The Phenomenon of Miracles

The discussion of the evidence for the existence of “some” God can go on indefinitely, and we will always be talking about a mere generic concept, not about God itself. However, proof of this God (the Christian one, at least) can be obtained by the scientific study of his action in the world, especially by the critical history of miracles and prophecies. The proof of the existence of the true God is a scientific-experimental problem, not a problem of mere logic.

At every moment we see new academic discussions about “the existence of God”, which are increasingly sophisticated and meticulous. But not one is seen about miracles and prophecies. Why such an eagerness to prove in abstract the existence of Someone who could more easily be known and proven by his concrete actions in the real world? Is it not because the academic public wants only the “God of philosophers” instead of the God of Abraham?

The miracle of Fatima for instance, is the central event of 20th century history. The miracle of Fatima is fundamental to contemporary political science because, as it speaks of the prediction of war, it is a data of analysis. It cannot be dismissed as a subjective belief. There is not one miracle of Fatima, but an incredible succession of miracles.

Two things are essential for you guys to understand why Catholics are Catholics:

  1. Study the life of Father Pio.
  2. Watch the videos of dr. Ricardo Castañon on the miracles of the Eucharist.

Watch Dr. Ricardo Castañon’s videos a thousand times, see Father Pio’s life film a thousand times, read a thousand times what happened in Fatima. This is better than studying theology.

Hosts bleeding from the heart of Christ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHOPfWyF5z8

Father Pior healing an blind girl with no pupils: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp9TgyjlnS0

Fatima’s documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwvwTCVIJTw

I really have always found it curious — to say the least — that so many people created opinions about Christianity without ever having the curiosity to ascertain the essential element of this religion: miracles. In other religions the miraculous events may only be posterior additions which are given a validating value, but Christianity begins with a miracle, the virgin birth of Christ, culminates in another miracle, the resurrection, and continues from miracle to miracle today. When we speak of “Christian revelation”, what is meant correctly by this is not the text of the Gospel, but the facts it reports: life, passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, a sequence of miracles. Sto. Thomas teaches that we speak through words, but God speaks through words and facts. The facts of the Gospel revealed to the world what the text later recorded. You may not believe any of these facts, but you cannot deny that they, and not its later narrative, much less the conclusions that theologians, popes and councils have been drawing from them over the centuries, constitute the essence of Christian revelation. Therefore, there is no way to understand anything about Christianity without paying attention to miracles, on which the whole meaning of doctrine depends. You have no way of confirming or denying the truth of evangelical miracles, but Jesus promised that He would continue to work miracles through the centuries, and, strictly speaking, there are no facts of any other kind in the world that exist in such large numbers and that is so well documented, especially today. The lack of interest in getting to know them, on the part of people who nevertheless express their opinions about Christianity, reveals that these people prefer to know only the edges of the subject of which they speak, for fear of getting too close to the center and being singed.

Many, before having examined just one of these facts, already cling to the idea that one day they will all have a “scientific explanation” — it is understood: materialistic — and it will be proven that they were not miracles at all. Although this expectation has never been fulfilled in relation to any miracle confirmed by the Church, and although the promise of the devastating explanation has repeatedly postponed its fulfillment again and again in each specific case (recently it failed again to “explain” the Holy Shroud of Turin), the fact is that these people continue to trust the promise as if it were a test already carried out, complete and unanswerable. There can be nothing more irrational than this act of faith that takes as a proof a promise of proof and is renewed with every new failed attempt to carry it out. However, the people who practice it believe that, in doing this, they are tremendously scientific.

If I had any money, I would pay the luminaries of materialism to study, for as long as they wanted, the miracles of Father Pio, who knew in advance of the sins of others and events in distant lands, (for example he knew whether the son of an anguished mother had been killed in the war) and who healed a blind girl who had no pupils, or those reported by dr. Ricardo Castañon in his videos, who reports the event of a bleeding wafer and who, after taking it for examination by one of the best doctors in the United States, (who is an atheist, and does not know the origin of the sample) he strongly states that it belonged to a patient who died in pain and agony, that in his last moments of life he had difficulty breathing, and that this blood came from the heart, and then give us a “scientific explanation” of each one.

