The Virgin Of Fatima

[BMandeville]

So i was wondering if any ex-c's know anything about this and whether its been proved wrong?

 

I haven't read through the entire thread yet, but I wanted to make this point in regard to the original post: it is not the skeptic's prerogative to disprove an extraordinary claim. If someone claims a supernatural event occurred, especially with the implication that it proves the veracity of other supernatural claims and you should therefore model your life around the religion that claims ownership of this specific event, the onus of proof is on the claimant, not you.

 

So The Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children and and then, when the moment was right, made the Sun dance for a large crowd? Ask the storyteller to prove it. If they can't, we have no choice but to think of it as a mere folk tale, or at best, a story that has yet to be confirmed. It is not my job to disprove every absurd claim I hear, otherwise I'd never get anything done. Do you go about your day agonizing over the existence of Santa Claus because you can't definitively prove he doesn't exist? To repeat a somewhat overused phrase, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

 

Let's say for argument's sake that this event did indeed happen as advertised; so what? What exactly does that prove? That Christianity is true? That God exists? If these are such profound and obvious existential truths, why should they require such an event to bolster their claims? Shouldn't they be able to stand on their own merits? It would be one thing if the claimant were just relaying the story without an underlying evangelical or proselytizing agenda, but have you noticed that all the people who believe in the Miracle at Fatima are Roman Catholic, and if they tell the story to a non-believer, it is always with the intent of bolstering their claim that Catholicism is true? When someone resorts to outlandish tales of supernatural events (more commonly known as "miracles") to persuade you to accept a larger overall doctrine or creed, it should be cause for suspicion. Further, it shows the weakness of their beliefs, implying that there is no proof of them and that they must rely on appealing, supernatural stories to lend credence to their doctrine. As I said earlier, if God is real, he should require no stories to prove his existence; it would be sufficiently self-evident apart from any stories of miracles that are only barely relevant to the question.

[Kris]

Suzie--I went through a phase almost exactly like yours a few months ago. I have been in an ongoing state of shedding my faith and as a result, it seems like I have had to go through a long process of working through things in religion that concern me. Of course, I had to get through the "miracle" phase because this is a big one in religion-- supernatural proof that God is really out there! or not!! I also got freaked out by the Miracle of Fatima, and had to do some research in order to clear my mind a bit.

 

The first thing to really think about is whether or not Mary would be a credible apparition-- I mean if God was really trying to get some points across, why send her? And why send her to three little kids? Why not do something really awesome like just send Jesus back, or have a big face appear in the sky to everyone? The worship of Mary is very much a catholic thing, and as such, this "miracle" happened in a very catholic place during a time of great upheaval. If you read articles on the three children, particularily Lucia, she seems to be very obsessed with catholic rituals, and was also a fairly intelligent child. I think that alot of this miracle started out as a childhood fabrication, but as she and her cousins began to get attention, things became embellished. I also think that the church also had a great influence on how these stories spread, etc. You know, it was good for business!!

 

I think that the miracle of the sun was a combination of things-- lots of already religious people looking for something to validate their faith, a call against communism, an attempt to get a city or town on the map religiously, or even to make money, etc. So, it is likely that a large amount of people showed up on the day that these three little kids said that there would be a miracle, who were expecting something to happen. Portugal was controlled by a government that sought to destroy the influence of the Catholic Church-- but Fatima came along and toppled this regime. There were probably a lot of church leaders who used these three children and their stories to their advantage. A bonafide miracle would be just the thing to get the church back on top! And just like you, when you looked directly into the sun, a number of people probably thought that they saw something-- they were somewhat preprogramed to begin with! It has been stated that Lucia, the main child of the visions instructed people to look at the sun--perhaps knowing that by having everyone look directly at the sun, it would appear to dance. A lot of the people present were poor, religious villagers, so this was something very exciting and important to them Others may have said they saw something even when they didn't so they wouldn't look faithless, and others still admitted that they did not see anything at all!! I even think that some people, such as those that wrote newspaper articles could have been paid to report things, perhaps by the catholic church-- I really can't put that past consideration. Needless to say, nobody reported seeing the Virgin Mary other than the three same kids. The Catholic church ordained this incident as a miracle-- why wouldn't they? But, since nobody else in surrounding areas, nor astronomers, saw anything out of the ordinary-- it is likely just an exaggerated story that became a Catholic legend.

 

On a side note, there have been subsequent sun miracles-- one of which is Medjugorje-- where a number of people have been blinded or permanently damaged by looking into the sun.

