was what the OP was trying to put over. We seem to be going round in circles. Anyway, interesting exchanges, thanks.
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AntiTheist
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Maybe we need to get our terms straight.
Here’s how I’m using “hallucination”: let’s say that I see a creature running in the forest at a distance, but to me, from where I’m standing, it looks exactly as if a bush just jumped up and started moving. A whole bunch of my friends also see it, and we all become thoroughly convinced that “We just saw a bush move under its own power!”
We think that we saw something that didn’t actually happen. It was, thus, a hallucination. That’s how I’m using the word in this context. Would “mistake” be a better word?
What I’m saying is that these people at Fatima thought they saw something that didn’t actually happen. By definition, this is a hallucination, regardless of whether they were expecting to see it or not. These people were mistaken, and I don’t think there’s sufficient evidence to say that the cause of their mistake was supernatural.
Now, I’m not up here pounding a drum telling you that I know exactly what caused them to make a mistake, but I am saying that we don’t have enough evidence to say that their mistake was caused by the supernatural. That’s all.
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humble_catholic
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Did they hallucinate that their rain drenched clothing dried up almost instantly? I have been trying to picture a mass of people imagining that rain drenched clothing suddenly driying up. Scientists theorize that the amount of energy needed to dry up their clothing and the ground that quickly should have incinerated them. What protected them from death?
Also the editor and chief of the national atheist newspaper O Seculo was supposed to be a very rational (by atheist terms) person. Why did he report a supernatural event in 2 different testimonies even though he was pressured by the atheist government of portugal (which was very clerical as well as anti religious) that this super natural event occurred? The most reasonable and logical explanation here is that these kids were given a message from God through Mary. I mean why not do as Doctor Antony Flew did and follow the evidence to whereever it may lead you, even if it makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. By this reason even if God came to you in person you still wouldnt believe it was him as no amount of evidence from him would be enough to convince you.
The fact that you even said it could be hindu spirits at least shows that you have some belief in spirituality. This is a good step
Also the editor and chief of the national atheist newspaper O Seculo was supposed to be a very rational (by atheist terms) person. Why did he report a supernatural event in 2 different testimonies even though he was pressured by the atheist government of portugal (which was very clerical as well as anti religious) that this super natural event occurred? The most reasonable and logical explanation here is that these kids were given a message from God through Mary. I mean why not do as Doctor Antony Flew did and follow the evidence to whereever it may lead you, even if it makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. By this reason even if God came to you in person you still wouldnt believe it was him as no amount of evidence from him would be enough to convince you.
The fact that you even said it could be hindu spirits at least shows that you have some belief in spirituality. This is a good step
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AntiTheist
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I have no idea. I don’t think there’s sufficient evidence to claim that these people’s accounts – and how many accounts exactly are we talking about? – can only be explained by the supernatural.
I mentioned that option to demonstrate that even if you think this event had a supernatural cause, there’s no way you can demonstrate that the supernatural beings responsible are the gods that you believe in, as opposed to some other supernatural beings.The fact that you even said it could be hindu spirits at least shows that you have some belief in spirituality. This is a good step
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Moonstruck888
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The fact that the dry clothes claim doesn’t hold water and clearly never occurred saved them from death.
It seems to me that it’s quite possible that your atheist wasn’t quite as atheist as he pretended to be to keep his job. The line between an ecstatic vision and a fanatical frenzy is all too blurred.The fact that you even said it could be hindu spirits at least shows that you have some belief in spirituality. This is a good step
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Moonstruck888
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Yes. I would say that a few thousand people out of the 1.5 billion population of Earth circa 1917 was very few indeed.
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humble_catholic
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There you have it, despite witnesses being there that claimed this, despite the athist editor being there and witnessing the miracle, you still deny it. So your also claiming to speak for the director of the of an atheist newspaper saying that he pertended to be an atheist. So he rediculed believers for years to set them up just to wait for this moment to show his true colors? Arent we starting to reach here? Imagine if he had written that he experienced nothing and that it was a hoax. My bet is that you would have had a different tone Moonstruck.
As I said before, there just is too much evidence for any atheist to make a rational claim that Fatima wasnt a miracle and a supernatural event. Why do you think that conspiracy theorists who think the whole world is against them are at the fringes of academia. If they were mainstream, we would have a deeply paranoid society that would be on the fringe of going crazy.
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j1akey
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Let’s analyze this for a second.There you have it, despite witnesses being there that claimed this, despite the athist editor being there and witnessing the miracle, you still deny it. So your also claiming to speak for the director of the of an atheist newspaper saying that he pertended to be an atheist. So he rediculed believers for years to set them up just to wait for this moment to show his true colors? Arent we starting to reach here? Imagine if he had written that he experienced nothing and that it was a hoax. My bet is that you would have had a different tone Moonstruck.
As I said before, there just is too much evidence for any atheist to make a rational claim that Fatima wasnt a miracle and a supernatural event. Why do you think that conspiracy theorists who think the whole world is against them are at the fringes of academia. If they were mainstream, we would have a deeply paranoid society that would be on the fringe of going crazy.