The testimonies and documents reporting the experience of God are countless, way greater than the so called scientific experiments, only see those who do not want to. Whoever is dishonest chooses to cover their eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t cancel the consequences of having ignored reality.

I’m guessing most realize what you are suggesting is a fool’s errand.

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That much is true. It’s a religion founded on legend and hearsay about alleged magical events.

Have you ever considered the connection between miracles and the emergence of vast miracle exploitation industries in places like Lourdes?

To test the reality of miracles, just follow the trail of money.

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Sounds like the scams perpetrated by psychics. Fortune telling/prophecy is an ancient grift.

I wonder why these miracle workers rely on the same types of mundane tricks that con artists and magicians use?

Oh FUCK, ANOTHER BULLSHIT WALL OF TEXT.
Do you even know how to stay on a single topic at a time? Is that really so hard to do?

FIRST TOPIC (AKA Bullshit inane assertion No. 1)

As is there is something that we can call God that has a “self.” What objective evidence do you have for this idiotic assertion?

SECOND TOPIC (AKA: Another dipwad assertion without foundation that needs to be evidenced.) “Prophecy and miracles are God’s actions in this world.” Horseshit!
Postdiction and Shoehorning explain all Biblical prophecies as they are vague and attested to after the fact. Not a single prophecy can stand against critical inquiry. NONE. And the arguments for Miracles are even worse… A leap to got of the Gaps in the very best cases… “We don’t know, so it must be God.” The argument from personal incredulity. Total and complete bullshit!

OH FUCK — NOT FUCKING FATIMA AGAIN!
DIPSHIT TOPIC NUMBER FOUR (Fatima was a miracle.) Go fucking read a book. The sun does not move about in the sky without killing us all,. Evaporation happens. Not everyone in the crowd agreed. No one measured anything. Most stories are a part of Catholic Legend and not fact. Lucia’s fantasy prone personality and need for attention obviously has nothing to do with anything. All accounts agree that she was the only one of the three seers to interact with both her vision and with the crowd, carrying on conversations with both while her two cousins stood by silently. NO ONE AGREED: “Sun as spinning round like a wheel, others saw it changing colour while yet others reported seeing it dance and zig-zag across the sky and some saw the Sun advancing towards Earth, radiating heat as it did so. Some even reported seeing white flower petals falling to Earth to disappear as they hit the ground. Still others reported seeing nothing unusual. None of this was witnessed anywhere else in Europe.”
It’s a waste of time. We have done this over and over. Start another thread and try to fucking stay on one topic at a time.

FIFTH TOPIC (MOVING ON — OH FUCK Father Pio)
SIXTH TOPIC (The Eucharist— Fuck me with a rolling pin!)

CAN YOU SPELL I N D O C T R I N A T I O N and belief in W O O W O O. You are paying way too much attention to bedtime stories. Assertion piled upon assertion all based on unfounded assertions, DOES NOT AN ARGUMENT MAKE!

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It isn’t.

There’s so many miracles that happened and still happening in the world ,
Miracles that can be seen in this present day and age. Behold!
The incorruptible bodies of saints.

And there are literally thousands of peer reviewed scientific researches about God, Jesus Christ, miracles, spirituality healing, spirituality care, etc .
Peer reviewed scientific research about Jesus and His miracles.

Death of Jesus Christ: On the physical death of Jesus Christ - PubMed

Prayer and spiritual healing: Meditation, Prayer and Spiritual Healing: The Evidence - PMC

Near death experience: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)07100-8/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR1qFr66y_WxZKEaLeAfUhLzF0291pclthpq39VKEEDq135k8BYxvsvE_IU

Research about the Lourdes miracles: The Lourdes Medical Cures Revisited - PMC

Yes Miracles!!! I can make parts of my body grow. Then I start screaming “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God,” and then I soil myself. It’s a fucking miracle.

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Umm, I don’t mean to be unkind, but do you not grasp the meaning of the word ‘atheism’?

Atheists do not believe in gods. Take a wild guess at how most atheists here think about miracles. IE not believing in gods also infers a non belief in anything such is claimed to do an entity does.That includes miracles.

I was reared devout Irish Catholic. That means I learned about miracles from the age of five. Of course I simply accepted the claims as true because children will accept anything an adult tells them. Today, not so much. This because I have never, ever seen empirical evidence for a miracle. In brief, I’m unable to believe in miracles due to a lack of evidence.

