Originally posted by Griggsy

And the first miralcle to make Teresa a saint bases itself on a false diagnosis! As science progresses there should be even fewer miracles as there are fewer now than a century ago!
Again, this shows the presumption of naturalism. We go to doctors for cures,not to faith healers.
Lazarus, so what! Other things can also cause nice changes in people.

Exactly! so What? It doesn't matter a whit except for those who have had the experience and have allowed that experience to influence them. For them, I would think, it matters a great deal. I would also add that the Church doesn't insist that the faithful must believe that miracles occur at Lourdes. That is for the individual believer to determine for him or herself. The Church has always placed a greater emphasis on the miracles of the heart rather that physical miracles. Indeed, these miracles are perhaps more awe inspiring than the others.

Originally posted by Mountain Man

It's probably just a coincidence.

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

This skeptic isn't saying anything without seeing the evidence. All I have at this point is a report that that somebody claims to have been cured and that one of the world's oldest religious organizations support her claim. Aside from those two data, I don't have the foggiest notion what the actual facts of the matter are.

Originally posted by spl_cadet

Do you presume that both of the medical bureaus which investigated this are incompetent to the point of not being able to determine if the original diagnosis was correct?

I don't have to presume incompetence. What I have to do, to justify skepticism, is not presume infallibility.

Originally posted by papas

It was not at their request (i.e. the man whose ear was healed to prove that violence is wrong). God's will must be done before He will answer anybody's prayer/request, because otherwise God is doing the will of unrighteousness.

There is at least one other miracle in the NT where at least one person did npt believe or repent.

By this standard no one will ever know whether any healing, prayed for or not was a miracle or not consider the long odds of anybody seriously or terminally ill or wounded at Lourdes or anywhere else. Anecdotal claims are andecdotal claims regardless, when the odds are so slim.

No miralcle. Period.The influence is just more internal mental acts! Subjective. See Hume on miralcle thread.

Originally posted by Doug Shaver

This skeptic isn't saying anything without seeing the evidence. All I have at this point is a report that that somebody claims to have been cured and that one of the world's oldest religious organizations support her claim. Aside from those two data, I don't have the foggiest notion what the actual facts of the matter are.

It is best not get the facts, they may upset your world view

Sala kahale - peace

Originally posted by akakiwibear

It is best not get the facts, they may upset your world view

Not my world view. It has nothing to fear from facts. For one reason, it knows a thing or two about distinguishing facts from testimony alleging facts. For some worldviews, there is no difference between the two as long as the testimony supports the worldview.

Originally posted by Doug Shaver

Not my world view. It has nothing to fear from facts. For one reason, it knows a thing or two about distinguishing facts from testimony alleging facts. For some worldviews, there is no difference between the two as long as the testimony supports the worldview.

Why ignore the testimony?

The Resurrection of this thread was quite the miracle.

Originally posted by ENeGMA

The Resurrection of this thread was quite the miracle.

See and you thought that ressurections didn't happen.

And we only have hearsay o f those attributed to Yeshua. Our background tells us that such were just psychosomatic if occurred at all.
The "miracle" of changed hearts happens with other religions and ideologies. She who helps herself , helps herself without divine input but uses her belief as that placebo to motivate herself.
Yes, so, why not be a naturalist?
[/b] Oh, the Vatican also declares that it is up to the individual to think that that forgery the Shroud of Turin is real, aiding to superstition as ever .
I 'd favor laws against those charlatan faith-healers as with any other scam artists.
Thankfully, there are laws against letting parents or others endangering children with faith-healing and no medical care.
And religious people come out against such healings but not enough ..
Thankfully, many religious people object to this sort of thing! They pray and seek medical care for themselves and others.
What about that claim that the Elephant God gave that woman ability to conceive? Why not believe that Muhammad went to Heaven on that horse? Why believe in those unsubstantiated ones of the Tanakh and the Testament?
And with increased medical knowledge, there are fewer and fewer miracles! Again, when investigate properly no Vatican-approved miracle or faith-healing claims are supported.
Yes the " miracle" is that as Hume notes that there is religion!
Why not naturalism?

Originally posted by Alchemist

I did. I found this interesting article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/inter...315591,00.html

From the article:



Ok. Time to do the math. There are 6,000 to 7,000 claimed miracles. Now we know that it is 67, not 66, that have been "confirmed". Lets start with the smaller number...

That means that of 6,000 claimed 1.1% are "true". Here comes the kicker. That number of 6,000 is only of those who filed claims for healing, not the total number of visitors. That means if we were to total in how many people attempted to get healed, the number drops significantly lower.

God seems to be horribly inefficient for an omnipotent being.

He also seems to play favorites. If God wants to give us signs of his existence, why not heal all 7,000 instead of a select few favorites? Why does He send the other 98.9% of people home just as bad off as they were to start with?

Just my take on this anyway....

Here is the problem with things of this nature....

If God had a 95% rate or something along that nature, the skeptic would claim that the validation mechanism is biased in order to prove more miracles than actually occur.

IMO, it is great that they have only verified 67 out of thousands. It shows that they actually investigate and scrutinize the claims as opposed to blindly accepting claims.

Sorry, just noticed this thread was exhumed. Nothing to see here...move on.

Originally posted by Darth Ovious

See and you thought that ressurections didn't happen.

That was before I knew what it was like to recover from a hangover.

Originally posted by Spartacus

Why ignore the testimony?

Withholding judgment is not the same thing as ignoring.

To believe that X happened because, and solely because, somebody says X happened is to assume that the somebody is a reliable source with regard to events of the X kind. In this case I have no warrant for that assumption.

Originally posted by Doug Shaver

Withholding judgment is not the same thing as ignoring.

To believe that X happened because, and solely because, somebody says X happened is to assume that the somebody is a reliable source with regard to events of the X kind. In this case I have no warrant for that assumption.

Why shouldn't the testimony be accepted? What makes the sources unreliable?

Originally posted by spl_cadet

Italian woman healed in 1952 has healing confirmed as miracle

the committee that runs the shrine is not the medical committee that picks miracles. The medical committee doesn't run the shirne. sorry to be pedantic.

But that's great to hear, I can ad this to my Lourdes pages.