Religious Visions

Great Debates
1

Here in Ireland, like most countries populated by catholics, we have our fair share of reports of moving statues and intercessions and the like.

Several years ago however, one particuar lady decided that The Virgin Mary appeared to her and wanted her to build a house of prayer.

This she did.

the virgin Mary continued to Appear to her, telling her what to do, and who shall be damned for all eternity.

Then Several years ago, the Virgin Mary asked that the lady extend the house of prayer, and build a restaurant.

The lady in question asked for people to donate, and they did, and the restaurant was built.

Mid last year, the Virgin Mary asked that all the windows in the House of Prayer be replaced by Stained glass.

So once again, the lady has asked for donations for Stained Glass windows for the “House of Prayer” on Achill Island.

You can view this lady’s website, and her full story, here

http://web.frontier.net/cgallagher/continue.html

Yes, she has had the Stigmata, allegedly.

This is my debate.

Why would the Virgin Mary, in her infinite wisdom, decide to pick a remote island off the coast of Ireland to want her immortal church and restaurant to be built on?

And why does she only appear to bored housewives and in oily windows and road signs?

Why not at halftime in the Superbowl, where her message might reach alot more people?

What is the evidence that a largescale appearance is less favourable than to very impressionable people?

2

Because it’s harder to fake a sighting at the Superbowl. Yup, these people are just plain lying. It’s just that simple.

3

Because it’s harder to fake a sighting at the Superbowl. Yup, these people are just plain lying. It’s just that simple.

4

I am not sure if these people are lying, but one thing is certain. Mass hallucinations are rare.

5

Rare yes, but they can be quite entertaining. At least as long as you aren’t caught up in one. I’m thinking of the mass panic and many reports of “alien invaders” as a result of the Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds Mercury Theater program in 1938.

6

This was also in Ireland-some people came to pray near a statue of the Virgin Mary. After a time, some became convinced that they saw the statue moving. A few also were convinced that they saw tears issuing from the eyes.

Later, some wag hung a sign on the statue, stating “OUT OF ORDER”!

7

This one drives me nuts:

Athiest: “If God made a big, dramatic appearance somewhere, I’d believe.”
Catholic: “Fatima, 1917”
Athiest: “Never happened.”

:rolleyes:

Seriously, though, I can’t speak for God, but I suspect two reasons why he doesn’t do mass miracles that often:

  1. Disbelief results anyway. This has been a problem since time immemorial. Assuming the Gospels to be true for the moment, people rejected and tried to kill Christ despite his regular performance of miracles over a three-year period. He got accused of being anything from a trickster to a heretic.
    And gee whiz, there have been a kajillion miracles reported over the last 2 millenia. (How many would be considered “authentic,” I can’t tell you. The best I can offer you is to look at some Saints’ canonizations and the miracles that were ascribed to them. I believe the RCC has only declared about a dozen Virgin Mary appearances to be authentic, has taken no position on many, and debunked a lot of them.) Point is, given that the default position of many people on miracles is “fake,” why bother?

  2. Religious exploitation. The essential purpose of a miracle is to point people back towards God. This isn’t just intended to show God off to people, but to work a genuine change in their lives for the moral better. (I.e., Judas had God right in front of him, and we see how well that worked for him.) For God to change water into wine or multiply a bunch of fish is no problem; for him to convince a habitual sinner to have a change of heart is a lot more difficult. Why should God bother, for example, to heal someone of a disease, if that person decided to continue to be evil anyway?
    Remember the hurricane episode of “The Simpsons?”

In other words, people are looking for the miracle qua miracle, but nothing beyond that. Which again, makes it pointless.
And don’t get me started on the street vendors who try to take advantage of it. I took a trip to Knock, Ireland a few years ago (where the BVM purportedly appeared back in the 1870s). I enjoyed seeing the shrine, but there were a depressing number of stores just outside it selling all kinds of cheap religious trinkets with the idea of milking the pilgrims. Again, this is not the kind of effect you want to achieve from a miracle: we don’t want to turn a holy site into Graceland.

8

Ah, Knock. Tis a great place altogether. I’m going there to sell Rock Candy with teh BMV image going through the center.

I’ve been many times the victim of a Knock Pilgrimage. I still have the mental scars.

9

Is it always the Virgin Mary that makes such appearances, or do the rest of the gang turn up on occaision?

Does she only speak to Catholics?

I’ve heard about Allah turning up in a dreams and such, but presumably he only talks to Muslims.

Maybe they don’t like mixed-faith audiences?