Absolutely! There is a great deal of evidence about god, the angels, saints and miracles. What there is not is empirical evidence. The simplest explanation for claims of miracles is confirmation bias.IE people see what they want to see.

Seeing miracles is also a text book example of argument from ignorance;’ IE Wow! Look at THAT! A bleeding statue! I lack the knowledge, imagination, or wit to think of anything else, therefore god/aliens did it"

You have made some sweeping yet vague claims for claims the existence of miracles. You have the burden of proof. It’s not up to us to disprove anything. All I ask is that using scientific method, you provide evidence for one miracle, just one. That will be a first and you will probably win a Nobel prize.

@campello
“Behold!
The incorruptible bodies of saints.”

Well just by way of taking a spanner and unbolting one of your fetishes …

you might try this…

"—many of the “incorruptible” bodies have been fitted with wax masks and hand coverings to hide the fact that decomposition has indeed been occurring. A pilgrim to Lourdes to see St. Bernadette, for example, may as well be visiting a wax museum.

If the body of an “incorruptible saint” was truly miraculously incorruptible, it would not need to be kept in an airtight and climate-controlled case."

Now you see… that last line…

“If the body of an “incorruptible saint” was truly miraculously incorruptible, it would not need to be kept in an airtight and climate-controlled case.”

link…

Have heard about incorruptible saints many times. Not all have been of Christians. A famous one is the body of Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self Realisation Fellowship of America. There is even a sworn statement by the funeral home which had the body that there was no decay after a whole month. (I think that’s called ‘embalming’) ,

Have never actually seen even a photo of one say naked incorruptible outside of its glass case, or even a statement from a reputable forensic scientist who has examined the body.

I’m left with the question ‘Cui bono?’ (who benefits?) The possessors of the body gain a lot of money from pilgrims. In the absence of scientific evidence one can only conclude those making the claims either bare faced liars or deluded, victims of conformation bias.

If those in possession of a holy incorruptible were genuine, I reckon they would insist having the body properly examined and the results published.

I can’t help but think of the reaction of the Church after the Shroud of Turin was shown to be a medieval forgery. The church was not happy. Believers simply ignored the scientific examination, or declared it to be false and therefore unreliable

Perhaps the most famous place for miracles is Lourdes. In 1868 an adolescent peasant girl called Bernadette Soubirous claimed to have visions of a lady. The lady was soon identified as the Virgin Mary and Lourdes has been a major place of pilgrimage for over 160 years. People go seeking cures for all kinds of things. The catholic church has recognised 65 cures as miracles. Not one involved the regrowth of a missing body part.

Tens of millions of people have visited Lourdes. The notion such a small number of miracles is hardly in keeping with the attributes of Mary, Mother of God and Queen of heaven. To be blunt, it’s risible at best, ineffably cruel at worst.

Medical fact: The rate of spontaneous, permanent remission of disease across the board is 1:30,000. A far higher proportion than the claimed miracle cures.

Claims of miraculous cures is a text book example of argument from ignorance. IE “I lack lack the wit to think of anything else, therefore god did it”

OR a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (after this therefore because if this) often found among believers. EG… My son had cancer. I prayed to the virgin Mary to intercede with god on my son’s behalf. Cancer went away,therefore my prayers worked.

The catholic church still uses that fallacy to prove a person is a saint. IE there must be two miracles which can be attributed to a specific saint’s intercession with god. Two recent example of such saints are Mother Mary McKillop (Australia’s first saint) and Teresa of Calcutta. Saint Teresa once said the suffering of the poor was beautiful. A truly disgusting harridan.