There is evidence to rationally support the supernatural explanation.
If there was evidence to support anything then we’d have an explanation of what caused the people to see what they did and it wouldn’t be supernatural anymore.
The supernatural by its very defnition is not rational. It’s an oxymoron. Eyewitness testimony is the lowest form of evidence. It goes something like this.
Person 1: Hey I just saw this awesome thing! I can’t explain it!
Person 2: O’Rly? Show me maybe I can tell you what happened.
Person 1: I can’t, it was a one time thing. I have this picture that doesn’t show anything though.
Regardless of how many people saw something strange that they couldn’t explain that doesn’t mean it was a miracle or supernatural. They just don’t know what they saw so they atribute it to God as usual.
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Moonstruck888
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I think you’ve slightly misconstrued what I meant. I think your man was a pragmatist. An atheist when it suited best and a believer when that suited best. I think your man was a vulgar fraud on the make. The same kind of loon who still exists today claiming the Apollo missions were faked, that there are aliens held prisoner in the Nevada desert, that the rapture is coming in 2012…There you have it, despite witnesses being there that claimed this, despite the athist editor being there and witnessing the miracle, you still deny it. So your also claiming to speak for the director of the of an atheist newspaper saying that he pertended to be an atheist. So he rediculed believers for years to set them up just to wait for this moment to show his true colors? Arent we starting to reach here? Imagine if he had written that he experienced nothing and that it was a hoax. My bet is that you would have had a different tone Moonstruck.
There is anedotal evidence from a crowd of scientifically illiterate peasants, and the man who turned this into a media circus was exactly the kind of fringe conspiracy theorist wing nut that you’re talking about… If Fatima had happened in the 1950’s it would have been aliens. If it happened in the 1960’s it would have been the Russians… Because it happened in 1917 it was Angels.
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humble_catholic
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What would I call someone that said that the holy mother talked to them and told them that God would make a great miracle happen for many to see, and then the miracle wouldnt happen? I would call that a hallucination. Now a girl that says that Mary would show them a miracle from God and then the miracle happening, that is good evidence. The peoples clothing drying and cleaning almost instantly in connection with the miracle, That is also a miracle. Adding to that the editor and chief of an atheist, anti religion magazine also testifying to what he saw? Thats more good evidence. Add to that the prediction that a miracle would ocurr on that very spot?
Maybe thats not enough coincidences to tell u that something supernatural happened but it is for many unbiased people. Like I said before , if each part of the event is studied seperately im sure anyone can come up with a few natural explanations, but studied as a whole its impossible to do it rationally. How can you not take the little girls word, especially since she predicted a miracle would happen at that same exact spot on that same exact day.
and why wouldnt the supernatural be rational or logical ? Just because we arent at gods level to understand it? Those of you who swear by science’s infallibility are swearing by a philosophy that has never been proven. Just as scientists will never prove that true love is basically chemicals and neurons firing .
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bingbang
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lol…this is so ridiculous. First of all many people there didn’t see the sun move or dance. Secondly different people saw different things. Thirdly people were STARING AT THE SUN! If you don’t think you are going to see some funny things if you stare at the sun, you should go outside and try it.Theist: 40,000 people witnessed a miracle. Its documented, so you can look it up. No reasonable person would entertain doubt if the object of their experience was something other than that which implied Gods existence. They would accept it. So why not accept this?
Honest Atheist: I don’t have to look it up. Supernatural events cannot be real.
Theist: Why not?
Honest Atheist: Because i don’t want them to be real!.
