Family Man

Pay attention, Radoth. I'm not talking about popular belief. If I was, I'd have to conclude that the Resurrection really happened because, at least where I live, that is the popular belief. I'm talking about scholarly standards. I can recommend some good remedial reading courses if you're having trouble understanding the basic concepts in this thread.

NOGO

Layman, Radorth,

All you have to do is find a man with faith the size of a mustard seed and have him move mount Everest to the US and I will believe.

Given the state of affairs one must conclude that there is not a single Christian with faith the size of a mustard seed.

Radorth

Apparently your speed reading skills have much to be desired. Again, what miracle and evidence would convince a hundred scholars or historians?

Do you understand the question now?

And how would you ever convince them one rose from the dead? A video or what? If a video would do it, the Gospel writers were at a considerable disadvantage, no?

Radorth

[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

leonarde

If I might weigh in on this "miracle" business:

1)it seems to me that historians as historians NEVER claim that a miracle occurred
or did not occur: they merely record whatever eyewitness testimony/physical evidence there is
for a particular miraculous cure/apparition.

2)the personal judgements that historians make
as to whether such things happen are just that: personal judgements. To my mind they should
try to keep such things separate from their sifting through historical evidence of a PARTICULAR event.

3)normally doctors, even Christian doctors in
religiously-affiliated hospitals, treat their patients as if natural physiological processes are
the only ones operative. That is the only prudent
thing to do. That does NOT mean that they should
discourage their clients from praying, receiving
a laying-on of hands etc. in addition to
standard medical treatment.

4)the verification process at Lourdes and similar
places for allegedly miraculous cures is very
demanding, lasting many years is most cases and
involves in-depth investigation of patient files.
This alone makes it unlikely that the RC Church
would verify a "Buddhist miracle" or a "Muslim miracle". But THEOLOGICALLY the RC Church doesn't
claim that in the realm of the miraculous it has
a monopoly on God's power.

Cheers!

Vorkosigan

the verification process at Lourdes and similar places for allegedly miraculous cures is very demanding, lasting many years is most cases and involves in-depth investigation of patient files. This alone makes it unlikely that the RC Church would verify a "Buddhist miracle" or a "Muslim miracle".

The process is hardly in-depth, and if you look at the MS cases from earlier in the century, contains gaping medical flaws. In addition, Leo, there's no way to say that any miracle that happens anywhere is due to any particular supernatural being, as opposed to any other.

Consider Lourdes. let's assume that the cures happened as described. On one hand, we have those who claim that the Canaanite Sky God Ya is responsible. On the other, we have those who claim that Buddhist chanting in the monastery in Taiwan cures these people. What principles and processes compel us to choose one and not the other? How would you control to eliminate Buddhist chanting?

Radorth

We aren't arguing they happened necessarily. We are arguing you have no basis to be sure they did not happen, except FAITH.

Fancy that.

How would I know if God might not heal a misinformed Buddhist and what has that got to do with it?

Radorth

leonarde

There's no doubt that all such events have a cultural/interpersonal/psychological dimension but
to get to the particulars of the Lourdes shrine:

1)virtually all the pilgrims (seriously ill or not)take a bath in water and/or drink from water
from a spring only discovered in 1858 in connection with the apparitions.

2)the religious ceremonies held in the grotto area
(outside and in the large cathedrals) are exclusively R. Catholic.

3)Bernadette the visionary was the one who discovered the spring and HER testimony was that when she asked the Lady of the Grotto her identity
the Lady said "I am the immaculate conception".

4)only in humor-me-for-the-sake-of-argument type of discussions could we possibly shoe-horn in Canaanite gods into any of the (allegedly) miraculous goings on at Lourdes.

5)the R Catholic dimension to it is "merely" cultural, circumstantial but in such instances that's all we have to go on.

Cheers!

Vorkosigan

1)virtually all the pilgrims (seriously ill or not)take a bath in water and/or drink from water
from a spring only discovered in 1858 in connection with the apparitions.

This, alas, is incorrect. Several of the "Lourdes" healings allegedly occurred through mere prayer to Lourdes.
<a href="http://www.lourdes-france.org/ftp/gbsb0035.pdf" target="_blank">Here's a list</a>

Note the multiple sclerosis cures in the 1950s and 60s. There was no way the technology then could show MS was "cured."