Maybe it’s like in Peter Pan where you really really had to believe in fairies?

Maybe Mary has too much time on her hands since the kids left home?

:wink:

10

I saw a documentary that suggested, thst the Marain appartitions reported were nothing very spectacular-they resembled a “magic lantern” image on the church wall. In fact, they were only seen at near-dusk/early evening. The “revelations” were also pretty banal-nothing spectacular at all.
Could the whole Knock thing be a bit overstated? I can understand the Virgin wanting to warn people (of the consequences of evildoing), but the messages seem vague and very general.
Fatima (on the other hand) seems to have had some fairley precise warnings-I am told that one of the messages predicted the outbreak of WWII. This is interesting, because the prohecy stated that therre would be a great light in the night sky, before the outbreak of war. Just such a display (a spectacular aurora) appeared in the night skies over Europe in late 1938, Supposedly, the night sky was so bright that you could read a newspaper in Vienna, at 1:00 AM. Just after this, germany invaded Poland!

11

I guess the phrase “just after this” refers to some unspecified but elastic time span. If this aurora appeared in "late 1938, say 31 Dec., then “just after” in this case is 1 Sept 1939, 8 mo. later, which is when Germany invaded Poland.

12

If you take a slice of cheese (preferably yellow american) and start tearing pieces from it, invariably, you’ll see the outlines of states and/or whole countries in each piece.

Which, in a semi-convoluted way, explains why cows are sacred in India. Or why Jesus shows up in tortillas.

Take your pick.

13

No and no. Various Catholic saints had direct visions of Christ, for example…Teresa of Avila and Sr. Faustina of Poland come to mind. Mary’s appearance at Knock also included Christ (in the form of a lamb) and St. John, I believe.

There was an apparent Marian apparition at Zeitun (sp?), Egypt back in the 1960s. Seems that her ghostly image appeared atop some important Egyptian building, and they actually obtained television footage of her. The neat thing was that thousands of Muslims and Catholics came out en masse to see her.

14

I don’t know much about Fatima, but I’m not sure how useful a prediction the “bright light” one is. A more useful prediction might be something like this:

-If you’re Jewish, and someone named Adolf rises to power in Germany, get the hell out! Go to England or the US, but at all costs avoid Poland.
-Look in the sky on July 23, 2003. You’ll see that the stars spell out the words, “OKAY, DO YOU BELIEVE NOW?” If you say “yes” in your native tongue, a loaf of bread will appear in your hands.
-For the next six months, everyone’s hair will turn white and will glow in the dark. At the end of six months, everyone’s hair will turn back to its normal color. The only exception will be that anyone who tries to find a natural cause for this transformation will discover that their hair changes color every day, until they give up the effort to find a natural cause for it.

These predictions, you’ll notice, are testable, and they clearly predict something before it happens. Predictions which only make sense in retrospect – “Aha, THAT’S what they were talking about!” – aren’t real useful as evidence.

Res, you seem to think that Fatima didn’t accomplish much. If it didn’t accomplish much, then why did God do it? Surely he knew it wouldn’t accomplish much. If it did accomplish a lot, then why isn’t He doing it again and again? Why not do bizarre astronomical effects that violate known laws of physics (e.g., moving stars around, shaking finger at Jupiter)?

As I see it, believers think that God keeps engaging in piddly little miracles that are mostly or entirely explainable by the wondrous powers of human suggestibility; when these piddly miracles don’t do much to convince nonbelievers in His greatness, he gets in a snit and refuses to do big miracles that could leave no doubt.

Daniel

15

Oh, gee whiz, I didn’t say that. Fatima has had a lasting effect on the Catholic faith, as I know it’s one of the most beloved apparitions of all time. (Helps that it only happened within the last century, and as I recall, Lucia is still alive.)

As to why God doesn’t do it again and again…like I said, I can’t speak for God. As I stated before, though, God isn’t a magician; his miracles don’t exist for the mere purpose of showing off his power or to amuse us.

Plus, if he DID do it regularly, wouldn’t we just get used to it? One could argue that the birth of a new human being is a miraculous event (which, in the sense of a miracle being God’s direct intervention in the world, it is. Although mom and dad produce the physical form of a human being in their child, it’s God who goes about creating souls). Wouldn’t we simply get “used to it” after awhile? How would one appreciate a miracle when it happens on a daily basis, as in the birth of thousands of children worldwide every day? Wouldn’t modern science simply try to reduce miracles to a predictable event?

16

Catholics see Mary

Protestants see Jesus

rednecks see Elvis

(now do you know why mixed marriages are bad?)