Originally posted by spl_cadet

67 with extensive documentation and certification by two different medical boards, which have atheists on them.

Where can anyone confirm your word?

Where can anyone confirm your word?

Through the magical entity of Google.

Originally posted by spl_cadet

Is it relevant to this case? No.

Here's my prediction: There will never be one.

Originally posted by Mountain Man

It's probably just a coincidence.

At least that's what I suppose all the skeptics will say.

No, the skeptics will say "post hoc, ergo propter hoc".

Then they will note the following:

The odds of a miraculous cure at Lourdes...are about one in a million; you are roughly as likely to recover after visiting Lourdes as you are to win the lottery, or to die in the crash of a regularly scheduled airplane flight--including the one taking you to Lourdes.

The spontaneous remission rate of all cancers, lumped together, is estimated to be something between one in ten thousand and one in a hundred thousand. If no more than 5 percent of those who come to Lourdes were there to treat their cancers, there should have been something between 50 to 500 "miraculous" cures of cancer alone. Since only three of the attested 65 cures are of cancer, the rate of spontaneous remission at Lourdes seems to be lower than if the victims had just stayed home. Of course, if you're one of the 65, it's going to be very hard to convince you that your trip to Lourdes wasn't the cause of the remission of your disease....

From Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World".

Here's my prediction: There will never be one.

Here's my statement: It's irrelevant to the case of whether or not miraculous healings occur.

Originally posted by Soundsurfr

No, the skeptics will say "post hoc, ergo propter hoc".

Then they will note the following:

The odds of a miraculous cure at Lourdes...are about one in a million; you are roughly as likely to recover after visiting Lourdes as you are to win the lottery, or to die in the crash of a regularly scheduled airplane flight--including the one taking you to Lourdes.

The spontaneous remission rate of all cancers, lumped together, is estimated to be something between one in ten thousand and one in a hundred thousand. If no more than 5 percent of those who come to Lourdes were there to treat their cancers, there should have been something between 50 to 500 "miraculous" cures of cancer alone. Since only three of the attested 65 cures are of cancer, the rate of spontaneous remission at Lourdes seems to be lower than if the victims had just stayed home. Of course, if you're one of the 65, it's going to be very hard to convince you that your trip to Lourdes wasn't the cause of the remission of your disease....

From Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World".

That's nice but you seem to have missed that this point was driven back to its grave already: statistics don't mean crap. If it is impossible for somebody to recover from a disease, and they went to a place and were healed then it's a miracle regardless of how many times that place failed to heal.

Originally posted by Darth Executor

That's nice but you seem to have missed that this point was driven back to its grave already: statistics don't mean crap. If it is impossible for somebody to recover from a disease, and they went to a place and were healed then it's a miracle regardless of how many times that place failed to heal.

Did you miss this part..

The spontaneous remission rate of all cancers, lumped together, is estimated to be something between one in ten thousand and one in a hundred thousand.

As a side note, accusations of lying need to be substantiated according to forum rules. I already know you did 0 research so say hi to the mods for me.

I may disagree with you but I woudn't accuse you of lying. I've never had any reason to believe that your opinions are anything other than wrong headed.

That line was the imaginary skeptic's response to the imaginary person with the pig video, not my response to you. I think, were you to be presented with the same claim about a pig with super powers, you might answer the same way.. though I wouldn't presume to put words in your mouth.

I apologize if you took offense.

Pig worshipper: The scientists who examined the tape are all experts in the relevant fields and agree that this is an authentic video.
Skeptic: (unmentionable)

Actually, the skeptic would say "Let's see their credentials, but more importantly let's see their evidence." There have been some amazing claims that have been verified this way. However, merely taking the say-so of a group supposed experts is not enough. Their objectivity, methods, and evidence must be reviewed before their claims can be accepted.

In this case, we have the say so of a true believer that she was actually sick, and that she actually had the disease attributed to her. There are a host of more plausible explanations (mistaken diagnosis, delusion, as well as the possibility that her claim could be fraudulent for whatever reason).

Originally posted by Rationalist

Did you miss this part..

The spontaneous remission rate of all cancers, lumped together, is estimated to be something between one in ten thousand and one in a hundred thousand.

No I did not. However, the author does not deal with this specific case. "The spontaneos remission rate of all cancers lumped together" is a great way to make a broad, worthless claim that includes cancers that may not have a remission rate at all. Not that it matters because the OP isn't even talking about cancer.