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bingbang
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From wikipedia:
Joe Nickell notes “Not surprisingly, perhaps, Sun Miracles have been reported at other Marian sites—at Lubbock, Texas, in 1989; Mother Cabrini Shrine near Denver, Colorado, in 1992; Conyers, Georgia, in the early to mid-1990s”[23]
Nickell adds that at Conyers whilst pilgrims were witnessing a Sun Miracle [24] “the Georgia Skeptics group set up a telescope outfitted with a vision-protecting Mylar solar filter” and that “more than two hundred people had viewed the sun through one of the solar filters and not a single person saw anything unusual” [23]
Professor Auguste Meessen of the Institute of Physics, Catholic University of Leuven, has stated that the reported observations were optical effects caused by prolonged staring at the sun. Meessen contends that retinal after-images produced after brief periods of sun gazing are a likely cause of the observed dancing effects. Similarly Meessen states that the colour changes witnessed were most likely caused by the bleaching of photosensitive retinal cells.[25] Meessen observes that Sun Miracles have been witnessed in many places where religiously charged pilgrims have been encouraged to stare at the sun. He cites the apparitions at Heroldsbach, Germany (1949) as an example, where exactly the same optical effects as at Fatima were witnessed by more than 10,000 people.[25] Meessen also cites a British Journal of Ophthalmology article that discusses some modern examples of Sun Miracles[26]
Nickell also suggests that the dancing effects witnessed at Fatima may have been due to optical effects resulting from temporary retinal distortion caused by staring at such an intense light.[23]
Despite these assertions, not all witnesses reported seeing the sun “dance”. Some people only saw the radiant colors. Others, including some believers, saw nothing at all.[28][29] No scientific accounts exist of any unusual solar or astronomic activity during the time the sun was reported to have “danced”, and there are no witness reports of any unusual solar phenomenon further than 64 kilometres (40 mi) out from Cova da Iria.[30]
These are the reasons why skeptics disbelieve. Not because “they don’t want to believe”
Joe Nickell notes “Not surprisingly, perhaps, Sun Miracles have been reported at other Marian sites—at Lubbock, Texas, in 1989; Mother Cabrini Shrine near Denver, Colorado, in 1992; Conyers, Georgia, in the early to mid-1990s”[23]
Nickell adds that at Conyers whilst pilgrims were witnessing a Sun Miracle [24] “the Georgia Skeptics group set up a telescope outfitted with a vision-protecting Mylar solar filter” and that “more than two hundred people had viewed the sun through one of the solar filters and not a single person saw anything unusual” [23]
Professor Auguste Meessen of the Institute of Physics, Catholic University of Leuven, has stated that the reported observations were optical effects caused by prolonged staring at the sun. Meessen contends that retinal after-images produced after brief periods of sun gazing are a likely cause of the observed dancing effects. Similarly Meessen states that the colour changes witnessed were most likely caused by the bleaching of photosensitive retinal cells.[25] Meessen observes that Sun Miracles have been witnessed in many places where religiously charged pilgrims have been encouraged to stare at the sun. He cites the apparitions at Heroldsbach, Germany (1949) as an example, where exactly the same optical effects as at Fatima were witnessed by more than 10,000 people.[25] Meessen also cites a British Journal of Ophthalmology article that discusses some modern examples of Sun Miracles[26]
Nickell also suggests that the dancing effects witnessed at Fatima may have been due to optical effects resulting from temporary retinal distortion caused by staring at such an intense light.[23]
Despite these assertions, not all witnesses reported seeing the sun “dance”. Some people only saw the radiant colors. Others, including some believers, saw nothing at all.[28][29] No scientific accounts exist of any unusual solar or astronomic activity during the time the sun was reported to have “danced”, and there are no witness reports of any unusual solar phenomenon further than 64 kilometres (40 mi) out from Cova da Iria.[30]
These are the reasons why skeptics disbelieve. Not because “they don’t want to believe
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stenlis
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OK, here’s what the skeptics say:
Everything went fine and well on the fateful day, October 13 1917, when, as usual, the Lady revealed herself only to the children and, as usual, Lucia exclaimed to learn ‘secrets’ from her that she cannot reveal right now when suddenly she exclaimed: “The Sun!”. And people witnessed the aforementioned phenomenon.
What’s to say about that? Well - there’s nothing really unusual about this and I’m inclined to believe that what I described here really happened.
I just wouldn’t call it a miracle.
There was another prophecy - that the sundance would mark the end of the war but that if people did not change their sinful ways, a much more terrible war would come. Curiously, this prophecy is not found in Lucias memoirs written in 1920’s but rather in her memoirs written in 1940’s.
So why do people believe in these miracles and prophecies? Same reason why people believe any other crazy stuff - because they want to. Because it’s reassuring and bacause it confirms what they believe to begin with.
- The phenomenon
Let’s say that people at Fatima really did see some uncommon appearance of the sun. Why nobody else in the world saw it at the same time? I mean - there is only one sun that everybody sees - if god made the sun dance it should be noticeable to everyone. The fact that only people at Fatima saw it indicates that there was nothing extraordinary about the sun that day but rather about the sky over Fatima. Did they perhaps see something akin to a Sundog? - The apparitions
There is of course the matter of the apparition of Mary to three children, Lucia Santos and her two, younger cousins. Lucia has been talking about seeing angels and Mary for some time before the sun dance phenomenon. At first alone, but later her two younger cousins said they saw them with her. Curiously, when the younger children were asked what the apparition of Mary said they claimed they didn’t remember and that Lucia is the one who knows everything.
Everything went fine and well on the fateful day, October 13 1917, when, as usual, the Lady revealed herself only to the children and, as usual, Lucia exclaimed to learn ‘secrets’ from her that she cannot reveal right now when suddenly she exclaimed: “The Sun!”. And people witnessed the aforementioned phenomenon.
What’s to say about that? Well - there’s nothing really unusual about this and I’m inclined to believe that what I described here really happened.
I just wouldn’t call it a miracle.
- The prophecies
There was another prophecy - that the sundance would mark the end of the war but that if people did not change their sinful ways, a much more terrible war would come. Curiously, this prophecy is not found in Lucias memoirs written in 1920’s but rather in her memoirs written in 1940’s.
So why do people believe in these miracles and prophecies? Same reason why people believe any other crazy stuff - because they want to. Because it’s reassuring and bacause it confirms what they believe to begin with.
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bingbang
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