If you start searching some of the names, you'll soon find:

"Gabrielle Clauzel
15 August 1943
age 49; Oran, Algeria
Rheumatic spondylosis; bed-ridden with problems involving kidsneys, liver and digestive system. Weighed 70 pounds by August 1943. It was the middle of World War II, and a pilgrimage was impossible. On the Feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1943, a Mass was said for her at Lourdes, and she was taken to her local church for Mass. She showed signs of great agitation during Communion, but then laid quietly on her stretcher until the church had cleared. She then got up, walked to the altar, and gave thanks; she had waited until the other parishioners had left in order not to cause a scene. She was found to be completely healed, and the cure was recognized by the diocese of Oran, Algérie on 18 March 1948."

In other words, Lourdes can be connected to it in any way, it's a Lourdes cure. There's no tight protocol.

2)the religious ceremonies held in the grotto area(outside and in the large cathedrals) are exclusively R. Catholic.

This is irrelevant. Do you know of a rule governing the supernatural that says if ceremonies are given to god A, god B cannot intervene? I don't. The Buddhists pray 24-7 for everyone in the world. Naturally some spontaneous miracles would occur at Lourdes -- it is, after all, a huge cluster of sick people. Indeed, they might be more likely to be noticed there.

3)Bernadette the visionary was the one who discovered the spring and HER testimony was that when she asked the Lady of the Grotto her identity
the Lady said "I am the immaculate conception".

This too is incorrect. Bernie, who died in lingering pain of tuberculosis -- how god loves his servants! -- originally called the being "aquero" or "that one." Check out <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380718855/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">Encountering Mary : Visions of Mary from LA Salette to Medjugorie</a> by Sandra Zimdars-Swartz. The earliest reports were unconnected to Catholicism at all. Bernadette described the figure as a person her own age. This changed because the crowd around her gradually began to interpret the vision as the virgin. Immaculate conception came later.

The phrase "immaculate conception," a Catholic invention is not connected anywhere with Mary in any ancient writing. Any creature that called itself the immaculate conception could not possibly be Mary. Not coincidentally, the IC phrase occurred during a period in France when that phrase was immensely popular and there was a push for official recognition of it. It was several weeks before Bernie went to the local rectory, where the visions and the propaganda surrounding them were brought into Church orbit.

After that, the non-New Testament aspects of the experience were sheared away. For example, the miracle story of a skeptic being eaten up by snakes was quickly discarded from the legend.

You should read the book. It's an eye-opener.

4)only in humor-me-for-the-sake-of-argument type of discussions could we possibly shoe-horn in Canaanite gods into any of the (allegedly) miraculous goings on at Lourdes.

As far as I know you have not presented any compelling argument that rules out all other gods (and unknown or alien technologies) while simultaneously confirming your own as the author of the Lourdes events. The RCC has no such protocol.

5)the R Catholic dimension to it is "merely" cultural, circumstantial but in such instances that's all we have to go on.

So is the Buddhist. In fact, you have not yet ruled out that the visitors simply use the local religion as a talisman to focus their own rough and currently unknown psychic healing powers on themselves. Such a scenario would nicely account for how healing springs are known from all over the world in many religions.

Vorkosigan

NOGO

Nonsense!
You also have no basis to be sure that Pegasus did not exist. You also have no basis to be sure that a million other myths are not true.

leonarde

Posted by Vorkosigan: In the case of Lourdes, Bernadette, a poor and uneducated girl still receiving religious instructions was out collecting firewood in 1858 with one or more other children. She, Bernadette, stopped briefly to pray to Mary (probably the rosary--I've forgotten as I was last in Lourdes in the late 1970s). Subsequently, still following the Nave River and looking for firewood and separated from her companions, she had her first vision of the Lady of the Grotto whom she didcall "aquero" since she was not given to jumping to conclusions. On the occasion of that or a subsequent vision (Bernadette had several stretching over many weeks)the Lady had Bernadette
pray a common RC prayer (or perhaps it was the rosary again----decades have passed since I looked IN DETAIL at these things) and asked that a church be built on the spot. When Bernadette reported THIS to the local clergy they were skeptical (to put it mildly!) and asked Bernadette to ask the Lady's name. The answer (again in the local patois) translates as: "I am the Immaculate Conception".
Since Bernadette herself was WAY too ignorant to know what she was repeating (as the village priest
who listened in astonishment knew all too well) and as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception had been proclaimed only 1-3 years before (forgotten the exact year) this itself suggested to the skeptical clergymen that this was not just some individual invention. The spring was discovered at the direction of "Aquero" (in a subsequent vision). But again, to ascribe
any cures performed at Lourdes to "Canaanite gods"
is taking tendentiousness to new levels....

Cheers!

[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]

[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>