I may disagree with you but I woudn't accuse you of lying.

You already accused me of lying and the moderator agreed.

That line was the imaginary skeptic's response to the imaginary person with the pig video, not my response to you. I think, were you to be presented with the same claim about a pig with super powers, you might answer the same way.. though I wouldn't presume to put words in your mouth.

I know enough about computer graphics to figure out if a tape is fake so if somebody has a flying pig video it's enough for me to determine if it's true or not. My response would not be the same. It would be "can I borrow the tape for analysis" and if that is impossible then "did specialists analyze it?" Skepticism is useful sometimes, but if you let it lead you into the absurd *cough*Hume*cough* it's no better than being completely gullible.

I apologize if you took offense.

I didn't. I simply don't like unsupported statements. Speaking of which:

Actually, the skeptic would say "Let's see their credentials, but more importantly let's see their evidence." There have been some amazing claims that have been verified this way. However, merely taking the say-so of a group supposed experts is not enough. Their objectivity, methods, and evidence must be reviewed before their claims can be accepted.

In this case, we have the say so of a true believer that she was actually sick, and that she actually had the disease attributed to her. There are a host of more plausible explanations (mistaken diagnosis, delusion, as well as the possibility that her claim could be fraudulent for whatever reason).

"There are a host of more plausible explanations" is unsupported bunk, and I'm not even counting the fact that "more plausible explanations" is a matter of personal opinion and in your case a miracle would never be a "plausible explanation". Feel free to give specifics on how their analysis erred. Show how her claim is fraudulent. Show how the diagnosis was mistaken, and I especially can't wait to know how mass delusion affected both teams of doctors and made them think the woman had a disease that she did not.

Originally posted by Darth Executor

That's nice but you seem to have missed that this point was driven back to its grave already: statistics don't mean crap.

Especially if they don't support your position.

If it is impossible for somebody to recover from a disease,

Well now, there's a heckuva premise. How exactly has this been established?

and they went to a place and were healed then it's a miracle regardless of how many times that place failed to heal.

Watch out for that post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc. It's a doozy.

Originally posted by Soundsurfr

Especially if they don't support your position.

That is correct, but tells us nothing on why my statement is incorrect.

Well now, there's a heckuva premise. How exactly has this been established?

Ask the specialists the Vatican is paying good money to figure out which cases are genuine miracles. There's a good reason why only 67 out of the 7000 claims are declared official miracles. Of course, feel free to say the specialist are a part of a conspiracy theory and entertain me by not having one shred of evidence for it.

Watch out for that post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc. It's a doozy.

What a well supported argument. My hat goes off to you good man.

My wife and I passed through Lourdes a couple of weeks ago. We were curious, and we were looking for a place to stay after a tour of the Spanish and French Basque areas.

It took about twenty minutes before my wife cried, "Get us out of here!" Trying to drive down a street, ushers were needed to halt the hordes crossing the road to let a couple of cars through every now and then. The hordes were headed for what I can only descibe as a religious Las Vegas. Streets of stores with vaguely religious names, bright lights, rows upon rows of plastic crucifixes, Christs and Virgins. We crawled the car through the throng of the hopeful infirm mixing with the professional beggars. Finally getting clear of the nightmare, we vowed that if this was a taste of heaven, we'd rather hang out with the other guys that wouldn't make it there.

I think Christ would have had a fit.

Originally posted by Darth Executor

Ask the specialists the Vatican is paying good money to figure out which cases are genuine miracles.

Well, I was asking you, but I should have known better.

There's a good reason why only 67 out of the 7000 claims are declared official miracles.

Yes, there is. I'm sure we're thinking of two different reasons, tho.

Of course, feel free to say the specialist are a part of a conspiracy theory and entertain me by not having one shred of evidence for it.

And you can feel free to put words in my mouth.

What a well supported argument. My hat goes off to you good man.

And thank you for that. If you'd like a rudimentary explanation of the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc fallacy as it applies to the "miracles" of Lourdes, here goes:

Someone with an incurable illness goes to Lourdes. Some time later the illness is found to be in remission. Possible explanations from the standpoint of any logical examination:

a.) Spontaneous remission
b.) Something in the drinking water
c.) Something in the food
d.) Something to do with exposure to radiation on airplane flights
e.) Something to do with the effect of positive mental attitude
g.) Alien pranksters
f.) The Virgin Mary
g-z'.) A million other possibilities.