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9()))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Explanation: for those of you who may not know. By definition, a saint is simply a person in heaven. Hence when the catholic church canonises , (declares a person to be a saint) it is stating, without equivocation; we know this person is in heaven with god. As a child I though that was fantastic, I was very impressed… Today I find it breathtakingly arrogant. It would be hilarious if millions of people did not believe it implicitly and all that implies…

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Recalling past life memories in a religious context during CPR was another experience in Iranian CPR survivors. This finding is consistent with similar studies.[26],[27] Many patients with NDEs have claimed to have achieved a more complete understanding of their religious or spiritual insights and its profound impact on their lives.[28] The use of religious and spiritual beliefs is one of the most important strategies for adapting to difficult situations.[29]

https://www.ijnmrjournal.net/article.asp?issn=1735-9066;year=2020;volume=25;issue=5;spage=414;epage=418;aulast=Khoshab

The common feature among those who had out-of-body experiences was a rise in carbon dioxide levels in their blood above a certain threshold ( 5.7 kPa). None of the other chemical measures of the patients’ blood had a significant bearing on who had experienced such a spiritual event.

I saw the incorruptible body of an ancient Egyptian in the British Museum 60 years ago. They used to unwrap them and put them on display back then.

I saw the incorruptible body of a Japanese Buddhist monk in a temple near Tokyo once. I was told that he’d gradually reduced his food and water intake until he died totally desiccated. I don’t know if was true though. He looked like he was carved out of wood. But self-mummification would be quite an achievement.

You can also see the incorruptible bodies of Lenin and Mao, which is ironic because they were pretty damn corruptible when they were alive.

But really what’s the big deal about preserved corpses? The bodies and the microbes that cause them to decay are both creations of god, right? Aren’t death, decay, and the recycling of bodies through the food chain all part of god’s great plan? Messing around with corpses is a sure sign of a death cult.

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Have seen Mao’s alleged body at his mausoleum in Tiananmen Square. Wasn’t long after I’d been to Madame Tussaud’s in London. Mao in his glass coffin looked like one off the specimens at M Tussaud’s, but perhaps a bit less realistic.

Quite. I have always avoided looking at the body of a deceased person I knew. I choose to keep the memories I have.

As for me. Well, I’d like to be scattered from a small plane over Parliament House Canberra, while it is sitting. Don’t want to be cremated though-------

“Peer reviewed” means experts checking the findings of other experts. It doesn’t mean charlatans vouching for other charlatans.

What “peer reviewed scientific research” can possibly exist about a man who left no writings of his own, who is not mentioned in any contemporary writings, and who probably didn’t even exist?

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There are not only miracles involving saints but of atheists too.
Behold! The incorruptible body of Jeremy Bentham (1784-1832), famed atheist and founder of modern Utilitarianism.

There are countless impeccable, thoroughly reliable and unquestionable peer reviewed testimonies and cross-my-hearts confirming without hint of doubt that this is the true unblemished, uncorrupted temporal remains of Bentham, revered philosopher, jurist, social reformer and cursed blashphemer, who passed away in 1832.
Bentham provided in his will for the preservation of his corpse fully clothed and hatted and seated on a chair with the purpose of allowing him to attend council meetings of the University College London even after death, in recognition of his being that council’s recognised “spiritual founder”.

When not overseeing council meetings Bentham can be found on public display in the Student Centre where he can greet new students arriving on their first day. There are claims and signed affidatives that Bentham has been witnessed winking at female students who have signed up for philosophy courses. A council enquiry is still examining the alleged complaints of misconduct.

Yeah, that’s right, he’s stuffed. IE has received the attentions of a competent taxidermist

Behold! The first saint on that list decayed long ago. So much so that to continue to display her corpse, they had to replace her face and hands with wax. So much for a miracle!

You aren’t the first Catholic to come here and try to push this incorruptible non-sense on us; or even the second. Maybe you should ask yourself how you were duped by such a ludicrous tale.

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Please cite the Shroud of Turin next, and then you might expand on the miracle expansion of the Christian faith across the ancient world. God turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt was a good one, and how about Joanna who managed to live in the belly of a fish? So many great miracles to shove into that empty space between your ears, and when you finish with all the Christian bullshit you can start of the Islamic crap and then Hinduism after that. Well, your life is pretty much mapped out for you. Now grab a cookie and go to your room. Monkey has important things to do/

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A phenomenon is a natural occurrence, a miracle is a claim that the natural order was suspended to allow for inexplicable supernatural magic to occur.

Do you even know what a fucking dictionary is?

Just fucking one will do, you tediously dishonest bore. You are literally a bare faced liar.

While you’re at it please explain specifically how a miracle evidences a deity?

Then go away and learn what an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy is.

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