Those who "witnessed" Fatimas miracle 18 km away

[Syrimoon]

The comparison of what the church says is history and what secularists say is history is a good place to start, thanks! I could also find some links to share around !

I have another question for you guys; bro wrote me back and didn't really say too much about my points butter more arguments and I'll say this he brings up shit I don't know the answer to yet. He says at Fatima,  people claimed their rain soaked clothes wete suddenly perfectly dry, and so was the ground. Any thoughts on this ?

[Baruch]

The comparison of what the church says is history and what secularists say is history is a good place to start, thanks! I could also find some links to share around !

I have another question for you guys; bro wrote me back and didn't really say too much about my points butter more arguments and I'll say this he brings up shit I don't know the answer to yet. He says at Fatima,  people claimed their rain soaked clothes wete suddenly perfectly dry, and so was the ground. Any thoughts on this ?

I have experienced light rain on a dry sunny day ... and the rain dries very quickly.

How about my Jewish friend, at the Western Wall ... a downpour suddenly happens, just when he makes a minyan/quorum of those praying, and the downpour comes from a sunny sky?  Happened about 10 years ago.  Synchronicity?  Rain hit by crosswind to fall near but not under a rain cloud?

Gathering a quantity of Internet/YouTubes that are mutually contradictory?  How to sort them out, except by prior bias?  Or you have a few years on your hands.

How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman ... is another good read.  He has a couple hour long lectures on YouTube on this content.

[SGOS]

How do you debate an idiot?  I don't think you can.

[SGOS]

The bigger question is why would you want to?

[Syrimoon]

The bigger question is why would you want to?

I honestly don't, muc h, but the dynamic in my family is sticky at best, a d engaging keeps him from throwing fits which keeps everyone else calmer. It's honestly a toxic shit show, idk. I'm trying to get something out of it by sharpening up my reasoning skills at least

[Mike Cl]

I honestly don't, muc h, but the dynamic in my family is sticky at best, a d engaging keeps him from throwing fits which keeps everyone else calmer. It's honestly a toxic shit show, idk. I'm trying to get something out of it by sharpening up my reasoning skills at least

Good for you.  I just googled 'Fatima skeptic' and several pages of sites came up.  Google and bookmark--and have fun.  You will find tons of ammo to shoot at your brother.

[Syrimoon]

Ok y'all. Usually when I don't understand something religious or can't explain something religious there's at least arguments that look decent on the outside butt

I don't understand how anyone takes the secrets of Fatima seriously? I was down a rabbit hole reading people's theories and I always thought the secrets were at least, you know,  prophesies. How can they take them seriously when they weren't even written down until years after the events they supposedly predicted?

Am I missing something here? They're so vague i...i expected more. 

[SGOS]

Ok y'all. Usually when I don't understand something religious or can't explain something religious there's at least arguments that look decent on the outside butt

I don't understand how anyone takes the secrets of Fatima seriously? I was down a rabbit hole reading people's theories and I always thought the secrets were at least, you know,  prophesies. How can they take them seriously when they weren't even written down until years after the events they supposedly predicted?

Am I missing something here? They're so vague i...i expected more. 

You're just approaching the thing logically.  The only thing you are missing is the supposed bliss that comes with ignorance, but that bliss is false too.  Sure it feels good to believe you have found the absolute truths offered by religion.  I believe there are absolute truths, but no human is capable of knowing anything absolutely.  The cornerstone of science is admitting there are no absolutes.  Only religion offers them, with nary a theologian has done one minute of field work.  The absolutes are just manufactured and presented in dogma (Fatima).

The idea of field work in the Catholic Miracle Committee is to go out and cherry pick a bunch of testimony from eye witnesses, and then claim it's a miracle.  They don't test the idea.  They simply think it, and then it's "Holy mama, praise Jesus."

[Syrimoon]

You're just approaching the thing logically.  The only thing you are missing is the supposed bliss that comes with ignorance, but that bliss is false too.  Sure it feels good to believe you have found the absolute truths offered by religion.  I believe there are absolute truths, but no human is capable of knowing anything absolutely.  The cornerstone of science is admitting there are no absolutes.  Only religion offers them, with nary a theologian has done one minute of field work.  The absolutes are just manufactured and presented in dogma (Fatima).

The idea of field work in the Catholic Miracle Committee is to go out and cherry pick a bunch of testimony from eye witnesses, and then claim it's a miracle.  They don't test the idea.  They simply think it, and then it's "Holy mama, praise Jesus."