Possible explanations from the standpoint of the Vatican:

a.) The Virgin Mary

Originally posted by furay

Uh, he just said St Mary is not being worshipped there. No orthodox Catholic is going to disagree with you: St Mary is not to be worshipped. Veneration is not worship.

A horse by any other name is still a horse. I was very much raised in a Roman Church family. Praying to 'Mary, the Mother of God' as an intermediary to God is indeed worship.

Originally posted by Darth Executor

No I did not. However, the author does not deal with this specific case. "The spontaneos remission rate of all cancers lumped together" is a great way to make a broad, worthless claim that includes cancers that may not have a remission rate at all. Not that it matters because the OP isn't even talking about cancer.

There are many cases of almost all diseases going into spontaneous remission. Even supposedly incurable diseases. The main cause is usually misdiagnosis.

You already accused me of lying and the moderator agreed.

I did no such thing.

The statement was a quotation, part of a conversation between two imaginary individuals, one of which was claiming that he had a video of a flying pig.

I know enough about computer graphics to figure out if a tape is fake so if somebody has a flying pig video it's enough for me to determine if it's true or not. My response would not be the same. It would be "can I borrow the tape for analysis" and if that is impossible then "did specialists analyze it?" Skepticism is useful sometimes, but if you let it lead you into the absurd *cough*Hume*cough* it's no better than being completely gullible.

No it's not. If you think that you could detect a fake given knowledge of the current state of the art of computer graphics, I would say your knowledge isn't very deep. In any case, you would be suspiciously lacking the full range of evidence that you would expect if such a claim were true, such as the pig, available to fly on demand at any time at the convenience of any photographer and video camera. This would be very strong indication of some sort of shennanigans.

IF a pig could fly, you would expect to have a pig.. that could fly... without having to deal with claims that the pig was sick, or couldn't fly in the presence of people who didn't believe, or who suddenly died before he could be tested, etc. History has shown that charlatans and frauds are very clever. Atheists, scientists, and experts of all sorts have been fooled by convincing frauds. In all cases, they failed to demand repeatability, carefully control of the experimental conditions to eliminate the possibility of fraud, multiple tests of the subject, etc. They accepted a single video, a staged demonstration, a photo, a test without proper controls, etc. In most cases, like the above "miracle" the flaw was simple, and they simply fooled themselves. Accepting that the information and testimony about this womans original illness is accurate is not adequate to establish that she was really sick in the first place, especially in light of the regularity of intentional or accidental misdiagnosis.

"There are a host of more plausible explanations" is unsupported bunk, and I'm not even counting the fact that "more plausible explanations" is a matter of personal opinion and in your case a miracle would never be a "plausible explanation". Feel free to give specifics on how their analysis erred. Show how her claim is fraudulent. Show how the diagnosis was mistaken, and I especially can't wait to know how mass delusion affected both teams of doctors and made them think the woman had a disease that she did not.

A miracle is certainly a plausible explanation if it is regularly established that people who pray recover from well established illnesses under careful controls. Why is that such a difficult point to get across.

This is absoutely not the case here, though. We have a 50 year old story about a woman who might have really been sick, then got better.

All I have to do is show that diagnoses like these are regularly mistaken.. and that this is a common pattern, and then point to the fact that proper controls were not established in this case to eliminate this very likely possibility.. and therefore as a claim of a "miracle" it is not believable.

Possible explanations from the standpoint of the Vatican:

a.) The Virgin Mary

I think I should point out that the Vatican believes that the Miracles are the work of God, not Mary. However, the individual beliefs of Catholics may vary on that.

Heres a thought:

Let us just assume for a moment that these 67 miracles are indeed real. How do we know who did them? What test or committee can distinguish between the miracles caused by God, various demons, other non-Christian gods, Aliens with a sadistic sense of humor, magic fairies, or my personal favorite the Invisible Pink Unicorn?

Originally posted by Alchemist

I think I should point out that the Vatican believes that the Miracles are the work of God, not Mary. However, the individual beliefs of Catholics may vary on that.

Heres a thought:

Let us just assume for a moment that these 67 miracles are indeed real. How do we know who did them? What test or committee can distinguish between the miracles caused by God, various demons, other non-Christian gods, Aliens with a sadistic sense of humor, magic fairies, or my personal favorite the Invisible Pink Unicorn?

I'm going with the IPU. The evidence is overwhelming.