 

Now, the other thing to think about was the actual visions that these three children reportedly saw. Two of the children died due to a flu epidemic in 1918-1919, so that left only one seer-- Lucia-- to tell the stories about what the Virgin showed them. Apparently, these visions were not revealed until many years after they were allegedly witnessed-- not sure why!! Lucia was asked by the Bishop of Leira to write them down in 1941!!! There were three main visions (although the Virgin supposedly visited them a number of times along with them viewing other spritual apparations)-- the first of which was a lovely tour of Hell--now, any child who has been indocrinated in church all of their lives could probably come up with some sort of vision of what Hell might be like, so it is not outside of the realm of possibility that this was made up. The second vision had to do with the first war ending, and another beginning if people dont stop offending God-- when there is light illuminating the sky by an unknown light, people would know that God was going to punish the world for it's crimes and then goes on to talk about Russia and them either turning to God or not. By all accounts this sounds eerily accurate, until you remember that she revealed this in 1941 after the war had already started! Lucia also reported that an aroura borealis that had been seen in Europe in 1938 was the "unknown light" but again, this was reported after the fact, and was an easily explained scientific event. The third secret was released in 1990 and had to do with bishops and priests being killed and other religious imagry, but nothing earth-shattering.

 

Lucia became a nun and enjoyed all the fervor around her-- I think she liked the fame. However, even her own mother stated that she was a fake who is leading half the world astray, and a Friar that knew her well described her as living in a delirious world of infantile fantasies and suffering from religious hallucinations. She has also been described as someone who was a fabulous storyteller. Her mom was really into religious literature and Lucia loved to parrot these stories.

 

My honest take on this miracle as well as other Catholic miracles are that they are fabricated-- the investigations to validate them are done by the church themselves, and if it serves the church to validate them to keep people in the faith, they do so. Why doesn't Mary appear to you or me-- perhaps to save our souls? Why don't these things happen in Central Park in New York City where a bunch of "rational" people could testify that they saw something extrordinary? Why don't things like this happen to Richard Dawkins?

 

 

You had mentioned that you prayed to God to show you a miracle-- and then this miracle was mentioned to you. I think you can chalk this up to coincidence-- you have been obsessing over religion, so you are hyper-sensitive. When you hear something like this, it makes you wonder if it was a sign-- but can you honestly believe that Mary would show up to three little kids, two of which who only had a year or so more to live to give them some vague prophecies-- and prophecies that really seem to be after the fact, and directly related to Russia for some reason, who still isn't all that religious-- so what profit wre these prophecies?

[hereticzero]

Millions believe in visions of saints, mary, Jesus, and god. Even if 7,000 or 70,000 people claimed to see the vision, many would claim they had done so just because they do not want to feel like they do not have the same burning spirit the next person claims to have-- or, everyone saw it, so it must be true even if I never saw it. The Kabrini shrine in Colorado is a case in point. Many claimed they saw visions there after a woman claimed to see a vision of Mary--the lady was a sensation in the Catholic community until it was reported she suffered from a mental illness and eventually debunked as a fake. The numbers of those who claim to see an apparition of one type or another does not make the event a true event. There are many recorded instances of mass hysteria, most of it involving religious experiences or alien abductions.

 

According to lore, three children were the first to see the vision over a several month period:

From Wikipedia:

Our Lady of Fátima (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora de Fátima, European Portuguese: [ˈnɔsɐ sɨˈɲɔɾɐ dɨ ˈfatimɐ]^[1]) is a famous title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary as she appeared in apparitions reported by three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal. These occurred on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on May 13. The three children were Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto.

This was in the day before Game Boy and PS3 so entertainment was hard to come by in those days and children's imaginations run rampant in any given time in history. Also, children are also known to lie for each other, much like adults. Also, don't forget the witch trials of Salem were also started by accusations made by children and it grew out of those claims into a shameful epic in American history! The church, in the time of the Fatima vision and the witch trials depended upon the testimony of two people or more to claim accusations or visions were true--it's from the biblical traditions of two witnesses, which is why Mormons go on their missions by twos. So, when three children came up with the same story involving the same vision, the church was uncertain what to do but they did toss the kids into prison while they thought it over.

 

Many people claim the vision of Fatima were true because in one supposed 'secret' Mary revealed a war was coming. Europe had already been through WWI and many were becoming religious because of the war-time experiences and were open to suggestion of miraculous events. So when Hitler began his crusade to conquer the world in WWII this was seen as a sign that the vision of Fatima was true.

 

Lucia continued to have her visions off and on throughout her life time until she died at 97, in 2005. I personally doubt the validity of any vision or voice in the clouds that can only happen in one part of the world. If god had a miraculous plan for us, why his he unable to make announcement to everyone at one time? I think Fatima is just one more BS story to bolster feeble beliefs in an unproven god.