skepticalbip

Whether an occurrence is "unusual, exceptional, or extraordinary" or easily explainable depends on the knowledge of the observer. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to determine what someone else experienced from the confused descriptions of someone who can only interpret what they observed as a "miracle". Early primitives described someone taking their picture as "trapping their soul in a little box" - try to make sense of that if you didn't already know they were talking about someone taking their picture.

Philosoft

So we can't conclude that these people are seeing things...
But we can conclude that they are wrong about which magically moving yellow disk they're seeing?

MeinGeist

WRT the Fatima sun miracle:

Quote Wikipedia:
The most widely-cited descriptions of the events reported at Fatima are taken from the writings of John De Marchi, an Italian Catholic priest and researcher. De Marchi spent seven years in Fátima, from 1943 to 1950, conducting original research and interviewing the principals at undisturbed length.[15] In The Immaculate Heart, published in 1952, De Marchi reports that, "[t]heir ranks (those present on 13 October) included believers and non-believers, pious old ladies and scoffing young men. Hundreds, from these mixed categories, have given formal testimony. Reports do vary; impressions are in minor details confused, but none to our knowledge has directly denied the visible prodigy of the sun."

-There are not 1000s but only hundreds of reports.
-They were written down decades after the fact.
-They were recorded by a "True Believer".

These things always give me the feel of a mental shell game. You think the pea is under some shell but it has long since disappeared up the con man's sleeve.
The question is not how could the sun have zigzagged but how do we know it did.

Not only is memory a serious issue here, the reports are filtered. If you've ever dealt with a creationist quote-mine then you know worthless that is.

Still something happened at Fatima. What has been left out so far is that according to catholics there was not 1 but 2 (two!) miracles at Fatima.
These 3 prophet-children had announced a miracle for exactly that time and place. And exactly at that time and place they had another vision, ie a miracle. Which, of course, has to be taken on faith. They made a prophecy and they fulfilled it.
IOW, even without the sun miracle the prophecy of a miracle would have been found true by believers.
Curiously the kids never saw the sun miracle.
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Let's look at some other descriptions of that sun miracle:
The following excerpts are taken from here:
http://www.ewtn.com/fatima/apparitions/October.htm
These are supposed to be contemporary press reports but as they are supplied (and presumably translated!) caution is advised. Wikipedia cites from the same reports but cites them to that priest's book.

People then began to ask each other what they had seen. The great majority admitted to having seen the trembling and the dancing of the sun; others affirmed that they saw the face of the Blessed Virgin; others, again, swore that the sun whirled on itself like a giant Catherine wheel and that it lowered itself to the earth as if to burn it in its rays. Some said they saw it change colors successively....
Doesn't sound like essentially the same report.

"At one o'clock in the afternoon, midday by the sun, the rain stopped. The sky, pearly grey in colour, illuminated the vast arid landscape with a strange light. The sun had a transparent gauzy veil so that the eyes could easily be fixed upon it. The grey mother-of-pearl tone turned into a sheet of silver which broke up as the clouds were torn apart and the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy grey light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds. A cry went up from every mouth and people fell on their knees on the muddy ground....

The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands. The blue faded slowly, and then the light seemed to pass through yellow glass. Yellow stains fell against white handkerchiefs, against the dark skirts of the women. They were repeated on the trees, on the stones and on the serra. People wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they.
There was rain, cloudy sky. Then the sun came out. I have witnessed the same many, many times. It can be a marvelous sight when seen from the right location.

It must have been nearly two o'clock by the legal time, and about midday by the sun. The sun, a few moments before, had broken through the thick layer of clouds which hid it, and shone clearly and intensely. I veered to the magnet which seemed to be drawing all eyes, and saw it as a disc with a clean-cut rim, luminous and shining, but which did not hurt the eyes. I do not agree with the comparison which I have heard made in Fatima---that of a dull silver disc. It was a clearer, richer, brighter colour, having something of the luster of a pearl. It did not in the least resemble the moon on a clear night because one saw it and felt it to be a living body. It was not spheric like the moon, nor did it have the same colour, tone, or shading. It looked like a glazed wheel made of mother-of-pearl. It could not be confused, either, with the sun seen through fog (for there was no fog at the time), because it was not opaque, diffused or veiled. In Fatima it gave light and heat and appeared clear-cut with a well-defined rim.
The theme seems to be that a)"everyone" saw something that was very much like the sun, perhaps covered by thin clouds. And b)that "everyone" is certain that is definetly was not anything ordinary although there is no consensus on what exactly was so strange about it.
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The story that presents itself to me is this:
-A crowd had gathered expecting a miracle. They were ready to believe and in a highly suggestible state.
-There is rain in the morning. At around the expected time at noon (within an hour?) the sky clears somewhat.
-Some people start shouting.
-People start staring into the sun.
-Some people see strange colors. (I also see colors after having looked into a too bright light source.)
-Some people see the sun moving. (MaybeAutokinesis? Maybe the result of afterimages.)
-Afterwards people exchange their experiences, laying the ground for false memories.

Bottom line:
I see nothing unusual about the "miracle" of Fatima.
Those things about which the reports seem to agree (colors, sun movement) are normal results of staring into the sun. The only thing I find in any way surprising is how little of "impossible events" comes through in those reports despite the usual pitfalls of eyewitness reports (suggestibility, false memory, and fraud).

Trout

Sounds quite manufactured to me.

Meatros

I'm not arguing that it's a painting necessarily - only that it's a fraud. There is no possible way that the image was a result of the shroud being laid ontop of a person.

I'm sorry, but if it were, it wouldn't look like it does!

Diogenes the Cynic

It's also anatomically incorrect. The image can't be from a real person.

variant 13

How so? What's missing or in the wrong place? (I've never heard this particular point before).

Frikki

have you done any recent research on the shroud?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_turin



Do you accept carbon dating and radiometric dating in general Dr Laser blast?

mdejess

Which is absolutely not what is being said or accepted by proponents or the church.

Don't bother with these people because they are partisan parties [pun not intended].

You are just being objective and scientific, stick to the event and the circumstances, and get witnesses who are not in any manner conected with those church people proponents of miracles.


And don't get consternated by these church people, because if you allow yourself to get flabbergastedly upset, there goes your scientific heart and mind and skills.



Mdejess

Philosoft

The figure depicted has, as I recall, unusually long forearms and fingers. Also mentioned earlier in-thread is the "Mercator projection" problem whereby the image does not demonstrate the lateral distortion that would be expected from transferring 3-dimensional texture onto a 2-dimensional surface.