You know even as a devout Catholic I was always suspicious of any miracle. I believed in them in the abstract but when presented with one I was always like, ok Yes but

(Maybe I'm just good at being contrary though because if my mental health isn't good at the time I look at skeptics debunking and say yes but)

I'm jist...im looking at these arguments and it's a mess. People talk a lot about the fact that she said a great war would break out under pius xi, but ww2 started officially in Europe 9 months after pius died. So Obama you what's most likely,

She for the date wrong in retrospect, writing it years after ww2 started

She had a different contemporary idea of tensions brewing through the 30s

She learned at some point that the war started earlier in Asia

Ghost mom told her


I mean. I have an obsessive compulsive mental illness and anxiety, I'm bot the most educated person, k don't know  what Lucias life was like when she was cloistered  but I've heard her memory wasn't great and I mean. It just. Makes more sense that she lied about having a vision years ago and for a date wrong

[Mike Cl]

Ok y'all. Usually when I don't understand something religious or can't explain something religious there's at least arguments that look decent on the outside butt

I don't understand how anyone takes the secrets of Fatima seriously? I was down a rabbit hole reading people's theories and I always thought the secrets were at least, you know,  prophesies. How can they take them seriously when they weren't even written down until years after the events they supposedly predicted?

Am I missing something here? They're so vague i...i expected more.

Understand that all religions requires one to not think, but believe.  Belief does not require thinking nor facts.  Belief, buffed out, is called faith.  And the deeper the ignorance one proclaims, the better for blind faith is supposed to be the hallmark of the best religious people.  So, religion by it's very nature, discourage people to think or to search for facts; simply accept what the religious leaders tell you and don't think about it.  You are not missing anything but simply seeing the religious for what they are; the willfully ignorant and they regard that ignorance as a badge of honor. 

[Syrimoon]

Understand that all religions requires one to not think, but believe.  Belief does not require thinking nor facts.  Belief, buffed out, is called faith.  And the deeper the ignorance one proclaims, the better for blind faith is supposed to be the hallmark of the best religious people.  So, religion by it's very nature, discourage people to think or to search for facts; simply accept what the religious leaders tell you and don't think about it.  You are not missing anything but simply seeing the religious for what they are; the willfully ignorant and they regard that ignorance as a badge of honor.

You're absolutely right, it just. Damn. Growing up Catholic we wore our knowledge like a badge of honor, and yes, the church is perhaps a little better than some others about accepting evolution and contributing to the sciences but it still hinges on supporting the faith. I guess I give too much benefit of the doubt to people. I see someone arguing about something like the Fatima secrets and how it totes does come from Mary, and I assume they come from a place of true knowledge seeking. It's the same as when I see books about the evidence for the historical "accuracy" of the bible. These are smart people, I think, who are honestly seeking the truth no matter where it leads. I'm starting to realize that's really not the case

[Baruch]

Ok y'all. Usually when I don't understand something religious or can't explain something religious there's at least arguments that look decent on the outside butt

I don't understand how anyone takes the secrets of Fatima seriously? I was down a rabbit hole reading people's theories and I always thought the secrets were at least, you know,  prophesies. How can they take them seriously when they weren't even written down until years after the events they supposedly predicted?

Am I missing something here? They're so vague i...i expected more.

When things are first written down years later ... the memory confabulates both multiple experienced events in reality, but also adds in experienced events from dreams.  This is a psychology problem, not a theology problem.  For Catholicism, officially recognized miracles are political events, not theological, not psychological.  The RNC is the largest, oldest bureaucracy on Earth.  It has been pure politics since Constantine.

Fictional Jesus pointed out, that the flowers of the field are miracles.  I agree.  You and your brother are both heretics.  Just not in the same faction now.  Nothing wrong with that.  Jesus was a Jewish heretic.  Belief is a funny thing.  Jesus said that even if a man rose from the dead, the people would not believe.  I don't think historically, that anyone has risen from the dead.  Jesus was being rhetorical, and not prophetic.

Most people can't think in metaphysical terms, only in physical terms.  Thinking in physical terms is good, it gets you to the grocery store.  But it isn't the full human experience.  Even how we think about physical reality is based on rigorous definitions, that come out of metaphysics.  Metaphysics literally means, what comes after physics.  But more than that ;-)

[Mike Cl]

Syrimoon, understand that Baruch is our resident theist.  He believes in the unnatural; I suggest that if something exists it is natural.  There is no unnatural.  Either something 'is' or it does not exist.   Metaphysical is beyond physics.  There is no beyond physics.

[Syrimoon]

I appreciate both of yalls responses. I'll be honest, I don't know where instant yet between theist, atheist, agnostic, etc, I'm mostly concerned with continuing to seperate myself from a Christian only worldview and the dogma that comes with it, so I do appreciate multiple views here, though I'm trying to learn to look at things through a rational and physical worldview

[SGOS]

You know even as a devout Catholic I was always suspicious of any miracle. I believed in them in the abstract but when presented with one I was always like, ok Yes but

That's the way it was for me as a Lutheran, although I don't think we made a big deal about the modern day miracles like an image in pizza crust.  I used to think the idea of miracles was kind of nice, and I happily played along because it was like my little friends and I that used to stand in front of a brick wall and command it to open a door like in Arabian Nights, but of course we didn't really believe it, and I thought that was the way for everyone.  They didn't really believe in miracles along with about half of what the Bible said, but we all played along because the idea was nice.  Later, when I found out that many people actually believed, even claimed to know that God existed, I distanced myself from the whole thing, because I didn't want anyone to get the idea that I actually believe that stuff.